What is a Webquest?

• WebQuests are activities, using Internet resources, which encourage students to use higher order thinking skills to solve a real messy problem. WebQuests are a sub-set of Problem-Based Learning (PBL).
    
• Teachers around the world are making WebQuests for their own classes as well as to share.
    
• Students of all ages and grades can use WebQuests.
    
• Most, if not all, of the information used in WebQuests is drawn from the Internet.
     
• Students are provided with online resources and are asked to use this information constructively to solve the presented problemrather than just cutting and pasting material into an assignment or project.
     
• By eliminating the need to search or hunt for information the student is given more time to analyse, criticise and assess the information they find.
     

WebQuests are only one tool in a teacher's toolbox. They are not Appropriate to every learning goal. In particular, They Are weak in teaching factual recall, simple Routines, and definitions.

Also WebQuests Usually requires good reading skills, so are not Appropriate to the youngest Classrooms or to Students with language and reading Difficulties and without special design effort (for example, Bringing in adults to read the screens out loud.)

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES:

Advantages of Web Quest

Students:

                         o        Similar structure across Web Quests - Ease of use.

                         o        Encourages readers to interact with information-based Internet   

                               resources.  

                         o        Motivating (stimulates learner’s imagination)

                         o        Students can create their own Web Quests (An engage with 

                               classmates' quest.) 

                         o        Web Quests can be worked on at home/library

Teachers:

                         o    Similar structure in all Web Quests – Easy to create.

                         o     Emphasis on teaching skills required to read 

                              Web Quests        

                         o      Encourages effective & structured use of Internet time (inquiry based

                             lessons/units are designed so as to guide students meaningfully)    

                         o     Accommodates learners' diverse learning needs (individual and

                             group work)

Disadvantages:

 

Students:

                      o        Most Web Quests are not designed to meet your specific

                                 state/provincial educational curriculum

                      o      Access (slow web connectivity and inadequate number of computers)

                      o        Resource links readability often too high

                      o        Creating own Web Quest requires time upgrading technical skills and

                                 information literacy skills

                      o        Inflexible structure

Teachers:

 

                      o      Similar structure in all Web Quests – Easy to create.

                      o      Emphasis on teaching skills required to read Web Quests 

                      o      Encourages effective & structured use of Internet time (inquiry based

                                lessons/units are designed so as to guide students through

                               educational/ meaningful learning experiences)

                      o     Accommodates learners' diverse learning needs (individual and group

                              work)

Example of webquest:

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webQuest/matrix/9-12-Eng.htm

Hi Classmates!


During this week, I learnt that  PBL is an excellent alternative in classroom.


PBL can offers opportunities for:


1.- Discover what we need to learn.
2.- Develop our interpersonal skills to achieve higher  performance in teams.
3.- Improve our communication skills.
4.- Practice skills that we need for our knowledge.

HELLO!

I just want to comment about the things that I learnt during this week.

First of all, the text ( speaking & listening skills), so I learnt that for developing a speaking skill we must to practice a lot sometimes reading loud, singing or talking with a friend, in this way we can be a better speakers, and finally the pronunciation or accent it is important because we need to transmit our ideas and in a real life.

Finally, we must to be intelligents, we need to be better in this life and catch all the opportunities that appear in our life.

Hi Everybody!

During this week, I can learnt some interesting advantages about bookmarking (delicious), now I can applied my knowledge with my classes, English classes or as future teacher.

Also, I can see in this web-site an excellent way to teach and learn English, because we have the opportunity to share pages that can be helpful in the English's world, this mean that we always need to maintain contact with English. So it is important to share important pages that can helps to increase our knowledge.

Hello everyone,

The last week I have to say was a week full of knowledge, because as team we have to conclude two important points:

• First, we think that have a class on line is a good idea because we have the oportunity to know and learn at the same time, and it is true that as students we have doubts and errors but this is why we are here "For learning" and in this way is easier to understand something because although we learn how to use this webpages as teacher we learn as students and we know the possible problems that our students could have in a future.

• Second, about Bookmarking is a good tool for helping us to know how we can use the technology for teaching, and for learning in a easier way because we learn unconsiously, so with the practice. and about Delicious the best is that we can share our links with our classmates or friends. We have the information that we need on hand and as it is published on line we do not worry about if we loose it or if i do not remember what is exactly :( and in conclusion we can say that as onother web page it has disadvantages, because is possible not all our students know how to use a computer or they do not have one, and in an extreme cause they do not want to take a class on line or they only use the internet for doing something else and about a class we could get bored, but we think all these are possible using the internet on a class, and as a teacher we have to consider both the disadvantages and the advantages, and we belive that both (Bookmarking and Delicious) are an useful and great way for learning.

Regard, Marco´s team (Claribel-Francis-Ivanny)

        

hello everybody!

Welcome to my blog.

Well, this blog was created to write and demostrate ours opinion about the class and how it can help in our life like a teachers.

I consider that the use of differents kinds of website, like www.nicenet.org or our new web site www.blogger.com, can helps to publish our knowledge that we acquire in this class.

In my opinion, in this class, I learnt some things about my new classmates, hobbies, family, likes and dislikes.