I am sad to say that, until recently, I did not investigate the teaching tool WebQuest. I decided to now and found out some of its very wonderful benefits.
1. Teachers are the ones who create groups on WQ, although others can, so they provide the sources. There are a plethora of these, from simple documents to spreadsheets to links.
2. The work done is very group oriented and creates a safe space for even shy students, who do not typically involve themselves in class, to participate in group discussion.
3. There are also tasks/assignments to be done on WQ, which scaffold learning with whatever source provided as the brickwork.
In these ways, WQ can increase critical thinking, but does not help with rote memorization skills involving fact or definition recall. I can, however, imagine myself using it in my classroom.
Sarin,
ReplyDeleteWebQuest is very beneficial to the teaching community since there is an abundant supply of knowledge that teachers could really gain a lot from. I find the teaching channel to be very useful as well. Teaching channel has helped me look at technology in a whole new way. I think it is so great that we have the ability to have such access to so many resources.
Thank you for the information about the teaching channel; I hadn't heard of it, but will look it up now. I agree, WQ is a very useful collaborative tool for teachers to gather information with.
DeleteSarin,
ReplyDeleteI actually used a WebQuest in my final project for the course. The multiple possibilities for the results make this a very versatile tool. What one student may find as an answer, another student may find a completely different answer. I think webquests are one of technologies hidden gems, because it allows for so many outlets of learning for the students. As educators, we must be able to provide them the proper guidelines for these WQ (the scaffolding).
Arturo, thanks for your input. I hadn't actually used WebQuest myself yet, so it's great to hear it works for you. I also like that it allows students many different ways to grasp the content. As we all know, there are all manner of different learners, from visual to auditory to cognitive to tactile. We, as educators, have to leave equal means open for them all to learn.
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