Walden's Paths, created by the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries, provides a mechanism for leveraging student learning with the incredible amount of educational material on the web by organizing selected web pages into a structured learning activity. Applying specialized templates to the creation of Walden's Paths can aid a path author in creating pedagogically sound, Web-based activities, by assisting in the collection of information and organization of the activity. Authoring templates may be based on established educational frameworks, learning theories or specific activity type. This research project investigates how using pedagogically based templates affects the authoring process for paths created using Walden's Paths. A template based on the educational framework Inquiry-Based Learning was created and tested by a group of users to determine what effects the template has on creating paths as compared to creating similar paths using the existing Walden's Paths interface.
Walden's Paths, created by the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries, provides a mechanism for leveraging student learning with the incredible amount of educational material on the web by organizing selected web pages into a structured learning activity. Applying specialized templates to the creation of Walden's Paths can aid a path author in creating pedagogically sound, Web-based activities, by assisting in the collection of information and organization of the activity. Authoring templates may be based on established educational frameworks, learning theories or specific activity type. This research project investigates how using pedagogically based templates affects the authoring process for paths created using Walden's Paths. A template based on the educational framework Inquiry-Based Learning was created and tested by a group of users to determine what effects the template has on creating paths as compared to creating similar paths using the existing Walden's Paths interface.
