Web Quest

All the resources on this page are from the
Bernie Dodge WebQuest page
at San Diego State University
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/materials.htm

WebQuests are one of our most meaningful educational projects because they help educators to:

• practice creating hypermedia for students
• see how Internet information can be incorporated into lessons that students enjoy.
• direct students to appropriate technology resources
• prevent students from mindlessly "surfing" for information
  

There are seven steps involved in creating a WebQuest. View a PowerPoint presentation by Bernie Dodge, the person identified and the creator of 'the WebQuest. In the PowerPoint Dr. Dodge gives you the Seven Steps to making a WebQuest. The second link below is to an article in which Dr. Dodge describes his five rules for making a WebQuest (Find great sites, Orchestrate your learners and resources, Challenge your learners to think, Use the medium of the Internet and tools of technology, Scaffold high expectations (higher level is better than light easy thinking)). There are always exceptions. For example, if you are dealing with extremely young children or students with lower cognitive abilities you may develop less sophisticated tasks.

• Seven Steps
  http://webquest.sdsu.edu/roadmap/index.htm

WebQuests help our students most when the students

• collaborate
• solve problems that require thought and investigation activities and skills

  Check out some of the learning activities that students are asked to engage in by going to:
  http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/staffdev/tpss99/tasksimap/
  Note that each graphic is a link to another page. All work, however, was done using Inspiration ®.

How to make a WebQuest:

There are several 'Complete Workshops' included on the WebQuest Page. A new one that I like is
Dr. B's WebQuest Page.
It is easy to use and simplified but still included the content to make sophisticated WebQuests.

I also find a resource page in Annette Lamb's 'Internet Expeditions' especially noteworthy.
http://www.eduscapes.com/sessions/travel/use.htm
She offers examples, a grading rubric, and suggests that you find and use the WebQuests that others have made. There are, however, other rubrics such as:
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html and especially,
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/rubrics/weblessons.htm

Using a Template or Wizard

While you can use many applications to make a WebQuest, many students favor using a Template. Go to:
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/LessonTemplate.html

Then Download and use the template. Note that you might have to modify the links.

You can also use the WebQuest Generator at TeAch-nology to create a quick and dirty WebQuest.
http://teachers.teach-nology.com/web_tools/web_quest/ You'll still have to create the links but this is fast. When I tried the generator the pictures that were generated were corrupted (didn't work).

Using someone else's WebQuest

You can stay at the San Diego WebQuest page and select a WebQuest to use. I suggest that you look at:
http://www.learnnc.org/learnnc/lessonp.nsf/docUNID/C570F5A5CDBE414085256B5B0024F9E5?OpenDocument

The teacher's page shows you how one teacher thought while gathering and creating a WebQuest. You can see other teacher-made WebQuests by going to 'Learn NC' at:
http://www.learnnc.org/ and typing 'webquest' in the internal search box. Lots of other great resources here too.

Return to EDT786 Syllabus