Project Details

Description:  A website that can be used as a stand-alone (a refresher course) or in a workshop situation that will guide the participants through an actual WebQuest and the many resources that are available to facilitators of learning about this type of Internet Project.

URL:  http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/gbequett/webquest.html

• Goals or issues to address:
• To provide facilitators of learning (teachers, trainers, etc.) with an online resource that will increase their knowledge of WebQuests and Internet Scavenger Hunts;
• To provide a variety of templates and examples of WebQuests that will result in a better understanding of this Internet Project type.
• Technology developed and/or used:
• FrontPage software was utilized as well as a wide variety of web resources;
• See http://webboard.webtech.uiuc.edu:8080/read?42312,1889 for information on Java Websites that I found useful;
• See http://webboard.webtech.uiuc.edu:8080/read?42366,1889 for information on specific Java that I used on my pages; and
• Utilization of a Guest Book to allow additional feedback by other participants than those targeted for my evaluation group (http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/gbequett/siteval.html) -- still on the drawing board at this time.
• What group of learners will be targeted?:
• Facilitators of learning of all Grade Levels who want to use WebQuests as an instructional tool in the classroom learning environment;
• Facilitators of learning at all levels of expertise (Explorers, Trailblazers, Pioneers, Settles and Stay-at-Homers);
• Technology Integration Trainers (Technology Coordinators, etc.) who are training facilitators of learning on the Five (5) Internet Project types; and
• Anyone who may be interested in the impact of technology into the curriculum.

• What information did you collect from the learners and what does that tell you about your goals or issues?

  • My evaluation survey can be found at http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/gbequett/siteval.html  -- let me know what I need to change -- this will also be submitted for a portion of my Human Subjects for research purposes.  The information that I am hoping to collect is:

  •     types of people utilizing this page

  •     the number of years teaching, etc.

  •     Whether or not they had ever used a WebQuest

  •     Whether or not they had ever taken part in any type of Internet Project

  •     The overall quality of the website

  •     Did they feel WebQuests overall were important to problem-solving and attaining standards?

  •     Did they take advantage of the Guest Book, etc?

  The question that I asked frequently was whether or not we had to actually have someone look at the site to determine if we met our goals by the end of the semester (I asked this back in August -- not knowing what I would be doing?)  My problem would be that "No, I did not."  I saw this project as more of an opportunity o develop something that we could use and refine and then evaluate afterwards.  Most of the training that I do for the state runs from August - October, January - July.  The months of November and December are "dead months" -- many schools have too many projects (Christmas plays, Thanksgiving concerts, vacation days, etc.) going on that professional development often takes a "back seat" to these other activities.  Yes, I could have some friends look at the site -- however, they would in all likelihood be prejudice and the site was designed to be used in an all day training situation.  As an Internal Evaluator on a federal Technology Innovation Challenge Grant, I know that that is NOT GOOD DATA!!!  Good Data is hard evidence that you can either prove or disprove your "hypothesis."  

• What are the implications of what you learned, beyond the specifics of your project?

• I'm not sure at this time what the implications are until it has been tested by a group of teachers and or trainers. However, from my perspective I found lots of sites with WebQuest Resources but none of them were organized very well -- especially those by individual school districts -- even though they had some great WebQuests to share with others. Even the WebQuest Page by Bernie Dodge and Tom March has not been updated in ages -- yet, WebQuests have become increasingly popular over the last 5 years because of the simplicity of WebQuests.  The number of dead links at many of the WebQuests has disheartening.

Last updated on December 22, 2000