Response (Anita, Eleanor and Mandy)

Question 1.

Inquiry-based learning:
Students participates in many types of inquiry activities, and through the process of discovering their goals, they go through repeated stages of questioning, reflecting, and research.

Problem-based learning:
“It is often viewed as a component of these inquiry activities. …Problem-solving is generally understood to include skills such as making accurate observations, finding and organizing information, predicting, synthesizing, and using other higher order thinking skills to find solutions.” (Subtract from Call Essentials)
In short, two of them are difficult to define precisely, but in this author’s point of view, he thinks basically problem-based learning is just a component of inquiry activities because they share the same skills which are necessary for language learners, but inquiry-based learning involves more complicated stages of inquiries. Through the process of inquiry activities, they apply their problem-solving skills to find the result of their goals.

Project-based learning:
“Project-based learning might productively be considered as one useful subcategory of problem-based learning in terms of not only designing a specific focus and context for student projects but in terms of getting students themselves to also (a) identify project constrains and feasibility; and (b) to plan and apply a design approach.”
(Subtract from The Design of Effective ICT-Supported Learning Activities: Exemplary Models, Changing Requirements, and New Possibilities)
So in conclusion,
Inquiry-based learning> Problem-based learning> Project-based learning:

Question 2.

“A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing.” We all agree WebQuest is a good way for learning; however, our group prefers a multimedia project for our final project. Because our target learners are young children, it will be more attractive if we use multimedia. Although WebQuest can give a lot material, it will be kind of boring for young kids to read words without any pictures or sounds. We decide to use some pictures, animation and sounds to make our project more fun!

Question 3.

Our Goal:

Building a multimedia website that would help primary school English beginners (age 9-11) to acquire the ability as such to pass GEPT entry-level test.

Our Method:

Since we have decided our target learners as primary school children, it would be necessary for the content and the representation of our site to be captivating and of interest for young children. After discussion, we agreed that the topic for our multimedia website would be “Holding a Birthday Party”, which would involve 3 parts: Invitation, preparation and hosting. Thus our young learners would learn proper dialogues about an interesting event, and may apply their learned skills in their daily-lives.

Presentation of Our Website:

Since we have decided to build a multimedia website, we must facilitate all possible multimedia means to create a learning environment that should not only be visually appealing but also rich with sound and interactive activities. Pictures must be abundant on our site, recordings and music clips would be used, and simple Flash component and games would also be featured in our project.