Background

The Mission to Mars Webliographer was developed after viewing students at work in the classroom trying to use the Internet and World Wide Web for research purposes. We quickly realized that students were spending a great deal of needless time searching the Internet for useful sites. After discussing this problem with teachers and students, Jay Pffaffman and Tony Petrosino of the Learning Technology Center realized that what the Mission to Mars classes needed was a tool to help facilitate research on the Internet. The result is the Mission to Mars Webliographer, a tool for students and teachers alike. By using the Mission to Mars Webliographer, you share in the same Internet resource as other teachers at any one of many Mission to Mars sites. At a recent Mission to Mars workshop, one teacher announced "this is the single most useful tool I've seen for using the Internet." While we don't expect such praise from everyone who uses this tool, we do believe you will find the Mission to Mars Webliographer to be a welcomed addition to your classroom.

General Features

To facilitate the process of researching on the Internet, the Mission to Mars Webliographer has four features which allow for the optimal use of the Internet in a project-based classroom learning environment.

• Shared database
  The Webliographer offers an opportunity for a community to create a shared database of useful sites that were found by any member of the research community (student, teacher, outside experts).



• Site reviews
  Each entry into the Webliographer contains a short description of the web site, its address, plus an opportunity to place a review of the site for future users. In this manner, the Mission to Mars Webliographer creates a lasting record of student research and opportunities to build upon previous members investigations.



• Focused research
  Since the site is limited and context bound, students focus on their research for a greater amount of time and with fewer disruptions. In a workshop given at the center, a number of teachers expressed excitement over the software's development and have incorporated it in other project-based units unrelated to the Mission to Mars unit.



• Secure, appropriate, shared information between schools
  Perhaps the most important aspect of the Mission to Mars Webliographer is that it allows for multiple sites to share the same information. This has been especially useful with the Mission to Mars unit since we are now in 5 local area schools. Actually, the Mission to Mars Webliographer may be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection. However, to actually publish a URL or give a review of a site, a person must have a password. In this way, we provide a level of security for the database and assure that all information contained on the Mission to Mars Webliographer is appropriate for middle school children

Main Page Features and Use

New Webliographer users should start on the Novice Participant Info page . Current development efforts are at making Webliographer more useful to new users. Comments are welcome.

This page is designed to make your most-needed links just a click or two away. Here are some of the features:

• Click on a topic for more information
  If the one-word descriptions of the URLs are not enough, clicking the topic will display all the items in that topic with more complete descriptions of each. If your browser supports Javascript, you can see the description at the botton of your browser window when moving the mouse pointer over the at the topic.



• Search of the local URL database also convenient
  If you think someone using this database has already found what you're looking for, this is a good place to start. Just type in a word and click "Go". If you'd like to limit your search to a particular topic, you may do so by clicking and holding the selector-button to the right of the Keyword box.



• Frequently-used links sorted by topic
  Going down the page, you see a list of topics and links within that topic. By pointing to a topic (and not clicking), you can see a one-line description of that topic at the bottom of your Netscape window. The items on each line are sorted by the number of hits they have received (using this page).



• Other options available at top and bottom of the page
  At the top and bottom of every page are a list of links to other pages in this database. If you have not registered to join the group, you'll first need to choose to register for an account to apply for your personal username and password. After you've done that, you'll have additional options to add urls, edit personal info (for your address and other information on the registration form), or see who the other users of the database are. Often used search engines available at the top of the page Most people spend a lot of time using search engines, so this page has several of them handy at all times.

Novice Participant Info

Webliographer is designed to replace your web browser's Bookmark function and has several advantages over your browser's bookmark function:

• Links you enter are accessible from any machine on the Net
• Better searching and indexing than most browsers' bookmarking functions
• Your cool and useful links are automatically shared with others

You can access the links here right away, but to be able to add your own links you must register for an account. Your account will be activated immediately and you will receive a password vie e-mail shortly. Immediately below this message are links to popular search engines.

Enter a word to search for and/or Select a topic to search for in this URL database. More complete descriptions of the topics are given below. If your browser is Javascript enabled you will also see the topic's description while the mouse pointer is on the topic. You may also follow the topic links below to see all the items in the topic.

Once you're familiar with the topics, you may prefer to start with the Short listing, which replaces the descriptions below with short descriptions of the most popular items in each topic.