What is WebQuest?

Question 1: What is WebQuest?
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing.

Question 2: What are the essential components of the WebQuest?
There are six critical components in a WebQuest:
1. Introduction:
Providing background information, motivational scenarios and an overview of the learning goals to students.
2. Task: a formal description of what students will have accomplished by the end of the WebQuest

3. Process:
This is a description of the steps learners should go through in accomplishing the task, with links embedded in each step.
4. Resources:
This section of the WebQuest consists of a list of the resources (bookmarked Web sites, print resources, etc.) that your students will need to complete the task.

5. Evaluation:
Each WebQuest needs a rubric 1 for evaluating students' work. The standards should be fair, clear, consistent, and specific to the tasks set.

6. Conclusion:
This step allows for reflection by the students and summation by the teacher.

Question 3: What do short-term and long-term WebQuest focus?
_ The goal of a short term WebQuest is knowledge acquisition and integration. In 1-3 periods, a learner will achieve a significant amount of new information and manage to understand and use it.
_ The goal of a longer term WebQuest is extending and refining knowledge. In between one week and a month in a classroom setting, a learner would have analyzed a body of knowledge deeply, transformed it in some way, and demonstrated an understanding of the material.

Question 4: What are the benefits of WebQuests?
Using WebQuests in our classrooms can help build a solid foundation that prepares people for the future:
• They will be able to work in teams and move through several careers in a lifetime.
• The issues facing citizens will become more and more complex, and societal problems will resist easy fixes or black-and-white categorization.
• The amount of information will grow at an accelerating pace, directly from a growing number of sources without filtering or verification.

Question 5: How to create WebQuest?

First you need a Web server or if you do not have server space, you can copy your WebQuest onto the hard drive then run it on a browser like Netscape or Internet Explorer. And you have to make sure that your computer access to the Internet. Finally, there are lots of pre-made templates for page design and some content hints to help you build your own quest so you have to think and choose them.

Cited and adapted from
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub5.html