Chapter 7: Cooperative Learning

This was a good chapter to review the importance and descriptors of cooperative learning. As many things in education, cooperative learning was a very popular practice, but no longer the focus of teacher training programs so a quick review is essential. The same holds true for WebQuests, once popular, but the time to implement and the work to create them have probably lessened their uses in recent times. I have very positive experiences with WebQuests and see them as a way for students to work cooperatively and for the librarian and teacher to work collaboratively. Because of the time involved in creating WebQuests, I appreciate the links to current WebQuests and have utilized the ones from San Diego State University. One goal I always have is to collaborate with teachers to provide learning opportunities for students. This year I am offering set lessons for teachers to select from and schedule with me; I will add WebQuests to the list of possible activities.

My personal favorite web tool that I utilize often is Delicious!!!!! I know personally how it works for me, but I have a problem seeing how to utilize Delicious with elementary students. In the past librarians have created Path Finders which contained links to various sites. These are topic related and restrict students to approved sites for research. I would hope that with some work Delicious might work in the same way. I will need to give this more thought before I begin to share my Delicious Account with students.