WebQuest | KnowledgeGarden (Student Page)

INTRODUCTION

You have stumbled upon a special constructivist pedagogical community - a veritable garden - that enables you to learn and master many important communication skills, such as posting and editing of wikis, blogging, messaging, and more.

Can you enter the knowledgeGarden and engage in this community?

TASK

Your task will be to engage in the processes encouraged within knowledgeGarden: open communication, sharing of ideas, and providing assistance to other learners. You will understand the usefulness of wikis and demonstrate competence in the creation and editing of such pages.

The demonstration of a constructivist philosophy, and a high degree of social presence will ensure that your contributions will become part of the rich tapestry of the community for future visitors and learners.

PROCESS

Although you will be able to explore and 'garden' at a later stage, you must first follow the set path so that you can enter the gateway into knowledgeGarden. It is possible to do so in a group, although this is not necessary. By following the path alone - initially - you will establish a personal 'social presence', and will soon be able to interact with many other participants.

Ask for a key to the KnowledgeGarden gateway.
Now you have a key, enter the knowledgeGarden, and announce your arrival.
You have the attention of the other knowledgeGarden participants: now you must tell them a little bit about yourself.
You have been welcomed to the knowledgeGarden, and need to contribute to the growth of the garden. There is some weeding, and some cultivation to be done.
You are a true knowledgeGardener, and can explore some of the extra features of the garden.

01. knowledgeGarden is not open to just anyone: to enter you must ask for a key, or registration number. There is an explanation of this process within the 'Step into knowledgeGarden' site, and also the instruction page within knowledgeGarden.

The instructions will take you through a step by step process for registering, including who to ask for help if something goes wrong.

As the key to knowledgeGarden is only given to genuinely interested participants, you will need to prove this by using the restricted passcode: USQFET8611

02. Your entry will go relatively unnoticed without an announcement that you have arrived, and the ability for other participants to 'see' you and 'talk' to you may be wasted. As you now have the key to sign-in and enter knowledgeGarden, the adjustment of some settings will begin your involvement in the community, and mark the fist stage of your social presence.

There are instructions for this process within the 'Step into knowledgeGarden' site, at the Account Setup page. More instructions are at the Account Setup page within knowledgeGarden itself.

Congratulations! At this stage you have made it to a point where many others have failed. You not only have ready access to knowledgeGarden, but you have also planted the constructivist seeds for your patch in a developing learning community. Now.......... the exploration and cultivation begins!

03. The soil of knowledgeGarden - a wiki format - is very tolerant of new gardeners: it is very difficult to plant anything that you can not remove later, or have another gardener remove for you. In fact, there are a number of live assistants within knowledgeGarden to help you along the way: knowledgeGarden Guides and also the secretive, yet helpful, knowledgeGarden Gnomes. Also, the other gardeners will be happy to share their plots with you, and will be understanding if you accidentally tread on some of their work.

The first part of the garden to play in is your own area: your user page. Now that you are a community member, experiment with the options available to create a page. There are many options to different types in links,insertion options for images and documents, and many more.

Create the first draft of your user page. You can keep modifying this at a later stage, or can even start it all over again!

04. A community such as knowledgeGarden benefits from the active participation of all gardeners. The garden is not perfect. There are some weeds to be pulled out - such as spelling mistakes and grammatical errors - and some new flowers and plants to be planted.

Explore the community using the search box and table of contents options. You may also move quickly around the garden by selecting from any of the links on the individual pages and menus.

Look for some weeds! Find a spelling mistake, or grammatical error and correct it. Alternatively, find something that you can improve: perhaps by making a contribution such as a comment, image, or new link.

Scared that you will damage the page of another gardener? Navigate your way to one of the test pages and experiment there.

05. Well done! By this stage, you are a true gardener. A green-thumb!

The community can be a bit of a jungle; there are many options available to enhance the collaborative experience of this shared community. Continue to explore the other options with knowledgeGarden. Experiment with each of the following:

Shout Box
Messaging
Comments
Blogs
At least ONE ADDITIONAL FEATURE

Remember that the constructivist nature of knowledgeGarden is enhanced by assistance from other participants, and by offering your assistance where needed. If you require assistance at any stage, use the shoutbox, message and of the guides, or use one of the many question forums.

EVALUATION

Your performance will be assessed individually based upon the results shown within knowledgeGarden.

	Beginning 01	Developing 02	Accomplished 03	Exemplary 04
Registering to access knowledge Garden	This part of the quest has not been completed to a standard that allows learner access to knowledge Garden.	..	..	Learner is able to access knowledge Garden.
Changing account details	Learner has not changed account details.	Learner has changed basic details such as the provision of real name only.	Account details have been changed to a standard that will provide benefits to the learner, although the user page is not established.	Account details have been changed. Email settings altered. An avatar is utilised. Details are reflected in 'community' page complete with flag and location. User page is set up.
Creating first draft of user page	Page remains predominantly empty of content.	Some content has been added to page, but there has been minimal utilisation of any wiki design elements.	Page is relatively complete and contains a number of design elements such as different fonts, and the insertion of images. The page has not generated any comments or back links.	Learner has created a dynamic 'growing space'. Features include titles, table of contents, adjustment of fonts, insertion of images, live-links. A dynamic page should have generated at least one comment or mailed contact.
Modifying pages / Correcting pages	There is no evidence that the learner has modified or corrected any pages	The learner has modified a test page only.	The learner has modified less than three knowledge Garden pages.	Learner has actively sought areas to be improved, and has modified a three or more pages for either spelling, grammatical or design errors.
Accessing additional features of knowledge Garden	No additional features have been demonstrated.	Less than five additional features have been demonstrated.	The learner has demonstrated competency of a minimum of five additional features of knowledge Garden, although all features have not been utilised more than once.	The learner has demonstrated competency of a minimum of five additional features of knowledge Garden, with each feature utilised more than once.
Creating later drafts of user page	Less than 2 additional modification of the user page are recorded.	Between 2 to 5 user page modifications have been recorded.	Between 5 10 user page modifications have been recorded. Later modifications include design element improvements.	More than 10 user page modifications have been recorded. There are design element modifications along with links and additional features demonstrated in the latest drafts.

CONCLUSION

By the stage of completion of this quest to become a knowledgeGarden user, you have contributed to the growth of a dynamic communication exchange and information repository. Well done!

Perhaps you have enjoyed the process so much that you would like to become a knowledgeGarden Guides or perhaps would like to invite additional participants. The knowledgeGarden forum is just one of many thousands such gardens growing throughout the internet. Perhaps you would like to start your own?..........

CREDITS & REFERENCES

We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this WebQuest. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL.

We acknowledge the work of the designer of knowledgeGarden, Dr. Peter Evans into designing this collaborative workspace.