Cindy B. Allen

Session 11: Internet Part I: Access and Usage of Online Resources, Webquests

Session 11: Internet Part I: Access and Usage of Online Resources-WebQuest

Description: 

     A webquest is a tool organized by an instructor for his/her students to research a topic on the Internet.  Teachers pick a topic, give students an activity sheet and have students research websites, answer questions, and / or give students further instruction from those sites. 

Key findings from readings:  ?Five Rules for Writing a Great Webquest?, by Bernie Dodge

     Dodge gives the definition of a webquest as:

??an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners? time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners? thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.? (p. 7)

He also recommends how instructors can write an effective webquest based on 5 principles, using the acronym ?FOCUS?. 

            F ? Find Great Sites

            O ? Orchestrate Learners and Resources

            C ? Challenge Your Learners to Think

            U ? Use the Medium

            S ? Scaffold High Expectations

When teachers create a webquest, their first task should be finding the appropriate websites, saving them to a bookmark manager on the Internet, and then have students access the sites from there.  Teachers shouldn?t blindly send their students onto the Internet without direction.  Orchestrating the learners and resources means having your students work together on a webquest, especially if there are not enough computers for each student.  Plus, students can work on developing their knowledge about the topic prior to getting on the computer too (if teachers are waiting for a computer lab appointment).  All teachers have been given the task of teaching our students how to use higher order thinking skills (as with Bloom?s Taxonomy).  The webquests can afford students this challenge based on what tasks the student are asked to perform with the information he/she finds on the Internet.  Use the medium means using it to its fullest.  The Internet and computers today can do more than create fancy PowerPoint slides or put together a well organized document, they can interact through educational games and connect students to primary sources (people and documents), even more; so have students use the medium to its fullest to find out as much possible, in different ways, about the topic they are researching.  Scaffolding high expectations include three principles: reception, transformation, and production.  Teachers should be mindful of the activities they ask students to perform with the webquest.  Have the students looked for information on the Internet before, what are they going to do with the information they find, and how will they present what they have learned?  Be sure to prepare students to get the best experience from the webquest.

Cindy?s ideas to apply in my own teaching:

     I created webquests in the past and wondered why they didn?t go well?  Now I know.  First, I needed to organize the websites I found into a bookmark manager on the Internet, so my students could go directly to the bookmark manager to access the sites in the webquest.  Normally, I had my students work independently because I have enough computers in my classroom; however they struggled a lot and probably would have worked better with a partner to help find information.  Preparing students prior to accessing the Internet would have been invaluable and helped them know what they were looking for once at the sites.  Plus, most of the websites I sent my students to were not interactive and the webquest would have been more fun if they had been.  Finally, I did not ask higher order thinking questions nor did I get them to do high order thinking tasks with the information they found; my students are capable of higher expectations.  In the future, I will incorporate what Mr. Dodge suggested and either use an Internet site with webquests already designed (incorporating FOCUS) or create my own making sure I use ?FOCUS? for the outline.

Posted at 10:09PM Jun 18, 2006 by cballen3 in General  |  Comments[0]