Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's World
HOTS Tricks and WHIRL Treats: Resurrecting WebQuests!
HOTS Tricks and WHIRL Treats: Resurrecting WebQuests!
• Resurrecting WebQuests with QuestGarden Search Tool
• Best WebQuests: Examples of High-Quality WebQuests
• Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests: To Use or Not To Use in Your Class...
• WebQuest Sample: A Journey Through the Universe!
• HOTS Trick: Bloom’s Digitally Blog Post
Resurrecting WeQuests:
On this Halloween Eve I thought I might share a tool that has been around a long time but has undergone some changes and has come back a little stronger! WebQuests (YouTube Video: What is a WebQuest?) are online, inquiry based activities where the learner typically works collaboratively with their peers, using online resources, set in a facilitated template (including an Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation and Conclusion) to solve a problem (Dodge, 2007). There are some high-quality WebQuests available for classroom use--as long as you are picky! Pay attention to the Task and Process that students are being asked to complete within the WebQuest. If students are being asked to tap into HOTS, and are using high quality web-based resources to collaboratively solve a problem, then you may have discovered a great resource! Research done on WebQuests proves that they can be powerful tools for connecting quality content learning to technological literacy (Ikpeze, 2007). You may have heard that Bernie Dodge (the creator of WebQuests) has started charging a nominal, annual fee to create original WebQuests on his site, QuestGarden. You can still use the QuestGarden Search Tool and resulting WebQuest discoveries without signing up for an account! You need only pay if you want to create an original WebQuest or you want to take someone else’s WebQuest and modify it.
Sweet Treats:
Take a look at this http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html; Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests from Bernie Dodge and Tom March out of San Diego State University as you begin your search in QuestGarden.
Tom March is a faculty member at San Diego State with Bernie Dodge and he has created this Best WebQuests site where teachers can submit their completed WebQuest and based on some fairly high standards, Tom and his group will decide whether or not it is worthy for inclusion. There are very few Elementary WebQuests listed but those that are there, as well as some of the Middle School links may give you ideas for activities that you can tweak and use in your classroom.
The Alien’s have…crashed? A Journey Through the Universe is an example of a science and language arts WebQuest that I thought was worthy of sharing. The Task asks the students to help several Alien families who have crashed on Earth but cannot live in our atmosphere. The students must work collaboratively to research our neighboring planets, using some pretty cool interactive websites, to recommend the best planet for their alien family.
HOTS Trick:
Stacy Smith, a TRC facilitator from Winfield recently shared Bloom’s Digitally with the Phase 7 Facilitators. It is a great blog post from Andrew Churches that provides a Bloom’s refresher, as well as a great list of web-based tools, resources and activities to assist educators with the planning and implementation of technology-rich lessons.
As with any good lesson plan, a well designed WebQuest can help teachers integrate standards-based content, HOTS and web-based resources to provide engaging, authentic and powerful learning opportunities in a technology-rich classroom.
I hope you enjoyed this WHIRL trick or treat! Please post any HOTS or WebQuest resources that you think our readers can benefit from in the comments section below!
• Resurrecting WebQuests with QuestGarden Search Tool
• Best WebQuests: Examples of High-Quality WebQuests
• Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests: To Use or Not To Use in Your Class...
• WebQuest Sample: A Journey Through the Universe!
• HOTS Trick: Bloom’s Digitally Blog Post
Resurrecting WeQuests:
On this Halloween Eve I thought I might share a tool that has been around a long time but has undergone some changes and has come back a little stronger! WebQuests (YouTube Video: What is a WebQuest?) are online, inquiry based activities where the learner typically works collaboratively with their peers, using online resources, set in a facilitated template (including an Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation and Conclusion) to solve a problem (Dodge, 2007). There are some high-quality WebQuests available for classroom use--as long as you are picky! Pay attention to the Task and Process that students are being asked to complete within the WebQuest. If students are being asked to tap into HOTS, and are using high quality web-based resources to collaboratively solve a problem, then you may have discovered a great resource! Research done on WebQuests proves that they can be powerful tools for connecting quality content learning to technological literacy (Ikpeze, 2007). You may have heard that Bernie Dodge (the creator of WebQuests) has started charging a nominal, annual fee to create original WebQuests on his site, QuestGarden. You can still use the QuestGarden Search Tool and resulting WebQuest discoveries without signing up for an account! You need only pay if you want to create an original WebQuest or you want to take someone else’s WebQuest and modify it.
Sweet Treats:
Take a look at this http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html; Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests from Bernie Dodge and Tom March out of San Diego State University as you begin your search in QuestGarden.
Tom March is a faculty member at San Diego State with Bernie Dodge and he has created this Best WebQuests site where teachers can submit their completed WebQuest and based on some fairly high standards, Tom and his group will decide whether or not it is worthy for inclusion. There are very few Elementary WebQuests listed but those that are there, as well as some of the Middle School links may give you ideas for activities that you can tweak and use in your classroom.
The Alien’s have…crashed? A Journey Through the Universe is an example of a science and language arts WebQuest that I thought was worthy of sharing. The Task asks the students to help several Alien families who have crashed on Earth but cannot live in our atmosphere. The students must work collaboratively to research our neighboring planets, using some pretty cool interactive websites, to recommend the best planet for their alien family.
HOTS Trick:
Stacy Smith, a TRC facilitator from Winfield recently shared Bloom’s Digitally with the Phase 7 Facilitators. It is a great blog post from Andrew Churches that provides a Bloom’s refresher, as well as a great list of web-based tools, resources and activities to assist educators with the planning and implementation of technology-rich lessons.
As with any good lesson plan, a well designed WebQuest can help teachers integrate standards-based content, HOTS and web-based resources to provide engaging, authentic and powerful learning opportunities in a technology-rich classroom.
I hope you enjoyed this WHIRL trick or treat! Please post any HOTS or WebQuest resources that you think our readers can benefit from in the comments section below!
~Amber Rowland, Project Coordinator for TRC
Dodge, B. (2007). WebQuest.Org: Home. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from http://webquest.org.
Ikpeze, C. H., et. al., (2007) Web-based Inquiry Learning: Facilitating Thoughtful Literacy with WebQuests. The Reading Teacher v. 60 no. 7 p. 644-54 .
You can subscribe to WHIRL's Posts via email by clicking here!
Ikpeze, C. H., et. al., (2007) Web-based Inquiry Learning: Facilitating Thoughtful Literacy with WebQuests. The Reading Teacher v. 60 no. 7 p. 644-54 .
You can subscribe to WHIRL's Posts via email by clicking here!
Views: 3
Comment
© 2012 Created by Amber Rowland.
You need to be a member of Technology Rich Classroom Program to add comments!
Join Technology Rich Classroom Program