“I finally did it!” was my first reaction after I completed my first official WebQuest a few minutes ago. I am rather proud of my accomplishment and put a lot of effort into making it visually appealing and relevant to my students.
The address is: http://questgarden.com/100/00/4/100404095921/ if anyone would like to take peek. It is called "Built for Success: Animal Adaptations." It takes students on a quest to discover the relationship between an animal's adaptations and its habitat. Students will explore how animals are uniquely adapted to survive in a particular habitat. I am not completely finished though. I want to add pictures and I will have to write to the webmaster to figure out how to add my own photos to my site. Currently the files are too large. I take a lot of photos of all the wonderful animals at the Louisville Zoo and would like to include them in my WebQuest to personalize it for my students by adding photos of animals that they might have actually seen in person.
The address is: http://questgarden.com/100/00/4/100404095921/ if anyone would like to take peek. It is called "Built for Success: Animal Adaptations." It takes students on a quest to discover the relationship between an animal's adaptations and its habitat. Students will explore how animals are uniquely adapted to survive in a particular habitat. I am not completely finished though. I want to add pictures and I will have to write to the webmaster to figure out how to add my own photos to my site. Currently the files are too large. I take a lot of photos of all the wonderful animals at the Louisville Zoo and would like to include them in my WebQuest to personalize it for my students by adding photos of animals that they might have actually seen in person.
I enjoyed the WebQuest, but would not use it for every lesson. I don’t think that is the intent of the WebQuest anyway. I think it would be fun to design one for the periodic table of the elements. Students could choose (or be assigned) an element and research it via a WebQuest. I would also like to embed video in my WebQuest. Maybe with a video of me explaining the “mission” of the quest in the style of the movie “Mission Impossible.” Something like “Your mission, and you WILL choose to accept it, is to discover what element or elements are essential for human survival. This message will self-destruct in 30 seconds…just kidding. Now get to work!” There are several different ways to design a WebQuest on that particular topic.
Another idea is to redesign my “Science Fiction or Science Fact” project and turn it into a WebQuest. It might make it a little easier to follow, especially with my lower-performing students if they had a definite plan to follow, instead of having the whole Internet to explore. Sometimes that can be a little intimidating for some students.
I did also learned that not all WebQuest creation sites are created equal. The WebGarden site was down last night, so I decided to try one of the other recommended sites on the main website. The AT&T site looked easy enough, but after a couple of hours work, all I had was a pretty “hotlist” of websites for my students to look at. Thanks goodness the WebGarden site was back up this morning. It did take a while, but I am pretty satisfied with the results. I just need to figure out the picture thing…one WebQuest at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment