In Dodge's article he said that the only way to get better at doing webquests was to do more webquests. If this means making a lot of new ones or going back to older ones and updating them, then this is what you need to do to make better webquests. Also don't make webquests only to make a webquest, don't create an assignment using a website you designed to show your students and their parents what you can do with a website. Using a webquests should be a fun activity for your students that actually creates some genuine learning. With our webquest, I believe this is what we set out to do and I think we did a very good job with it. We took a simple concept, the Branches of the US Government, gave our students sites to go to to find answers to our questions and presented them with authentic and real life situations concerning the US Government. By presenting our students with scenarios that could actually happen in the real world, we hoped that this would illustrate to our students what their government does and what it can't do.
I think by including real life scenarios that required our students to think out solutions to the problems we posted, that the students will be more engaged in the activity. The only thing that I would want to change with our website would be to figure out how to make it look better. Thankfully, Dodge said not to get too worried about this and to focus on making your website functional and affective.
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I think that it is a problem with teachers trying to use technology just to be using technology. A lot of times they don't actually enhance the learning, and at times it may actually end up hurting the lesson. It can be such a great thing, but teachers need to learn to use it correctly.
ReplyDeleteI also was frustrated with the actual layout. I wanted to do things to my web page that I don't know how to actually do. Alas! I must be satisfied with what we've produced because I sure don't know how to fix it...
I like the fact that you said that we should use real life scenarios with our students. I think that if they were to use real life experiences they would be more interested and engaged in the learning process.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that teachers should not use technology to just be using it. There needs to be an objective that the technology is fulfilling. Using real life situations for students is a fun way to use it and teach in the way that they operate their lives in high tech. Students know if they are just given busy work and no one likes busy work.
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