Webquest Making kit

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• Template (Guide)

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Sandy Phillips Victorian Education ChannelDepartment of Education and Training, Victoria

Phillips.sandra.l@edumail.vic.gov.au

Call Me!! Or email is better

Tom March wrote nearly every word.

I must acknowledge.

http://bestwebquests.com/about/default.asp

"To the ship without a compass, any port's a destination. "Begin with a goal. Learning should be more efficient than wandering around aimlessly and being satisfied when learning just happens to take place. Start with a subject of particular interest.

Hotlist: A reasonable first step is to simply compile a list of web-based resources - i.e. a good Hotlist of sites you know are appropriate for your users. These pages might not be

standards-based or geared toward a specific learning outcome, but it will be like wheeling a bunch of good books from the library into the classroom.

Treasure Hunt: If learners are emotionally connected to the topic, then ask the question, "Are they learning enough background information on the subject?" If the answer is no or

if the best information on the subject is "hot off the press," then try a Treasure Hunt.

Subject Sampler: If learners have factual knowledge about a subject, then ask yourself, "Do they come out of the unit affectively engaged?" If they don't seem to care about the

subject as you think they should, try creating a Subject Sampler.

Multimedia Scrapbook: If you want students to explore a variety of sites that you've selected and create their own reports, newsletters, presentation stacks, or posters using

"pieces" from those sites, you might try making a Multimedia Scrapbook.

WebQuest: If they learn facts, but don't pursue higher-level thinking; why not make a WebQuest? A webquest uses the sites you select as the starting point for a complex activity that involves multiple perspectives, possible group collaboration, and a final

project of your choosing.

Different Formats

WebQuest – Real Ones!!! VELs ActivityOpen QuestionsWhat had global impact? Why?What criteria was used?Debate

Transformative ThinkingWhat would feature in a song/ Rap from Aust/ NZ / HK

Creative ThinkingMaybe create one

The song ends in 1982 what significant events would you feature in the iMOVIE/ photostory?CreatePersonal Learning / ReflectionWhat events in your life have been significant?

Hotlist/ Web Hunts CSF Activity I beg the pardon of “Thinking curriculum Gurus!!!”

Groups / Individual

“Surf the net”

Fact Finding

Discussion

Reporting back

CSF vrs VELs

  Low Medium High

Engaging Opening / Writing

No attempt made to appeal to learners.

Honestly attempts to appeal to student interests.

Has that something that compels attention.

The Question / Task

No real Question and / or a fuzzy Task. Maybe what's asked for is lower level thinking or info retrieval.

There is at least an implicit Question and a Task that targets higher order thinking. All this may not be totally clear.

Clear Question and Task. These naturally flow from the introduction and signal a direction for sophisticated learning.

Background for Everyone

No attempt to access prior learning or build common background.

Some mention of addressing a common body of knowledge. (May not happen within the activity.)

Clearly calls attention to the need for a common foundation of knowledge and provides needed (Web?) resources.

Roles / Expertise

No Roles / use of perspectives or Roles are artificial and may lack inherent conflict of interest.

Roles are clear and realistic. They may be limited in scope, but do evoke conflict.

Roles match the issues and resources. The roles provide multiple perspectives from which to view the topic.

Use of the Web

This activity could probably be done without the Web.

Some resources reflect features of the Web that make it particularly useful such as images, audio, interactivity, current information, etc.

Uses the Web to access at least some of the following: interactivity, multiple perspectives, multimedia, current information, etc.

Transformative Thinking

No Transformative thinking. (This is not a WebQuest, but may be a good Knowledge Hunt).

Higher level thinking is required, but the process for students may not be clear.

Higher level thinking is required to construct new meaning. Scaffolding is provided to support student achievement.

Real World Feedback

No feedback loop included.

The learning product could easily be used for authentic assessment although this may not be addressed or it only happens in the classroom.

A feedback loop connecting learners to the Real world is included in the Web page and an evaluation rubric is probably provided (early on!).

ConclusionMinimal conclusion. No mention of student thinking or symmetry to intro.

Returns to the intro ideas. May sum up the experiences and learning that was undertaken.

Clear tie-in to the intro. Makes the students' cognitive tasks overt and suggests how this learning could transfer to other domains/issues. Probably calls attention to the assumptions / hidden agendas inherent in the WebQuest itself. Sophistication keeps increasing.

Step & Fetch it Is there a Right Answer? Is this a traditional lesson plan dressed up as a Web page? If the question / task involves the retrieval of a defined, known body of knowledge, this is not a WebQuest. WebQuests are use in ill-structured domains, places with lots of gray and little "black and white." The idea is for students to argue an opinion, not mumble back someone else's thinking.

A BestWebQuest: Take Me on Vacation!

Hip Hop Homework Is the true Task Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V? Similar to the "Step-and-and-Fetch-it" approach, Hip Hop Homework asks students to piece together information / answers from various sources. This is a step in the right direction, but it still doesn't ask students to do anything new (like interpret others' opinions). A WebQuest might ask students to gather information from different sources, but then prompts learners to transform this acquired knowledge into a new understanding.

A BestWebQuest: Literary Fan Club

Anything Goes Could it be done without instruction? Sometimes an online activity will challenge students to do something creative or to solve a problem. This is positive! The downfall to the "Anything Goes" approach, is that to complete the task, students don't have to draw from any of the previous instruction. The fix to this near WebQuest is to ask students to apply a set of criteria to their creation. Rather than write any play or poem, or problem-solve any solution, invoke criteria that require students to integrate the new learning into their product.

A BestWebQuest: Influencing Your Photographic Eye

Tag Team PowerPoint Do the roles stay separate? This is a common mistake that almost everyone has fallen into at some point. Students work together as teams and each member contributes, but their work stays in isolation from each other. Each member knows what he or she knows, but there's no group process that forces a synthesis of this wealth of knowledge. The classic example is where each team member is responsible for one slide in a presentation, one card in a stack, or one quadrant in a newsletter. It's not hard to take it that one extra step and have a true WebQuest out of all this time, effort and learning. And it's a shame not to.

A BestWebQuest: Quest for Peace: An Internet WebQuest on Kashmir Peace Proposal Consensus

The 7 Red Flags:Warning Signs when Sifting WebQuests by Tom March

These COULD be WebQuests

Slacker's Delight Can one person do all the work? If an online activity prompts learners to construct new meaning, does this apply to all students in the group? Or is everyone happy if the bright kid does all the work? A killer WebQuest jigsaws the group process so that everyone must contribute. Even though some students' opinions might stand out in their group, the final task must involve everyone's participation in a substantial way. The way this could be a great WebQuest is if it is for use by only one learner. This would tend to be more advanced learners who can hold multiple perspectives in mind at once and evaluate them. Adults and gifted and talented students care good candidates for this approach.

A BestWebQuest: Antarctica - An Issue for all Australians

Tunnel Vision The 3 R's? (Real, Rich and Relevant) The next level of achievement in WebQuest design involves taking advantage of the contextual connections available through the Web. If you're studying The Lord of the Flies, go beyond Golding to street children in Algeria. When experimenting with the applied science of bottle rockets and catapults, discuss the ethics and efficacy of smart bombs. When researching early colonists from the Mayflower or First Fleet, update things to boat people and Globalization. Great WebQuests leverage the medium and the medium enables contextualizing the content to intrigue, perplex, and enrich.

A BestWebQuest: 2030: Homesteading Mars

Ho-Hum Are there Ah-Ha's & Assimilation? Whereas a Tunnel Vision approach doesn't access the wealth of the Web's contexts and juxtapositions, a Ho-Hum WebQuest may expose students to interesting contrasts and comparisons during the roles phase, but the final group process doesn't produce anything from this rich mixture and cognitive dissonance. When students struggle to assimilate new information and perspectives, they are creating new schema, achieving the cognitive ah-ha's that are the heart of transformative learning. By applying a new model, set of constraints, or varying the scenario, learners have the map of a conceptual pattern to help shape the development of new schema.

A BestWebQuest: A Separate Peace: A Teenager Experiences World War II

These ARE WebQuests, but they could be GREAT!

• Crool Zone - Webquest made up of a Hotlist, Subject Sampler & Knowledge Hunt & Rubric

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/nonviolence/intro.htm

Where can we put them?

Join the Research space “Global Teacher”

You will access your own Blogging (Web Space) www.globalteacher.org.auemail Heather on global.teacher@edumail.vic.gov.auhttp://globalteacher.org.au/wp-signup.php

School Intranet/ folders/ LCMS

•Save as HTML

School Webspace

•You have paid already and don’t need a link off the school website

Filamentality

•Add to the Global community

Best Webquests

Offer it up for “Evaluation”

And Enter

Where to begin?

You decide

• Chicken or Egg?

• Question or Resources?

Question (Can Change)

•Sites for Everyone (Hotlist?) Filamentality http://www.kn.pacbell.com/kne_search.html#fil

•Essentials

Use the template