What is a WebQuest? WebQuests are deliberately designed to make the best use of a learner's time.

There is questionable educational benefit in having learners surfing the net without a clear task in mind, and most schools must ration student connect time severely. To achieve that efficiency and clarity of purpose, WebQuests should contain at least the following parts:

An introduction that sets the stage and provides some background information. A task that is doable and interesting. A set of information sources needed to complete the task. Information sources

might include web documents, experts available via e-mail or realtime conferencing, searchable databases on the net, and books and other documents physically available in the learner's setting. Because pointers to resources are included, the learner is not left to wander through webspace completely adrift.

A description of the process the learners should go through in accomplishing the task. The 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 diagrams as described by Marzano (1988, 1992) and Clarke (1990).

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

The New DealStudents: Alison Briestansky; Ryan McPherrin; Lauren Setchell; Emily Swann; Dan Wheadon

The Oregon TrailHayley Levitan, Kristin Read, Thomas Rodriguez, Jason Schneider, Meghan Wyllie

Hiroshima and NagasakiMolly Borchardt, Paul Fina, Michael Galati, Robert Wallon, Jason Ziols

Restoring New OrleansAllison Clark, Kari Bodine, Sarah Wilkinson, Ashley Hildebrandt, Zach PfledererMoon MissionEric Dohm, Elizabeth Forristall, David Ashton, David Pikler, Courtney Kimutis, Jenn Sams

Volcanic EruptionsMatt Ragusa, Fatima Chishti, Nate Weatherup, Jennifer Taitt, Andrew Dzija

Some examples:

WebQuests are most likely to be group activities, although one could imagine solo quests that might be applicable in distance education or library settings.

WebQuests might be enhanced by wrapping motivational elements around the basic structure by giving the learners a role to play (e.g., scientist, detective, reporter), simulated personae to interact with via e-mail, and a scenario to work within (e.g., you've been asked by the Secretary General of the UN to brief him on what's happening in sub-Saharan Africa this week.)

WebQuests can be designed within a single discipline or they can be interdisciplinary.

In addition..

Remember…

In groups of no more than 3 students will develop a WebQuest (a format for using the Internet as a source of information in text-based research projects) for a unit of study within a secondary classroom. (30 percent of final grade).

The WebQuest assignment that your group is to design is one that will provide secondary students with a task and some resources for learning about a topic of your choice. The WebQuest should consist of, at minimum, an introduction to the topic, an interesting and engaging (and hopefully creative, inventive) task, a set of resources (i.e., websites) for learning about the topic and completing the task, a process for completing that task, some guidance in the form of charts, timeline, etc., and a conclusion with some suggestions for dissemination and extension of the task beyond this WebQuest.

 

To produce your WQ, you’ll need to do a search of websites on your topic, get a sense yourselves of the dimensions of the issues, come up with an interesting task for the WQ, describe the process students will go through, provide them with some directions, and think about where this project could go beyond this level of research.

 

Use Weebly.com or another web page service to compose your WebQuest. Again, interdisciplinary groups who compose an interdisciplinary WebQuest will receive two points extra credit. Delivery: Compose your WebQuest as a web page. Send the web page address on a Word doc to the Drop Box for the course.

What is the assignment?