Modelling the WWW (Internet) A game for players. Aims: To model the way the Internet and a search engine (Google) work to provide a researcher with information. To teach the children how to select and use key words for a search. To make the point that not all the Web pages Goggle finds have useful information. Players: Researcher (green) – one player (seated on a chair facing the rest of the class). Google (red) – one player. The rest of the class (blue) represents the WWW and in pairs act as Web servers in different countries. Game cards: Labels e.g Web Server USA, Web Server Japan etc – one country for each pair of children. 2 or 3 research questions that the researcher will put to ‘Google’. Web pages (possible answers) – 4 or 5 linked to each research question by key words.

Google carries on round the world and then returns all the Web pages to the Researcher. The Researcher then examines the Web pages that Google has given him/her, discarding any that are not relevant (this is the equivalent of clicking on the Back button) and keeping the one that answers the question. This should be done visibly at the front of the room so that the whole class can participate in the decision making process - hold each page up and read out the text to the class – do we press Back (discard the page)? Or do we have our answer? Distribute the Web pages back to the Web servers, pick a new Google and Researcher and repeat the game for another question. Sample game cards: These should be printed in advance and laminated for reuse – key words Google and Researcher’s labels. Server labels.

Example research questions: Who wrote the books about Pooh bear? Key words(as a general rule try to limit to just 3): Pooh+Winnie+author Where in the world do Polar Bears live? Key words: Polar Bears+polar+habitat When is our queen’s birthday? Key words queen+Elizabeth+birthday Of course the game can be adapted and played with any research question – these are just three possible examples.

How the game is played: Project the picture below onto your IWB as a visual stimulus. Ask the children what they think it is attempting to illustrate. Seat the Web Servers, in pairs, in a circle facing the IWB and the researcher. The Web pages are stored on the Web servers (randomly hand out the Web page cards so that they are well distributed round the Web servers). A player is given the role of Researcher and is seated on a chair facing the World Wide Web. The researcher will pass the key words for the first research question to Google. A player is given the role of Google. Google’s job is to take the key words from the Researcher and visit all the Web servers, in turn (so walking round the world), collecting only the Web pages that contain one or more of the key words as they go. At each pair of children (Web server) Google hands all the key words to the children and they search through the Web pages that they have to find all the pages that have one or more of the key words on. They give these pages to Google and retain the rest for the next research question. The Researcher and Google should wear a label so that the children know what they represent in the game.

Research Q1 Who wrote the Winnie the Pooh books?

Pooh Winnie author Key words for Researcher to give to Google:

Research Q2 Where do Polar bears live?

polar bears habitat Key words for Researcher to give to Google:

Research Q3 When is the Queen’s birthday?

queen Elizabeth birthday Key words for Researcher to give to Google:

Labels to hang round the necks of Google and the Researcher (for printing and laminating):

Key words for Google to take to each ff the Web servers (for printing and laminating):

polar bears habitat

queen Elizabeth birthday

Pooh Winnie author

Web pages (for printing and laminating):