Module #4: To Boldly Go Where..., Well, You Get the Picture

WebQuests

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Escaping the dusky textbook

So far, we've looked at online educational resources and the nature of "educational social software." Blogs and wikis are by far the most common ESSs used by teachers today. Another genre predates the ubiquitous Web 2.0, the WebQuest. It dates way back to the 1990s, a time when Kathy Schrock owned the educational Internet. What is a WebQuest? Here's a definition:

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity, where some or all of the material a student interacts with comes from the resources on the Internet. WebQuests eliminate the need for a student to search, sometimes endlessly for information on a topic, since prescreened links are provided in the WebQuest. Another benefit to using WebQuests is that they are easily created and support any curriculum topic. They are motivating and highly interactive, allowing students to use real life resources that are up to date.

WNET has an excellent online workshop about WebQuests. You might even be able to get professional credits for viewing it. Bernie Dodge's WebQuest About WebQuests is another good example, showing how to design roles for each of the students.

Educators need to view the WebQuest in two ways: how to design and evaluate it, the other is what each step of a WebQuest will look like to a student. Let's look at the final product first.

Instead of writing traditional text with links to click on, WebQuests are decidedly nonlinear, and take a constructivist approach to learning. Usually, the quest is divided in the following sections:

• Introduction
• Task
• Process
• Evaluation/Rubric
  
• Conclusion
• Teacher Page

Students typically complete WebQuests in cooperative groups. Each student in each group has a specific research role. Let's look at one of mine, and see how they work.

Creating online inquiry

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Framing student exploration

So we're back at the main issue of this colloquium: how to create educational writings that aren't like dusty books, that are more than static lists of information. Creating a storyline line for students to move back and forth through, allows students to learn at their own pace, a hallmark of differentiated instruction. Students searching out what they are specifically interested in, while keeping the focus and objectives of the online research intact is the goal of any successful WebQuest.

Building a WebQuest is easier than you may think. It's important to gather all the materials you want to include in the online lesson before you organize it into the above steps. Here are some additional resources to help you craft your WebQuest:

• Bernie Dodge's WebQuest Resources
  
• A Road Map for Designing WebQuests
• Writing WebQuests for the Classroom
• WebQuest Resources
• Filiamentality
• Zunal
• Today's cutting edge is the Virtual Quest, sited at Second Life's Education Island

Evaluation

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Homework #3

Let's recap what we've done, or should have done, by now:

• Each group searched ERIC for relevant education articles (and APA citations) that relate to their lesson plan.
• Each group uploaded their content area, relevant standards, Aim, ERIC summaries/citations to their wiki page.
  
• Each group found 3-6 Internet lesson plans/Websites similar to their own lesson plan, and uploaded their results and summaries to their wiki page.
  
• Each group completed the Blog WebQuest and uploaded their answers to their wiki page.
• Each student posted a comment to this blog, identifying 3 kinds of ESS software listed in the "7 Things You Should Know About..." resource, and describing how you might implement them in your classroom.
• Each group has created a lesson plan, using the Lesson Plan Template.
• Each group has created several Regents based assessment questions to use during the Summary part of the lesson.
  

And now for today's homework.

Deliverable #1: Each group will use the materials they have gathered so far to develop a WebQuest. To do so, please follow the below steps:

1. Search for Web-based content that applies to your lesson plan (please use more than Google).


2. Organize the Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation, Conclusion, and Teacher Page from your Internet materials, using one of the following templates if it helps.
• basic
• framed
• xhtml


3. Use an online resource to generate your WebQuest. The best free one is filamentality, another one is Quests 2 Teach. If you prefer to save your WebQuest to disk, you can use aclearn.net, seneca, or teach-nology.
   


4. As an alternative to #3, I am using Quest Garden to design my WebQuests. If your group would like to use my password to access the website, let me know, and we'll work something out.

That's It!