Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Webquests

A WebQuest is "an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web." WebQuests are an underutilized treasure that can be tailored to fit most any study. WebQuests are a great way to scaffold student use of the Internet.
The "home" of WebQuests is the San Diego State page. From this page you can search existing WebQuests, get guidelines and resources for creating your own WebQuest, more information about WebQuests, a WebQuest ning, recommendations for further reading and news about WebQuests.

A WebQuest About WebQuests
Familiarize yourself with the components of a WebQuest by completing a WebQuest About WebQuests : Topic, Introduction, Task, Process, Conclusion.

Don't reinvent the wheel!
Find a WebQuest that's almost what you want? Contact the original creators and ask for permission to alter what they've done. Chances are they will be happy to share. I did this earlier this year and not only did I receive permission but they sent me an entire unit to use with our teachers. Here is the link to the re-worked WebQuest on Children of the Holocaust using Surviving Hitler http://holocaustchildren.googlepages.com/ . I created the WebQuest with Google Pages (now Google Sites). You can create a subsite using your GCS teacher website and that will work just as well.

Examples of WebQuests
Best WebQuests.com - http://bestwebquests.com/
All About WebQuests - http://www.suelebeau.com/webquests.htm#misc%20samples

Tools to Create Your Own WebQuest
teAchnology - http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/web_quest/
Filamentality - http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/index.html
TeacherWeb ($$$) - http://www.teacherweb.com/IdxStatesQ.htm

More About WebQuests
Concept to Classroom - http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index.html
WebQuest 101- http://www.teachersfirst.com/summer/webquest/quest-b.shtml
All About WebQuests - http://www.suelebeau.com/webquests.htm#info
Creating a WebQuest: It's Easier Than You Think! - http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech011.shtml
Tom March - http://tommarch.com/learning/