For a Better Learning Experience, WebQuest!

Hello there!
This week I have a great tool to share with you. We were asked to choose an educational tool and prepare a presentation about it as a course requirement in the beginning of the term, and a couple of people have been presenting a new tool every week since then. Me and my partners For We Learn and Lady Bird chose Webquest and used Zunal.com to present it. It is a very beneficial and interesting tool to use, so we had a lot of fun preparing and presenting it in the classroom to our classmates.
Now I'd like to inform you about webquests and how to utilize them. Let's begin, shall we?

For the source of the photo please click here

Defining a Webquest

A webquest is an enquiry-based learning tool which encourages students to become responsible for their own learning. Students are provided with a specific task and the activities to support that task. They are given links to information available on the web which they use to acquire knowledge. 

Professor Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University defines a WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented activity that uses resources on the World Wide Web. WebQuests pull together the most effective instructional practices into one integrated student activity. These Web-based projects use World Wide Web sites to help students develop problem-solving and decision-making skills. WebQuests are interesting and motivating to teachers and students. An effective WebQuest develops critical thinking skills and often includes a cooperative learning component. Students learn as they search for information using the Web, following a prescribed format that focuses on problem solving and authentic assessment. A well-written WebQuest requires students to go beyond simple fact finding. It asks them to analyze a variety of resources and use their creativity and critical-thinking skills to solve a problem. WebQuests help students analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information. There are two kinds of WebQuests, short term and long term. 

The attributes of a short term WebQuest are: 

• knowledge acquisition and integration  
• making sense of large amounts of information
• typically completed in one to three class periods.  

The attributes of a long term WebQuest are:

• extending and refining knowledge
• analyzing a body of knowledge thoroughly and transforming it
• creating a product that others can respond to
• typically completed in one week to a month. Elements of a WebQuest WebQuests are different from “scavenger hunts,” a much simpler approach that is as old as the Web itself. In a typical scavenger hunt, students are given a list of items they must find (answers to questions, for example, or instances of data) and are set loose on the Web. WebQuests are much more structured and focus heavily on collaboration. 

Reasons for Using Webquests

There are many compelling reasons for using webquests in the classroom, including:

• They are an easy way for teachers to begin to incorporate the Internet into the language classroom, on both a short-term and long-term basis - no specialist technical knowledge is needed either to produce or use them.

• More often than not, they are group activities and as a result tend to lend themselves to communication and the sharing of knowledge - two principal goals of language teaching itself.

• They can be used simply as a linguistic tool, but can also be interdisciplinary, allowing for crossover into other departments and subject areas.

• They encourage critical thinking skills, including: comparing, classifying, inducing, deducing, analysing errors, constructing support, abstraction, analysing perspectives, etc. Learners are not able to simply regurgitate information they find, but are guided towards a transformation of that information in order to achieve a given task.

• They can be both motivating and authentic tasks and encourage learners to view the activities they are doing as something 'real' or 'useful'. This inevitably leads to more effort, greater concentration and a real interest in task achievement.

Affordances of Webquests  

• Available for everyone
• Personal portfolio of your work
• Allows students to work together
• Poses open-ended questions
• Images, files, videos can be added
• Provides you an opportunity to share your Webquest on social media

Constraints of Webquests

• Webquests can take a considerable amount of time to make
• They are not appropriate for every learning goal 
• They usually require good reading skills, so are not suitable to younger learners or to students with language and reading difficulties without accommodations

Producing a Webquest

1. Introduction
Your pupils need to know exactly what their task is. They need to be interested and motivated - you could provide them with a role-play scenario to make the task more ‘real’ (for example, you are the school social organiser and have to organise a trip for your class to, say, France…).
It’s important to set the scene for the quest, providing background information, linking the topic to previous lessons and making sure your pupils know what they will learn from the quest, and what skills they’ll develop. There should be a focus around which to base the activities, with the final outcome of the quest being an overall task such as producing a presentation or newspaper or web page.
2. The task
Explain clearly and precisely what the learners have to do. They may need to work in groups and decide among themselves how to divide up the task. You may need to provide general ICT advice such as how to open up links in a new window.
3. The process
This stage guides the learners through a set of activities and research tasks, using a set of predefined resources.
Links should be embedded in the webquest to sites, pages, databases, search engines and so on. There is no reason why pupils shouldn’t use printed resources and books as well, since this widens the skills they need to complete the task. Guidance should be given on how to present findings; for example, maps, graphs, essays, wall displays and diagrams.
4. Conclusion
To conclude the webquest, pupils must be aware of what they have learned from the activity. They should have a final piece of work to present to the class or display on the wall. Space should be allowed to expand the topic and encourage pupils to use webquests for future pieces of work.

For the source of the photo please click here

Producing a webquest does not entail any detailed technical knowledge. Whilst all of the examples in the further reading are essentially web-based, it is extremely easy to produce a professional-looking and workable design using any modern word processor. The skillset for producing a webquest might be defined as follows:

• Research skills
  It is essential to be able to search the Internet and quickly and accurately find resources. It is beyond the scope of this article to delve into the finer points of using search engines and subject guides, but a good reading of their respective help pages will dramatically improve the accuracy of any search.

• Analytical skills
  It is also very important to be able to cast a critical eye over the resources you do find when searching. Make sure to visit any website you are considering using thoroughly before basing any activity around it.

• Word processing skills
  You will also need to be able to use a word processor to combine text, images and weblinks into a finished document. This particular set of skills can be acquired in approximately ten minutes.

For the source of the photo please click here

Use in Education

Webquests can be a versatile tool for teaching students. They can be used to introduce new knowledge, to deepen knowledge, or to allow students to test hypotheses as part of a final interaction with knowledge. The integration of computers and the Internet also increase students’ competency with technology. By having specific task lists, students can stay on task. By having specific sources of information, students can focus on using resources to answer questions rather than vetting resources to use which is a different skill altogether.

I believe that both teachers and students can benefit from this tool. It is a great way for teachers to introduce new tasks to the students, expose them to new learning sources which will develop their language skills one way or another. It is also great, in that, the probability of students' getting confused as to what is expected of them during a new task will be reduced because the teacher will supply them with necessary information. I will definitely make use of this amazing tool in my teaching and come up with different ways to incorporate this into my lessons. I encourage you to have a look at this tool and I hope it inspires you to be better and keep evolving as a learner or as a teacher.

You can learn how to create a webquest by watching the video below:

You can see the PowerPoint presentation we created below




The example webquest we presented in the classroom can be viewed from here

For the information given above please visit here: source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4