Using the Construction of a Science Education Web Site as a Focus of a Directed Study Course in Undergraduate Elementary Science Education

Abstract

This article describes the construction of an elementary science education Web site in a collaborative effort involving two university faculty members and two undergraduate elementary education program preservice teachers. The preservice teachers worked on the development of the site as part of a Directed Study Course after their semester long participation in a science methods class. This "Web Site Group" worked with several classes of elementary science methods students and in-service teachers to provide on-going feedback on the development of the Web site. With the current emphasis on connecting classrooms to the World Wide Web (WWW) and training teachers how to use this technology, collaborating with preservice teachers to develop a Web site provides faculty with more time and expertise to complete such a project. For the preservice teachers, these types of collaborations can be important in developing skills valuable to their own teaching, and in building leadership capabilities in science and technology. A tour of the site is provided with hypertext links.