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Blog 6: WebQuests
Internet: WebQuests
Description
A webquest is defined 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.?
Key Findings
In the article by Bernie Dodge ?FOCUS: Five Rules for Writing a Great WebQuest? Dodge offers five suggestions to help our students develop their high-order thinking skills. He explains that WebQuests are appealing because they provide structure and guidance to students and teachers alike. He offers thee five rules to help educators create actual WebQuests and not what he describes as ?merely worksheets with URLs.?
The five rules: FOCUS
Find great sites.
Orchestrate your learners and resources.
Challenge your learners to think.
Use the medium.
Scaffold high expectations.
The first rule is to find great sited. He suggests that creators master a search engine, probe the deep Web and not just skim the surface, and not to lose the information you find. The second rule involves orchestrating the learners and resources. This deals with making sure you have enough equipment to be successful and also organizing the students if you plan on using teams.
The third rule deals with challenging the students. Simply asking them to regurgitate information they found is not enough. Dodge states that the key element of a webquest is the Task, which can engage students in creativity, design, problem solving and judgment.
The fourth rule is to use the medium. Clearly, we use the Internet for WebQuests the people, conversation, and glitz of the web become essential. Lastly, Dodge suggests that you scaffold high expectations. WebQuests asks students to do something out of the ordinary. The three types of scaffolding in a webquest are reception (provides guidance in learning), transformation (take what you learn and form something new), and production (create something).
Reflection
I enjoy the idea of WebQuests. Students are able to go beyond the mundane to experience something they usually don?t get the chance to. WebQuests when done correctly require the students to use their higher-order thinking skills. The students are required to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the components of the webquest.
I have used WebQuests in my class before. Ones that I borrowed from other educators and some I have created myself. The FOCUS rules that Dodge gives are great tools to use when developing a new or revising a webquest.
Dodge states in the beginning that the quest is more than going to websites and finding the information, which is what I thought a webquest was when I was first introduced to the word. I quickly came to realize that type of activity is a web search. There was no challenge behind it.
I agree with Dodge in that the task is the most important component of the webquest. A great task can set the tone for the quest. It simply goes beyond the paraphrasing of information seen on the sites but evaluating the information to get to the desired end result.
When we do reports in my class, I usually have to students research and write on a health issue. I could develop a Webquest in which the students in the end could create a short play about a person with the disease and how they cope. Student teams could consist of the patient, helath care provider, family, etc. Students would have resources to help them find out the information and they would be evaluated on the presentation of information.
Posted at 08:39AM Nov 17, 2006 by MCCRAY, CATRICE in General | Comments[0]