WebQuests as a learning tool

Today I want to tell you about something that as for 2-3 months ago, was new to me, it’s called WebQuests.

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learner work with comes from the web. The model was developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego state university in 1995.

As a part of Computer based Inquiry learning course, we learned about WebQuests and were asked to make an assignment about it. The assignment was to develop a WebQuest for students in which they have to learn and investigate the subject of the Kibbutz in Israel and its special characteristics. At the beginning it seemed to me like a real burden, As a city girl, I knew nothing about the Kibbutz and had no idea how to start this assignment.

I first started reading and exploring about the Kibbutz & collectivism, then I tried to find the most interesting aspects of this subject, and started looking for possible links for the WebQuests.

There are many WebQuests design patterns, it’s important to choose one, or even a combination of a few, the reason for that is that there are so many options, and if you don’t want to”drown in”, you better focus on one and start developing your WebQuest.

Next step was to start gathering good, useful links that I wanted the students to use. I chose a design pattern called On trial - Students prepare for and perform a mock trial live or on video based on current events, literature, history, or any other conflicted situation. This Design Pattern lies in the intersection of the Venn diagram between judgment and persuasion.

My WebQuest was adressed to 4-5 students in working groups – each will choose one of these roles: defendant, prosecutor, judge, psychologist and lawyer. I gave each student suitable links to the role they were playing, For example, the psychologist was given links about the effect of living in the Kibbutz had on people, and especially about the rather strange phenomenon that used to be back then, where all the children of the Kibbutz were sleeping togethr in a special house, away from their parents.

The next step is of course to develope the WebQuest, it can be developed in a powerpoint presentation or as a website in html.

I was really pleased with the result, I created an activity for students that just like me, were really distant from this topic, and this topic may actually sound boring to them at the beginning, However, the activity is fun, not too hard, demands on high-level of thinking, creativity and collaborative work.

I really recommend this kind of activity, not only that it helps to teach a certain subject, but during the process students learn so much more – they learn how to use the resources that we give them wisely, they develop a better thinking about how to look for information online, they learn to play certain roles and to participate in a collaborative experience.

Here are some useful resources:

WebQuest design process

WebQuest design patterns

A rubric for evaluating WebQuests

An example of a WebQuest

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