We observed four classes of sixth graders from a local middle school using a common World-Wide Web browser to explore networked information resources. The sixth graders and their school were participants in an enrichment program held at Texas A&M University; the half-hour Web exploration session was included as part of a full-day program that exposed the students to a variety of engineering and science topics.
The following are some brief notes from our observations. The notes describe the physical and technological settings of the sessions, ourselves as observers, the general pattern of the sessions, the interaction styles (from a technological and social standpoint), interaction difficulties we observed, and unexpected interaction successes.
The sessions took place in a campus engineering computer lab, a room with rows of tables (all facing the front of the room). Each table was set up with four or so individual PC stations. The PCs were equipped with color monitors, keyboards, and mice. Each student who participated in the session sat at his or her own PC (class size was estimated at about 25, although that seemed to be a maximum). There was an aisle down the middle that afforded access to the tables.
Two instructors (computer science graduate students at Texas A&M University) led the sessions; one of the graduate students had extensive experience as a middle school teacher. The students' regular classroom teacher was also in the lab with the students. Each session lasted for a half hour.
At the start of each session, the Netscape browsers displayed the same starting page, a page that had been explicitly designed by the instructors for use in this setting. The page included "starting out" links to different kinds of on-line places: Museums and public institutions (e.g. the Franklin Institute Science Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, and the White House), on-line collections of pictures (e.g. the entomological collection at University of Illinois), peer-related web activities (e.g. Chico Jr. High goes on-line), and entertainment-oriented sites (e.g. the Cartoon Factory Animation Art Gallery).
Instruction centered around "how-tos" -- how to navigate and how to search; in general, the instruction encouraged active exploration beyond the initial set of links. The computers in this lab imposed some restrictions on what the students could access and run (for example, they could not download games or play audio files), but provided much unfettered access to popular Internet resources.
Five members of the Texas A&M CAETI project, the three Principal Investigators and two of the graduate students, attended four sessions. They interacted with the sixth graders to some degree, helping the students when they got stuck and taking pictures of the sessions. The observers were not formally introduced to the students (and none of the students asked about the additional adults in the room, although several seemed delighted to have their picture taken with "trophy web sites").
Each session began with about five minutes of lecture-style instruction. The students then proceeded to explore on their own. Learning was quick. By the conclusion of each session, the students had engaged in some amount of navigation on their own. A few accomplished fairly extensive exploration within the half-hour period.
While the students understood basic functionality of the Web browser (clicking on links to follow them, for example), most showed signs of gaps in their conceptualization of the Web and (predictably) in the nuances of navigation. Interaction with the computer itself and the Netscape application was probably facilitated by previous exposure to similar hardware and user interfaces. Most of the students asked for help when they needed it, although a few "got stuck" on the Engineering 109 page (the home page for the class that normally met in this lab -- students accidently got there by clicking on the Home button)
Interaction styles emerged as the students explored the Web; these interaction styles involved other students and the instructors in the room as much as they did the Web browsing technology. First, it became clear that many students preferred to work together, either helping each other out, or sharing their experiences as they explored. This kind of in-classroom collaboration varied from session to session though, probably as a reflection of standard classroom practice for the individual classes. Finally, interaction with the technology varied, depending on whether students prescribed content goals for themselves ("I'm going to look for something about my favorite football team" or even "I'm going to go to the MTV site") or whether the students were content to just navigate, to see "what's out there."
Social v. solitary. Learning is in many ways a social activity. Given the vague task of exploring the Web, many students turned to each other as collaborators or an audience for their results. Some students worked as teams, mostly with the students sitting in their immediate proximity; since seating was not assigned, we can assume these might be students who are accustomed to working together in the classroom (or are friends outside of the classroom). Others chose to work alone, pursuing a particular self-imposed goal, or just seriously exploring the networked resources, as was the intent of the session. A few appeared to feel insecure using the computer (those kids who followed one or two links, and did not explore further); because the session was only a half-hour long, and one of many during the day, it is possible these students didn't feel motivated to seek help from the instructors.
Guiding one another. If we listened to the students, we heard things like, "How did you do that?" and "How did you get there?" Students helped each other navigate in a very literal sense: they would help another student retrace their own steps to get to a particular page on a Web site. Most did not use the shortcut of telling the other student the URL of the page of interest, although late in the day, it became clear that such a strategy was growing in popularity. We discuss this under Convergence.
Searching v. link-following. The students were given initial instruction on how to search. Several did, either to try what the instructor had said (in which case, they tended to use the same search term that she did in her example), or to find something in particular. One student tried to find chat rooms and games to download. Most students, however, did quite a bit of link-following, especially before word got around about particular sites of interest not listed on the original page.
We observed several kinds of interaction difficulties in this setting. These difficulties are not unexpected -- the sessions were short, the students had little time to learn the interface, and the students had no a priori assignment to direct their explorations.
Basic misconceptions about the interface. Students accomodated to the unfamiliar interface with surprising ease by applying their basic computer skills. However, we did notice that some students had difficulty reconciling the notion of navigation with the idea of scrolling. Much of their understanding of the interface was transferred from their other computer experience.
Inventing purpose in an exploratory setting. Most computer users work with new interfaces with some purpose in mind. Because the students were in an exporatory session, they invented various (sometimes illusory) goals. In some cases, this meant "finding the coolest graphics" (for example, the clickable map of Texas A&M University, a familiar place to these students) or doing something unique (finding a penpal, printing) or even violating a perceived taboo (finding the MTV Beavis and Butthead site). In general, the most motivated of the explorers had some sense of why they were using the browser, and the kind of thing they were looking for. If students were unable to invent a purpose, they explored with far less enthusiasm.
Interpreting network delays. Network delays (and occasional unpredictability in response) caused the students some confusion. Because most of them did not have much (if any) experience with networked computers, they were unable to make sense of this sort of behavior.
Getting stuck. Students occasionally "got stuck." That is, they reached an apparently nonsensical page which offered them no easy way back to the special page set up for the class. In most cases, this happened when the student pressed the Home button, which brought them to the home page for the engineering lab that normally took place in the room. A stuck student would usually remain stuck unless there was some sort of intervention.
Convergence as interfering with exploration. The classes near the end of the day were affected by the discoveries of the students in the earlier sessions. During a morning session, one student discovered MTV's Beavis and Butthead site. Soon other students were following his path there, and apparently by the end of the day, students had figured out how to pass the URL to one another to navigate there directly. Exploration was indeed constrained by the discovery of the ultimate "cool site."
There were any number of unexpected small successes -- the student who used a search engine that suggested a new search term based on spelling correction, students who found particularly outrageous sites, students who found material they thought was useful, and students who found the exploration itself a source of unanticipated delight. In general, the biggest success seemed to be that most students felt competent to explore in this way. We give accounts of several of the more notable successes.
Interactivity/new connections. One student was particularly pleased that she had located an on-line penpal service. With some guidance, she submitted her name and US Mail address, and requested a penpal in China. She was careful to explain that she needed to send and receive paper mail, since she had no permanent email address. Her enthusiasm was considerable, and she was anxious to share her experience with her classmates.
The Web as a research tool for classwork. Several students situated the exploratory activity by trying to do a homework assignment. One student was particularly pleased with the results of a search (she found a page for a scientist she was supposed to report on). She began taking notes on paper, in preparation for doing her assignment. The student seemed very pleased with the information she uncovered.
Artifacts from exploration. One student asked permission to print a page that he was particularly pleased to find. The artifact -- the printed page -- turned out to be a tremendous success, fought over and admired. Students in subsequent sessions wanted to be able to print out pages too.