Week 6: Webquests and online comunication

Online communication, or electronic communication is becoming an ever important part of teaching.  Teachers frequently use e-mail, and have been for a while.  But more and more teachers are utilizing other forms of communication, including facebook, twitter, among others.  It is important to always remain professional.  Never use these forms of communication to engage personally with your students, be careful what you put down on "electronic paper" and simply be smart about it.  Don't put anything down, say anything, or send any messages which may be taken out of context or put you in a place that you must defend yourself.  Always be careful also of using multiple accounts... with the ability to blend two e-mail accounts into the same inbox on smartphones it can be easy to accidentally send messages to and from the wrong account.  It's best to NOT mix or combine personal and business accounts!

On to webquests!  Webquests are great web and query based lessons that are fun to create, and fun for students to do (if they are done well!).  I found a few interesting web quests in my research this week, as well as made my own!  Here's what I found:

I tried to find a webquest for use in a  high school earth science classroom and I came across this one about historical geology:
http://questgarden.com/168/38/6/140305191401/index.htm

At first glance I really liked the way this one was laid out and set up.  The instructions were very clear, and the outline/goals/process were explained in great detail....
But upon further examination I realized that I would never use this webquest in my classes.  I know we were supposed to review one we WOULD use, but I think it is important to explain why I think this is not a good example of a webquest.
First:  There are images used in this webquest which I know are copyrighted images.  The Geologic time scale used in the task section is a piece of artwork I have tried to find to use in the past, it does not have a creative commons copyright to my knowledge. The source of this image was not given in the sources section of the webquest. The author of this webquest wants his students to cite their sources in MLA format, yet he can't even cite the source to his images!!!  That bugs me...

Second:  In the process section, there are basically two parts to this assignment.  He gives 8 links to worksheets that must be completed by the students.  These worksheets have no bearing on the rest of the assignment and are worksheets that could be handed out in class prior to doing the webquest.  They shouldn't be part of the webquest...

Third:  In the process section one part of the assignment is to "Read these articles" which is not followed by any links!  It seems they forgot to add the articles!

and lastly: the assignment is to create a presentation about your local geology using power point, or create a video to share this information.  This sounds like a great project, and this is what the webquest should have focused on.  In the evaluation section of the webquest, instead of finding the rubric for this assignment there is a 9 question test!  This section should be instructions on how to evaluate the assignment itself, not a series of test questions.

Over-all I think this is a very poorly written and executed webquest that I wouldn't use in my classroom.  Although, the worksheets and the "research your local geology" assignments are great ideas and I might use them as stand alone assignments!


As far as my webquest goes, this is the first time I've written one.  I did try and research more about the concept and look at what I felt were better examples (and used the above example as what I shouldn't do!), so I feel like this is a good first attempt.  I wrote this assignment to be used in high school earth science classes during the segments about fossils and geologic time.  I used resources from the National Park Service due to my involvement with the NPS in past jobs I've had.

Feel free to review it and tell me what you think:  Paleontology in the Parks

The only thing I found difficult was understanding how the format of entering the data and instructions worked out with the end result.  It took several edits for me to realize how each part was going to be displayed in the final product.  I wish the step by step for building the webquest followed the same order and format that the end result did!  That would have been much more helpful.
With my experience with web-page builders I didn't have any trouble understanding the formatting, how to add pictures, and how to change the style and fonts.  I really loved the helpful hints and tips along the way also!

I think, despite how well the end result looks using questgarden, I will probably utilize power point or word to create my own webquests in the future.  I do not see much benefit in using this resource to create them.  I would rather be able to see the final product as I am working on it, instead of having the awkward formatting this site had to use to create it.   The only benefit I see of this resource is that once you publish your webquest others can have access to it and use it for their own classes.

A helpful tool that questgarden should consider adding is a way to rate, or peer review other webquests.  This would make searching for the best webquests to use in your own class much easier!