Don’s 632 Blog

I read the article by Bernie Dodge entitled “Some Thoughts About WebQuests” which was very informative to me since I really did not know what a WebQuest is. I found that it is just an inquiry-oriented activity with some or all of the information coming from the internet. I learned that there are two main types of WebQuests. The short term one has an instructional goal of knowledge acquisition and integration and lasts only 1 to 3 class periods. The long term form has a goal of extending and refining knowledge. Learners analyze a body of knowledge, transform it in some way, and demonstrate an understanding of the knowledge by creating something that others can respond to. The term can be from 1 week to 1 month long.

A WebQuest should contain several parts. It should have an Introduction which sets the stage and gives background information. It should also list the learners’ Tasks which should be both doable and interesting. There should be some Resources given to the learners where they can find the information needed to complete the tasks. There should also be a description of the Process the learners are to go through. This should be in clearly described steps. Some Guidance on how to organize the information acquired should be given. There could be questions, directions, maps,etc. Part of this Guidance could be in the form of an Evaluation Rubric which lays out exactly what is expected of the learners and how they will be evaluated. Standards could also be included to help guide the learners. The last thing that needs to be included is the Conclusion which reminds the learners of what they have learned and that it can be extended to other domains.

Other attributes that can be added to a WebQuest include group activities and motivational elements. The WebQuest can cover a single discipline or it can be interdisciplinary.

The WebQuest can require any of the following thinking skills: comparing, classifying, inducing, deducing, analyzing errors, constructing support, abstraction, and analyzing different perspectives.

The purposes of putting the results of a Web Quest back on the internet incude: focuses the learners on tangible and high-tech tasks, gives them an audience to create for, and opens the possibility of receiving feedback.

In class we looked at seven flags that would indicate that a WebQuest really was not a WebQuest, or at least it needed to be improved.  A WebQuest is not just gathering a lot of information using the internet.  It should stimulate some higher order thinking on the part of the learners.  They are not just answering questions, but are evaluating data and formualting opinions.

We had to find a WebQuest that pertained to what we teach and evaluate it according to a rubric we were given.  I found one called “Organic Chemistry in the News”, a WebQuest for a chemistry class done by Fiona Clark.  The author has done considerable research on the use of WebQuests to enhance instruction so it could be assumed that her work was excellent.  It is dangerous to assume anything, but it this case it was an excellently done WebQuest.