HOME Intro Webquests Building 
Language Schedule Resources

Building Webquests

Webquest are a natural result of  enthusiastic,  innovative and inquisitive teachers who want to keep their classes active and challenging,  introducing  every possible technology tools available  adapting them to educational environments. Webquests are both a revolution and a warm  invitation to share the generous standpoint of its creators and all those who are participating in this positive use of the Internet.  Although the invitation is to collect and analyze as much on line information as possible it is highly recommended to complement studies and reseraches with all traditional resources of printed text.

Introduction : Introduction is to "orient the learner and raise some interest through a variety of means" (Dodge, B.1998)  Introduction is about  introducing the task. You will find our initial tasks under Webquests and our first step will be developing a joint  webquest after a gradual process of familiarization.

Task : The task is the preliminary most important part of the webquest. It is "what the learner will have done at the end of the exercise" (Dodge,B,1997)  In our case it will be first a joint task called Destination Argentina, following examples set by other similar tasks, later webquests will be  oriented towards practical company  activities, researches, reports, proposals.   Destination Argentina will be built together, and is meant to be of use for  business people coming to Argentina,  who might wish to extend  their stay and travel the country. You will find all necessary links under Resources, but you are warmly invited to add some of your own,  share them with the group and have them included in our Resources page.  Once this webquest is finished individual tasks will be following  and each one will be presenting his/her work one. Face to face meetings will complement these on line presentation and,    when an occasion arises,  special guests will be invited to participate in our f2f discussions for further practice.

Process: You will see from webquests visited what Process details include, sometimes calling for  several modules, organizing notes, information,  resources or activities each member of the group will be performing.  For a deeper analysis and  reserach it might be necessary to assign specific activities and tasks to each member, which  will be done together and negotiated if needed, according to each one´s knowledge and interests as far as possible.  Process is a very important part of the webquest and where innovation might reach  highly commendable performances.

Resources : This is one of the most challenging and also  time consuming  building blocks. You will have to work adopting a systemic approach and search wisely.  It is suggested though  that you first analyze Bernie Dodge´s http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/webquest/buildingblocks.html and  http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html  and  Tom March´s http://www.ozline.com/webquests/intro.html sites and  webquests included there. A further help in your work might be Triton Summer Symposium found at  http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/july/workshop.html  You´ll have  plenty of resources there,  as a starting point to grasp the fulll meaning of  webquests.    There will be plenty of opportunities later on for further research and use the World Wide Web as a "motivating force" (Brown Yoder, M. 1999)   At these first stages  have your practical objective in mind.    Browse,  analyze, compare and  start building.  When ready use Web Quest Templates,  a great help to  get started.  http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/LessonTemplate.html   

 

Be creative, open minded and innovative 

 

Evaluation: Evaluation is a natural consequence of learning tasks.   Your first project Destination Argentina will be evaluated by your teacher  and discussed in  face to face meetings,  considering the practical use.   Later webquests  will be discussed on line and jointly evaluated in our f2f meetings once you have all completed  your written evaluation task on each webquest submitted, except for your own.  You will find a draft rubric for evaluating webquests at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquestrubric.html . Consider that this rubric is perfectible and  adaptable and can be modified or completed by innovative and creative viewpoints. 

Conclusion: After completing your own webquest Destination Argentina you will have  collected a lot of  information and experiences and bookmarked many www links. Remember to share them  mirroring the spirit that originated them. 

HOME Design Ljudmila Hribar : hribarmila@overnet.com.ar 
Drawings  : JuvancicJuan@infovia.com.ar

Last revised : 11/04/02