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Want to incorporate Dr. Ecommerce into your lessons?
Want to incorporate Dr. Ecommerce into your lessons? That's great. But make sure you design the assignment so your students do the work - and maximise their learning experience. If your students are obviously only dreaming up questions to ask me (it is generally obvious when someone is asking a question out of genuine interest, rather than because it's a school assignment), then I do all the work and learn the most. And that does your students no good!
So, before, you send your students running to www.DrEcommerce.com, read the section below, or e-mail me your ideas and/or aims. Within reason, I am delighted to cooperate.
Suggestion
Role-Play Dr. Ecommerce
Why not let your students get a feel for being Dr. Ecommerce. They'll
learn about researching on the net, analysing information and responding
to queries.
Method:
1. Brainstorm with the students about how to find information on the web. Take 10-15 minutes and ask them to name every method of researching they can think of. Write every idea on the board (even the silly ideas). Once ideas are exhausted or time is up, go through the list and discuss the various resources. Erase those which are clearly not useful. Explain also the technique of right-clicking the mouse on a link and selecting the "Open in new window" option. This is especially useful with search engine results. Incidentally, I find these resources useful:
- www.google.com - is a favourite for general researching on the net.
- www.yahoo.com - is good for category specific information hunting. For example, if you specifically want information about business in a particular country, you can follow links to precisely this category.
- www.eRevolution.lu - is good for European legislation on e-commerce
- Don't Panic Do E-commerce - is also good for European law on e-commerce, particularly application of the law
- Commercial Departments of embassies and consulates can provide information about business climate and laws in their countries. (Telephoning is best).
2. Put the students in groups of 2-4 people per group and give each group a Dr. Ecommerce type of question (you can either prepare the questions yourself or ask each group to prepare a question - which would be given to another group to answer).
3. Have each group work together to answer questions. Require that they not only answer the question, but give a report of how they found the answer, explaining their research strategy, what worked and what didn't work. This is very important as it forces students to think about and analyse on-line research strategies. If possible, have each group make a presentation to the class as a whole
4. If the questions and answers are good, e-mail them to me and I'll consider publishing them on the Dr. Ecommerce web site - probably in a new section called "Interns Ecommerce". Alternatively, you may wish to publish them on your university/school web site - in which case I will consider making a link.
Have you got another good idea for teaching with Dr. Ecommerce? If so, e-mail it to me. You will be credited for your idea.