WeB QuEsT

I have never experience a web quest first hand that I can recall, so if I did do one, it must not have made much of an impact.  However, the term is familiar, and after reading and hearing about it this week, I am convinced that this strategy will be employed in my classroom.  It seems like the most obvious of assignments, something that is almost common sense.  Using the internet as a source for solving problems, answering questions, analyzing data, is something that everyone will eventually be used to doing (if they are not already).  To simply transfer this to the classroom is so logical.  But I do feel like there is a major difference between sending a student off on their own to simply “research” on the Internet, and helping guide them through a topic, which essentially is a web quest.

There are so many variables that can be employed and they enable teachers to touch on many levels of thinking (Bloom’s Taxonomy).  One of the things that I like most about these types of projects is that they are interactive and can easily become group projects.  I feel that so much of what is done in the work place is cooperation between employees, teaching students the importance of working with one and other on a consistent basis is a critical skill to learn when preparing them for the “real world.”  In addition these projects can take on a long or short-term time frame.  I really like the idea of an evolving web quest that takes place over the length of a semester.  It becomes much more complex and I think increases exponentially on the difficulty scale the deeper students get into a project like that.

The simplicity of the structure, which is, Introduction, Task, Process, Information sources, Evaluation, Conclusion, allows for such diversity and creativity when designing a good quest.  These exercises can turn into group presentations, individual presentations or even extended into a report or physical project.  Really the options are limitless.  As mentioned before, this tool will definitely be used in my classroom.