It’s the first day of the “Animals” unit for Tami Brester’s third-grade class and the first day her students are using Glossopedia, a free online multimedia science encyclopedia. But you wouldn’t know that from observing the kids, who are excitedly researching animals on the internet.
This is inquiry-based learning of a special kind, incorporating the best of the internet to support
science learning and technology instruction. For this third-grade class, that means learning about living things and how they exist and depend on each other, from food webs to human impact on ecosystems—while also mastering skills to do online research and create multimedia presentations.