VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 17:28:02 03/30/11 Wed
Author: marcia
Subject: first version
In reply to: Angelina 's message, "components of a webquest" on 13:56:56 03/30/11 Wed

Trip Log – Group 5


Angelina Pimenta
Fernanda Pires
Marcia Rodrigues
Thiago Hermont


WebQuests are an online collaborative learning process, where students in small groups have to do researches mainly in the net, scaffolding and interacting, in order to reach the goal of fulfilling the tasks proposed. They do all this oriented by the teacher who in advance selects the sources they are supposed to use, to avoid waist of time and non trustable information.

As defined by Tom March, circa 2003, "WebQuest is a scaffolded learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the World Wide Web and an authentic task to motivate students’ investigation of a central, open-ended question, development of individual expertise and participation in a final group process that attempts to transform newly acquired information into a more sophisticated understanding. The best WebQuests do this in a way that inspires students to see richer thematic relationships, facilitate a contribution to the real world of learning and reflect on their own metacognitive processes."

WebQuests are extremely interesting to develop and foster students' interest in the digital world. Even though they are, as previously discussed, "digital natives", it is a clever way to show them our own awareness concerning this new era. Webquests provide interaction for both students and teachers in a very friendly environment where the formal distance established in the teacher-student relationship disappears. After all, they will learn a lot from the WebQuests that we create and vice and versa: we can learn a lot with the contents in which they are more familiar than us.

WebQuests main theoretical foundations lay on a variety of theories that includes the following areas:

• Constructivism philosophy: involves questioning, exploring and reflecting; learners must construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world;
• Critical and creative thinking, questioning, understanding, and transformational learning: that meet the HOTS: higher order thinking skills
• Authenticity, meaningfulness and situated learning environments (offer authentic tasks): learning must be “alive”, students must care about what they are doing.
• Motivation: students must be challenged so that they feel motivated for engaging in the tasks that will lead to learning.
• Cooperative learning: students work in small groups in order to complete meaningful tasks such as solving problems or creating something;
• Differentiation: different resources must be provided in order to meet different needs and interests of the students; i.e. audio, video and texts.

WebQuest model has been around since 1995 when Bernie Dodge developed it for use in a course at San Diego State University. His goal was to create lessons that make good use of the web, engage learners in applying higher level thinking to authentic problems, and use everyone's time well.
Alice Christie (2007) explains that WebQuests have the following components:

• Introduction: The purpose of the introduction section of a WebQuest is twofold: first, it's to orient the learner as to what is coming. Secondly, it should raise some interest in the learner through a variety of means. It is an introduction that sets the stage and provides some background information.

• The Task: The task in a WebQuest is a description of what the learner will accomplish during the exercise. It could be a product, like a digital video, podcast, or PowerPoint™ presentation, or it might be a verbal act, such as being able to explain a specific topic. The task should be doable and interesting.

• The Process: In the process phase of a WebQuest, the teacher suggests the steps that learners should go through in completing the task. It may include strategies for dividing the task into subtasks, descriptions of roles to be played or perspectives to be taken by each learner. The instructor can also use this place to provide learning advice and interpersonal process advice, such as how to conduct a brainstorming session.

• Resources: The resources in a WebQuest are a list of web pages which the instructor has located that will help the learner accomplish the task. They should be pre-selected so that learners can focus their attention on the topic rather than surfing aimlessly. Print resources may also be included.

• Evaluation: An evaluation rubric is called for. Check out these sample rubrics. Since the learning we're looking for is at the loftier reaches of Bloom's Taxonomy, we can't gauge it (readily) with a multiple-choice test. Click
• Conclusion: A conclusion that brings closure to the quest, reminds the learners about what they've discovered, and perhaps encourages them to extend the experience into other domains. The Conclusion section of a WebQuest provides an opportunity to summarize the experience, to encourage reflection about the process, to extend and generalize what was learned, or some combination of these. It is a critically important piece, rounds out the document, and provides the learner with a sense of closure.

• Reflection: This activity encourages learners to reflect about which resources they found most helpful during the WebQuest. It also encourages learners to reflect on the collaboration process. Finally, learners should reflect on the validity and relevance of the resources they used.

• Extension: Extension activities provide opportunities for students to extend their learning beyond the WebQuest both in and outside the classroom. It might also provide opportunities for students to create their own WebQuests to share with their peers.


References:
http://eduscapes.com/sessions/travel/index.htm
http://ozline.com/entry/
http://alicechristie.org/edtech/wq/about.html
http://webquest.org/
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.