Week 6 Comprehensive Assignment

There are a plethora of online tools to help the teacher educate.  Of course there are basic resources like dictionaries, thesauruses, maps, all sorts of reference material; on top of that you can find video and audio files that can explain a topic in colorful and catchy ways.  Finally, there are multitudes of websites, good and bad, that can delve into specific subjects that the teacher may not have the ability to do in a classroom setting.  This week, I learned about one tool that can help bring all of that info together into one neat and interactive package.  It is called a webquest.  The webquest is the brain child of Dr. Bernie Dodge, who, in 1995, wanted to find an interactive option for additional or alternative learning opportunities.  As he said on the website he created to help teachers with this media tool, Questgarden, Dodge’s goal “was [and is] to create lessons that make good use of the web, engage learners in applying higher level thinking to authentic problems, and use everyone's time well.”

So you may ask, what is creating a webquest like?  Well, it is probably one of the most grueling assignments I have ever worked on.  Depending on your discipline and age group coming up with a webquest idea may not be too hard.  Unfortunately, being a science teacher to high schoolers, does not easily lend itself to useable topics.  The idea of a webquest needs to not be strictly data/fact based memorization, which tends to be much of the subject matter for that grade level.  So, I had to step outside of the box.  Honestly, I don’t know that what I created could ever really be used in any classroom setting, but there are components of it that I am very proud of, and would love to see the results!  I found the most difficult part of the creation process to be working with the site itself.  Some aspects of Questgarden are quite user-friendly, while others are infuriating to deal with.  All in all, I would have to say that, once I was more familiar and comfortable with the site’s quirks, I was able to come up with a webquest that I am very proud of.  After much deliberation, and with some help of my co-workers, I was able to incorporate the recent discover of Gliese 581g, a little planet 20 light years away, into a quest of discovery about current Earth population, and its affects on the planet’s ecosystem.  The quest is set in the future, and the students are set on a task to research a planet for repopulation.  If you would like to see my work you can go to: http://questgarden.com/109/78/6/101003114741/ .