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What is a webquest?
Introduction
At West Twyford we have used webquests based on poetry and penguins, Harry Potter and Narnia. We have used maths webquests and cross-curricular quests based on chocolate and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Some of the webquests we have made ourselves are linked below together with others we have used from the web, usually adapting to the UK National Curriculum.
The following notes are adapted from an introduction by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University:
He defines a webquest as
A webquest is an interactive learning experience, based on inquiry and scaffolding higher order thinking skills.
The webquest was devised by Dr Bernie Dodge. It uses a variety of resources from the World Wide Web. Learners focus on a specific, high-tech task and create a presentation of their work for an audience. The web quest integrates the web in students’ learning.
Use of a webquest involves reflection, collaboration, cooperation, social skills such as consensus building, open-mind thinking, multiculturalism, critical thinking, problem-solving and an interdisciplinary approach. The underlying principles are active involvement of students in their learning and structured ways for students to guide themselves through the discovery of new material.
Reasoning skills are not derived by memorising facts but by engaging in a problem-solving exercise and applying previous knowledge and newly discovered Internet information to the Web Quest outcome. Critical thinking skills are used to interpret, analyse, evaluate and draw inferences from information. Motivation is built through careful planning of the task and process.
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