WebQuestsHave you ever heard of?

1. WHAT IS A WEBQUEST?

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented online tool for learning. This means it is a classroom-based lesson in which most or all of the information that students explore and evaluate comes from the World Wide Web.

Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index.html

2. WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF A WEBQUEST?

Introduction sets the stage and provides some background information.

Tasks are feasible and interesting. Instructions and materials which students have to complete are provided.

Process should be broken out into clearly described steps. Some guidance on how to organize the information acquired. This can take the form of guiding questions, or directions to complete organizational frameworks such as timelines, concept maps, or cause-and-effect.

Resources include videos, audios, online learning programs…

Evaluation of a WebQuest has to be able to evaluate students’ work

Conclusion brings closure to the quest, reminds the learners about what they've learned, and perhaps encourages them to extend the experience into other domains

Adapted from: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html

3. What do short-term and long-term WebQuest focus?

Short Term WebQuests

The instructional goal of a short term WebQuest is knowledge acquisition and integration. At the end of a short term WebQuest, a learner will have grappled with a significant amount of new information and made sense of it. A short-term WebQuest is designed to be completed in one to three class periods.

Longer Term WebQuest

The instructional goal of a longer term WebQuest is extending and refining knowledge. After completing a longer term WebQuest, a learner would have analyzed a body of knowledge deeply, transformed it in someuh way, and demonstrated an understanding of the material by creating something that others can respond to, on-line or off-line. A longer term WebQuest will typically take between one week and a month in a classroom setting.

Adapted from: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html

4. BENEFITS OF WEBQUESTS:

Students have ready exposure to a variety of activities which enable them to practise and apply technology into their own study. Webquests offer them encouraging motivations through differents tasks and activitties which are based on role playing and learning situations (http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html). Students are likely to engage themselves in their work and take the avtive role towarnds the learning pathways

Students have a good chance to work together. Webquests, therefore, motivate students’s cooperative attidude in problem solving tasks as it is commented that “tomorrow's workers will need to be able to work in teams”

Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub1.html

Webquests develop students’ logial judgement and perspectives on real life problems. It is insisted that “They will need to commit themselves to a lifelong process of learning, honoring multiple perspectives and evaluating information before acting on it”
(http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub1.html)

5. HOW TO CREATE WEBQUEST?

1. The first stage for a teacher in learning to be a WebQuest designer is to become familiar with the resources available on-line in their own content area.

2. The next step is to organize one's knowledge of what's out there. Spending a few hours on Non-WebQuest 3 will guide the teacher in organizing the resources in their discipline into categories like searchable database, reference material, project ideas, etc.

3. Following that, teachers should identify topics that fit in with their curriculum and for which there are appropriate materials on-line.

4. A template is available that guides the teacher through the process of creating a short-term, single discipline WebQuest.