All About Webquests: What Are They and How Can I Make Them?

7/29/2019 All About Webquests: What Are They and How Can I Make Them?

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All

AboutWebquests

What Are Tey and How Can I Make Tem?

By Brian Rock



All About Webquests:What Are Tey and How Can I Make Tem?

By Brian Rock

About the AuthorBrian Rock is a high school history teach-er and a graduate student at Rutgers Uni- versity. He is constantly looking or new ways to incorporate technology into histeaching, and his research at Rutgers o-cuses on how technology can supportlearning and teaching in schools. He’sbeen teaching since 2007. He currently holds an Ed.M. and expects to graduatewith an Ed.D. in 2014.

He publishes two websites related to ed-ucational technology:

ech and eaching is a general edtechblog. Tere, he shares edtech resources,writes tips or teachers learning to usetechnology, and surveys research intoedtech [ http://tech-and-teaching.com].

Rockin’ Webquests is a smaller site, thepurpose o which is to highlight goodwebquests on the Internet and to helpteachers make their own, beautiul sites[ http://listowebquests.com ].

Table of Contents

ӹ Introduction 3

ӹ What Is a Webquest? 5

ӹ What Makes a Good Webquest? 8

ӹ Can I Make My Own Webquest? 12

ӹ How to Build a Webquest in Wordpress 15

ӹ Other Places o Make Free Webquests 36

ӹ Get Inspiration rom Other Webquests 39

Hey! Tis is only a preview o the eBook. Want access to the wholebook?

Go to Rockin’ Webquests [ http://listowebquests.com ] and sub-scribe to the weekly newsletter.

http://tech-and-teaching.com/


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All About Webquests | Introduction 3

In 2007, the Internet was di-

vided pretty cleanly into twogroups - content producersand content consumers.

Introduction

I’m a teacher, and I’m a technophile. I’ve always loved nding ways to incorporate technol-ogy into my classroom, and webquests were one o the rst methods that I learned to do so.

I nished my college education and started teaching in 2007. Doesn’t sound like so longago, but in “Internet years” that’s a lietime! Let me take you back in time to September o that year.

Youtube was a youngling, and it had belonged to Google or less than a year. Facebook wasstill just or college students, and high school kids were all over Myspace. witter didn’t

exist and neither did umblr. Digg and Stumbleupon were the bookmarking sites du jour,and most o the web 2.0 applications you know and love today weren’t even a twinkle intheir developers’ eye.

Oh, and a ew months beore I started work, there was no such thing as an iPhone.

oday the Internet is a riendly, inclusive place. You can use any number o ree servicesto produce, curate, and share content. Not so in 2007. Ten, the population o the Internetwas divided pretty cleanly into two groups - content producers and content consumers.Most people, including most teachers, were content consumers.

I can’t really remember where or when I learned about webquests. It might have been ingrad school. It might have been in my new teacher orientation. I’m not sure. But when Istarted teaching in September 2007, I loved the idea.

Tere was only one problem. For most teachers, building a website to be a webquest wasn’t



All About Webquests | Introduction 4

oday, we’re all content pro-ducers. And content con-

sumers. Te lines have beenblurred.

so easy. Without all the ree services around today, your options were pretty limited.

In December, I had a great idea. Why don’t I build a website that allows teachers to createwebquests or ree? Tat’s a great idea!

At least, I thought it was. I put together my rst attempt at a large scale website, Babel (itdoesn’t exist anymore, but you might be able to nd some links or press releases about it

i you search hard enough). It was a ton o work, and I realized that I simply didn’t have totime to host a service like that.

Tat’s why start up companies get millions o dollars. I didn’t have millions o dollars. So Ishut down.

Fast orward to today. Or least January 1, 2013, when I’m writing the introduction to thisbook. Tere is no longer a meaningul division between content producers and contentconsumers. We all have Facebook, Google Plus, witter, umblr accounts. Te technical

and cost barriers to creating content are gone; all that’s le is teaching people what tools touse to get the job done.

Mind you, there are a ew services out there that let you make webquests. But they eitherlimit your creativity or charge you money. And the product you get in the end is, to say theleast, ugly. I don’t want to call out any companies by name, but i you’ve tried a “webquest”service, you must know what I mean.

I created Rockin’ Webquests and wrote this eBook to solve that problem. Tere is absolute-ly no reason that a teacher can’t create a beautiul and ree webquest to use in class. echni-cally, it’s a simple process. You just need to be pointed in the right direction, and even themost technophobic person can gure it out!

So, keep reading. By the end o this eBook, hopeully you’ll have all the skills you need tocreate an amazing webquest, and you’ll be one step closer to integrating technology in yourclassroom on a regular basis.



All About Webquests | What Is a Webquest? 5

While “webquests” have tak-en on a larger meaning, theterm and the ramework were coined by Bernie Dodgein the mid-1990’s.

What Is a Webquest?Beore we get into the nitty gritty details o how to create a webquest, we should probably spend a little time talking about what a webquest is. I you’re already well versed on thetopic, eel ree to jump ahead to the next chapter.

I like to think o a webquest as a ramework or instructional planning. It’s not really ateaching method, it’s a planning method. Te structure can vary a little, but at it’s core awebquest is three things:

ӹ An inquiry oriented task

ӹ A curated set o online resources

ӹ A webpage to guide students through completing their task

I you can put these three things together into a simple website, then you’ll have a goodwebquest.

I you want to get a little more specic, though, the ramework was developed by BernieDodge, a proessor o Educational echnology at San Diego State University. He wrote

about webquests in a paper in 1995, and his ideas have more or less become canon in termso what a webquest is.

My interpretation o a webquest is that it has six components.

First, a webquest starts with an introduction. Tis is the hook, the anticipatory set, the




A webquest is dened by it’s task. While nishing awebquest, students need tocomplete some inquiry, proj-ect, or problem based task.

lead. Your introduction is supposed to reel kids in and make them want to complete yourwebquest. It should intrigue people and make them curious.

A good introduction might be a thought provoking question. It might be an evocative im-age with a short description. It could be an audio or video clip that you want kids to listento. Whatever it is, it should be short and attention grabbing.

Second, a webquest is dened by its task. While nishing the webquest, students need tocomplete some inquiry oriented task. Tis could be a general inquiry, or it could be a spe-cic problem that needs solved or a project that needs created.

Tis drives everything the students do. For example, they might have to conduct an imagi-nary interview with a historical person. Tey could rewrite part o a novel aer changing akey event. Or they need to model the population growth o a city and then determine whatkind o policies the city needs to implement or its citizens. Whatever it is, the task shouldbe compelling enough that students want to tackle it.

Tird, a webquest must provide students with a clear process. It outlines in a very concreteway what students should be doing. Te process is kind o like a recipe, telling kids what todo and when to do it.

It denes group roles, i there are groups involved. It instructs students in completinggraphic organizers and taking notes during their research. It guides students in applyingtheir research to solve their problem or create their project. It’s a roadmap to success.

Fourth, a webquest needs a list o resources. You could just give the students a task and tellthem to go roam the Internet in search o wisdom. But you might be disappointed with theresults.

While you can learn just about anything online, it’s a difcult task to si through the bil-lions o webpages to nd what is useul. eachers are highly educated consumers o inor-mation, and we can tell what is and isn’t useul. Part o planning a webquest is narrowing




Evaluation mechanisms andcriteria are important. Grad-ing should not be capricious.Tis is good teaching, andgood webquest design.

down exactly what resources students should have available to them.

Fih, a webquest includes an explanation o how students will be evaluated. Tis typically takes the orm o a rubric. Once students have completed their task, they should be ableto assess their own learning and determine whether they deserve an A, a B, or a C. And i they haven’t met the requirements o the project and need to revise it, they should know that too.

Sixth, a webquest closes with a conclusion. Tat’s just a little bit obvious, isn’t it?

Here, you should wrap up and help students think about what they’ve learned. Te conclu-sion can also provide students with opportunities to urther their learning, improve theirprojects, or do something else meaningul with what they’ve done. Tis is the capstone thatensures a webquest is truly authentic.

In a webquest, these six things are combined in a web page. Tat webpage should be simple

and straightorward with an intuitive set o navigation links. When a kid loads the rontpage o a webquest, he or she should know exactly what to do.

In terms o design, this typically means there are two areas - a content area and a naviga-tion area. Te content area contains the content or that specic segment o the webquest,like the task. Te navigation area is either a single bar on the side or a single bar on the topwith a set o links to each page o the webquest. Simple and minimalist.

But please, oh please, don’t make let it be ugly. Minimalist can be pretty, too.

Hey! Tis is only a preview o the eBook. Want access to the whole book?

Go to Rockin’ Webquests [ http://listowebquests.com ] and subscribe tothe weekly newsletter.



All About Webquests: What Are They and How Can I Make Them?

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