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Date Posted: 10:01:18 03/30/11 Wed
Author: Tânia (Task 9)
Subject: My position paper

Good afternoon girls.
I just want to share my position paper with you.
See below.

Position Paper / Task 9

A Great Tool Called WebQuest

Many teachers come from a very different era when they had no more than blackboards, chalks and some books as tools to be used in the classrooms. It is easy to imagine how they are as teachers. However things have changed and today’s students have not just changed from those we took part in the past nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between the previous generations. The digital technology dissemination is so rapid that we teachers who graduated many years ago are feeling as immigrants as pointed by Prensky. The good point is that many studies have been done to get the distance between teachers (immigrants) and students (digital natives) shorter. And some experts have created a great sort of WEBs we can use as tools in the classroom.

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. The model was developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University in February, 1995 with early input from SDSU/Pacific Bell Fellow Tom March, the Educational Technology staff at San Diego Unified School District, and waves of participants each summer at the Teach the Teachers Consortium.Since then, many teachers have embraced WebQuests as a way to make good use of the internet while engaging their students in the kinds of thinking that the 21st century requires.

I want to point out some very crucial points and important facts concerning the use of WebQuests in our teaching practice in which students can actively participate in their learning process. They can reproduce something they read in the internet by using their own words. So, they can demonstrate their ability to understand materials and to summarise as well as to elaborate important information. They can report their outcomes and findings in creating a PowerPoint presentation or a poster so the students can show what they have learned. The proposed tasks are very useful to gain general comprehension on the topic from the WebQuest.


All the WebQuests suggested by the Professor Reinildes are very attractive and useful. They are well designed and the exercises proposed are also very creative. They can call students attention and can be used with different levels and subjects. Many teachers can work together in hope of exploring them as much as possible to reach the goals proposed by each WebQuest. Through the WebQuests the students can learn English more easily when exposed to this type of learning environment. Prensky says that our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. And those of us who were not born into the digital world have to adapt to their environment by learning about the great tools we have through technologies to reach our students interest.

Summarising, the WebQuests bring learner-centered principles from the realm of noble idea to daily practice. As the American Psychological Association (1997/2003) articulated, the implementation of these principles benefits both students and teachers. When teachers facilitate well-designed WebQuests, they gain in-process professional development, moving them toward learning-centered practice. As they internalize and share their experiences, we all benefit.

Bibliography

http://webquest.org/index.php
http://pt.scribd.com/doc/9799/Prensky-Digital-Natives-Digital-Immigrants-Part1
http://tommarch.com/writings/wq_power.php

Tânia da Consolação Martins Pereira

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