I would also like to comment on the usefulness and practicality of using Hotlists in the classroom. In my classroom, I know that there will be some sort of research project assigned to my students at some point. I also know that it is important that I take the time to provide my students with a lesson on using search engines and search strings so that they can find information that will be useful to use in their writing. However, sometimes I feel that you can spend at least two hours allowing students to find the information they need. Many students have trouble understanding if the information they are finding will actually be useful to them in their writing – and as I’ve learned – after all their searching efforts they may not even be finding information on the right topic! Students can be given Hotlists to help them complete research, learn about a new mathematical concept, explore different cultures/places, etc. I think that this list could go on forever.
Hotlists are for those times when you want students to learn exactly what you need them to learn! All students can be provided with the websites that will be helpful and encourage learning to take place. As the teacher, you will provide students with the websites that have information you want them to know; at the same time, students can explore all of the websites and still feel they are in control of their learning. I think that it decreases searching time and increases learning time, which is very beneficial for education.
I had created a hotlist before, but as I now know after one year it gets deleted – so I guess that hotlist is gone. It is a good idea to print of your hotlist so that, if for some reason you have left it sit for one year, you can just quickly re-enter the information. Although, hotlists are a quick and easy way to direct learning, I think that students still need to be able to be encouraged to search for information themselves. They need to develop reading for information skills and feel comfortable with navigating different websites.
You can visit my hotlist at: http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/listmathke1.html. This hotlist provides students with information about angles, triangle angles, and quadrilateral angles. I have also included some fun interactive games, or virtual manipulatives, that students can try once they have learned about angles, triangles, and quadrilaterals. It would take longer than one class for students to go through all of these websites, but it could also just be used to introduce the topics and get students interested and motivated to learn about them.
One thing to keep in mind about using Filamentality is that when you add URL’s there is no way to put them in order after you have added them. For my Hotlist I wanted to make sure the information was first on the list and the games were second. There was no way to do this using the categories of angles, triangles, and quadrilaterals. I had to make a separate category for activities. So just remember to add the URL’s as you want the order of them to appear on your Hotlist page.
~Linsey~
