Journeying into the World of WebQuests

       Before this TPTE class, I can honestly say that I had never even heard the word "webquest", and if I did come across it ever, I surly had no idea what it was. When we received the assignment on webquests, I was a little nervous about it because it wasn't like anything that I had ever done before. I was happy that we got put in groups and got to collaborate over the worksheet on WeQquests. It was helpful that we all split up in our different roles (efficiency expert, affiliator, altitudinist, and technophile) and all got to fist explore the the web quests independently with our roles. It was also quite helpful that the worksheet had a place for "strengths" and "weaknesses" so that our ideas were organized and thought out.
      My role during the assignment was the Altitudinist and its function was to find out if the WebQuests we were evaluating contributed to critical and higher-level thinking. As I was looking throughout all the WebQuests, the one that I found to be "higher level" at its best as the Underground Railroad WebQuest. Some of the strengths as the altitudinist that I found in the Underground Railroad was it's need for students to share their feelings after the assignment and they were also supposed to journal their personal feelings and then talk about them later. This WebQuest made the students think deeper into their thoughts.
         One of the weakest WebQuests that I evaluated as the altitudinist was the Ice Cream WebQuest. The main point of the WebQuest was to going through the steps of how to make ice cream and for the students to make their own flavor of ice cream. I initially thought that this WebQuest fell under the standards for elementary science, but it said that it fit under the language arts standards, which made no sense to me. When I was evaluating this WebQuest I felt as though there was no purpose or goal to it. It seemed like a WebQuest simply just for fun.
         All in all, this worksheet really helped me better understand WebQuests and allowed me to explore them and see how beneficial they really are. I had never even thought to use these as a teacher before, but now that I know about them, I will utilize where ever I can in my classroom. I was excited that we got to go explore the webquests some more independently and find one that we thought fit into a standard of our age level. In since I am doing elementary (and special ed/deaf ed), I searched for a webquest that fit in the 3-5 grade range. I also looked under the Social Studies standards in Tennessee so that I could see what students were working on now to help me find a WebQuest that actually meant something and wasn't just random. I ended up finding a fabulous WebQuest named Native Americans at the Museum. In since I found that students in the 3rd-5th grades were working on Indians/Native Americans, I chose this WebQuest and I am glad I did because I really enjoyed evaluating it! It is instructional and collaborative but still still fun and imaginative for students.
       The main task of the WebQuest is to explore the culture of one of the main groups of Native Americans and what makes it fun is that the students are asked to become "researchers" and make up an exhibit for a history museum (obviously not real) to teach people about how the Native Americans lives. I just really enjoyed the task and how the WebQuest was laid out. There was enough room for individuality and imagination, which I liked, but there was also a lot of collaboration going on throughout it, which was another plus as well!
      I am happy that I now know how to search WebQuests and find which ones are the best. I think they are fabulous tools and I think I will definitely use them as a teacher. It is a fun and different way for students to explore subjects instead of just doing a worksheet or just reading about a certain topic. I hope to use WebQuests again soon someday because they were very educational, interesting and fun to learn about!

Grab a glimpse of the WebQuest I evaluated!