Teacher+Tools+--+Webquests

= Webquests = A webquest is a piece of scaffolding or a framework on which you hang content and through which you direct student exploration. So it’s not really about the topic or even the task it contains, but about the idea behind it. It’s a fabulous tool for leashing and organizing the internet.

Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University (in 1995 I think) and Tom March (who’s returned to Australia) invented Webquests. You need to begin your investigation at the home page of SDSU where what they are is explained, the model is parsed and multiple examples are given. []. There’s a nice matrix that let’s you search by subject/grade once you get into the site.

Start there. It might be amusing to discover what a webquest is (if you don’t know) by doing a webquest. It that’s attractive to you, you might go directly to the //Webquest about Webquests//. [] You need to understand what they are before we can move on to evaluating them. In essence, a webquest is a research project in which most or all of the resources are located on the internet. That’s a pretty broad definition. Of course, we want to continue applying our critical thinking since there are an awful lot of banal, even boring cut-and-paste level webquests out there. As always, we want kids to be pushed to interact with materials on the upper levels of Bloom.

Quite honestly, on any other site you’re pretty much sure to run into some duplication of the SDSU site. It does make a good Google search however, +topic +webquest, e.g. American Revolution + webquest

Other sources: Tom March’s site [] and you can hear a podcast of his at []

Because the resources are based on the internet, you may find a number of really good, interesting webquests whose links don’t work—we know how ephemeral websites can be. Simple solution...use the Webquest and put in new active links. If you wanted proof that it really is a tool more important for its form than its content, that might be it.

And this one pulls in a lot of resources with Bernie Dodge connections among other things. []

This is a new site (at least for me) that wants folks to subscribe but has an open area. It’s interesting and hopefully you can read URLs well enough to notice it’s an Australian site. [] So what it comes down to is that a Webquest is any research project in which most or all of the resources are on the internet. (Originally, in the dark ages, this phrase was “some or all”) It has developed into a relatively structured tool with five distinct parts: Introduction/ Task/ Process/ Evaluation/ Conclusion. As I played with these links for you I also wanted to make sure it was as current as possible, so I did a search and turned up......the same links. Interesting, eh?