Teaching with Technology

Adventures IN Cyberspace

        Webquests have become increasingly popular with classroom teachers.  A webquest, as Bernie Dodge defines it is ?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 level of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation?.  You can think of a wequest as a way of scaffolding knowledge on the internet.  By using organized webquests teacher can ensure that students are using authentic information and drawing meaningful conclusions.  Not only can the level of scaffolding differ from the student perspective, but from the teaching perspective as well.  Some teachers new to webquests may be comfortable choosing from the many webquests available on the Web that were designed by experts.  There are links to some of these at the end of this blog entry.  Some teachers may be veteran users of the Web and wish to design their own webquests.

        In Focus: Five Rules for Writing a Great WebQuest, Bernie Dodge outlines the necessary steps in designing an effective webquest.  The first step is (F)ind great sites.  Since one of the benefits of webquests is that it streamlines the research process for your students by directed them in the direction of authentic and usable sites, it becomes an imperative first step for you to find those sites for them.  As you find the sites a bookmark manager can help you save and organize the sites you find useful.  The next step is (O)rchestrate learners and resources.  This means organize not only computer use and online resources, but offline activities as well.  Students are often organized into social structures akin to other cooperative learning activities.  The third step is (C)hallenge your learners to think.  Don?t make your assignments too easy, bump it up to the higher level of Bloom?s, your students will rise to the occasion.  The next step is (U)se the medium.  Your webquest should not be flat and a simple retelling of facts.  The Web represents a conversational, collaborative, and multimedia network extravaganza, have fun!  The final step is (S)caffold high expectations.  Don?t fail to ask your students to do great things, just make sure you provide the necessary tools for them to experience success.  

        In my own classroom, I think webquests are a great way to cover social studies and science objectives.  Often these topics can be enriched by visual and auditory support on the web.  By structuring the information using the guidelines of FOCUS, I can ensure that my students learning experiences are enriched in a meaningful way.  While the content may be social studies or science, many math and literacy skills can be integrated through the tasks that are assigned as part of the webquests.  In a lot of ways, webquests socially mirror the inquiry projects and similations I have used in my class before, I just think using the internet takes the content level to a whole new dimension, and adds the motivation increase that comes with most techonological based activities.

Sites of interest?

Bernie Dodge?s site: www.webquest.sdsu.edu

Webquest Portal: www.webquest.org

Best Webquests: www.bestwebquests.com