WebQuest Information - Professional Development

1. School Information
2. School News
3. Online Calendar
4. Administration
5. Staff e-mails
6. Grade Levels
7. Cougars' Den
8. Students' Den
9. Parents' Den
10. Teachers' Den
11. Counselor's Den
12. PTO
13. Field Trips
14. Magnet/P.E.
15. Library
16. Ancillary
     Music
     Science
     Computers
17. HISD
18. West Dist.
19. SIS Login
20. CCAP
21. Presentations
22. Japan Website

WebQuests Information

Teachers,

We have discussed in your various team meetings the plans to design a grade level WebQuest. Congratulations to 2nd grade for jumping on the bandwagon first this year.

There are two main components of a WebQuest. The first is the Teacher page. This helps to facilitate any teacher who is going to use your WebQuest. It lists information about techniques, standards, specific directions for activities, and much more information that will make the WebQuest a success.

The second component is the Student Pages. This is where the actual WebQuest takes place. Students get their directions and tasks that they are to perform from these pages.

Each side is made up of the following pages. The teacher side is the directions for each page and the student side is the actual activities. The following is an excerpt from the article at this link.

(http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech011.shtml)

THE DESIGN PROCESS

Once you have your outline or template in hand, Spartanburg's site also provides an excellent flowchart for Creating a WebQuest. The main points include:

	The Topic. You may have already decided on a topic related to current events or to an area of the curriculum that's inadequately covered in available texts. If you're still searching for a topic, however, Tom March, who developed the first WebQuests with Bernie Dodge, suggests starting "where you're at." "If you have an area that's your specialty, something that thrills you to teach, that you know inside and out, up and down, begin there," March says. You can also explore March's Idea Machine, which provides 50 prompts designed to help begin the brainstorming process.
	The Task. "The task," says Dodge, "is the single most important part of a WebQuest." His WebQuest Taskonomy: A Taxonomy of Tasks provides eleven different types of tasks, including journalistic, mystery, persuasion, and judgement tasks. If you can't find it here, you can't find it anywhere!
	The Process. In this section, you'll include the roles students will assume and the steps they'll follow to complete the activity. March's Designing for Success provides not only a Designer's Checklist, but also some clickable "friendly advice" for the creatively challenged!
	The Resources. Identify the online resources available on your topic by brainstorming a list of related words and using the list to search for relevant sites. As you search, create a hotlist of current, accurate, and age-appropriate sites that will engage your students' interest. Education World's Searching With Savvy: The Best Search Engines for Teachers and Students is an excellent source of search engines that provides easy access to educationally valuable kid-friendly sites.
	The Evaluation. As Kenton Letkeman points out, "Traditional evaluation techniques are not the best means for evaluating the results of WebQuests, since all students may not learn the same content. Individual evaluation rubrics should be developed that follow curriculum objectives and are easy for students to understand." Dodge's Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests also provides a number of criteria for evaluating students' WebQuest success. Spartanburg's WebQuest Evaluation Form, on the other hand, allows you to assess the value of your WebQuest before students use it.

Links:

http://www.mapacourse.com/WebQuesthtml/ Location of Modules and more help.

http://WebQuest.sdsu.edu/materials.htm Information on various tasks about WebQuests.

http://WebQuest.sdsu.edu/materials.htm Bernie Dodges Homepage

http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/staffdev/buildingblocks/p-index.htm WebQuest templates

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech011.shtml article on WebQuests

http://www.spa3.k12.sc.us/survival.htm - sample brainstorming

http://www.spa3.k12.sc.us/WebQuests.HTM creating a WebQuest

http://www.ozline.com/webquests/design.html - information.

Below are the various links and pages that you may need to use to design your WebQuests. They are in the order that we will be using them in our group planning meetings.

WebQuest Links and Information
Constructing a WebQuest
Creating a WebQuest
Sample of a WebQuest Graphic Organizer
Blank WebQuest Graphic Organizer - Must have Inspiration to view it
WebQuest Development
Overview of Modules
Module 1
Module 2
Module 3
Module 4
Module 5
WebQuest Template