This week I learned an important lesson: that not all webquests are created equal. I first used a teachnology.com webquest generator because it seemed easy to use for someone without a lot of experience. Unfortunately, when I went back to view my first webquest today, I noticed that all of the entries I had made were blank. I then proceeded to use the Quest Garden generator, which turned out to be much simpler than I had thought. I had some trouble inserting videos and adding images, so I just used hyperlinks, primarily for my first webquest. Eventually, I’d like to be able to insert more things like worksheet templates for my students to complete online. I also learned that webquests differ just using a blog or website to upload assignments. It’s a truly interactive step-by-step process. It allows the student to understand the task, explore it in processes the teacher has laid out, and finally to summarize the lesson and understand how they are scored on it. It challenges us as educators to keep up with our technological standards. Specifically, it goes along with the NETS teacher standard #2: Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. Webquests allow teachers to easily create interactive lessons and assessments.
Here is the link to my Quest Garden webquest:
The goal of this webquest was to create something that I would probably be able to use in teaching K-2 curriculum. Since I don’t yet have a class (and therefore a curriculum), I wanted to create something generally applicable. I used the theme of ‘a day on the farm,’ to inspire curiosity in the inner-workings of various farms around the world. Since a lot of the kids at schools in my area grow up close to farms, I thought it would be interesting to have them explore farming from a scientific & social studies perspective. I also used tumblebookslibrary.com to incorporate some stories to help keep the subject matter cross-curricular. I decided to make the assignment involve creating an illustration about a student-imagined farm, based loosely on what the child has discovered in the webquest. Then, the student writes a 1-paragraph description of what they have depicted in their illustration. The evaluation section is generally based on a scale where students get the most points for using several examples, using good language, drawing broad or global conclusions and being creative and expressive. Less points are given for few examples, poor connections, poor grammar, and non-cohesive descriptions.
In learning more about webquests, I’ve appreciated the degree of specificity that the program allows the teacher. You can be very detailed and up-front about the assignment, expectations, and guide the student through it’s completion, without having to hold his or her hand all of the way. The webquest also helps support the NETS standard for students, #1: Creativity and Innovation, in which students use ‘models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues.’ In the webquest I generated, students use prior knowledge and compare it to new and interactive media that helps broaden their view of farming, and hopefully, leads them to draw global conclusions.
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