Is anyone aware of a module (existing or in progress) that creates what we call in
Australia at least "Web Quests"? These are well suited to primary aged
students.
A web quest is essentially an integrated series of research tasks (eg finding information in various formats on the web) for a number of students playing different roles, which involves some form of higher order thinking and synthesis to arrive at a conclusion (i.e. it is not just a "treasure hunt").
Thanks
Mick
You might look here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=765
There hasn't been much activity in the webquest forum in a while.
I have used webquests myself, and I think they could also be used profitably with University students! I had heard that Bernie Dodge had introduced an updated set of templates; he was a presenter at a conference I attended last year. I should go investigate. . .
Anyway, I think you will find some information in the forum called "WebQuest Module".
atw
There hasn't been much activity in the webquest forum in a while.
I have used webquests myself, and I think they could also be used profitably with University students! I had heard that Bernie Dodge had introduced an updated set of templates; he was a presenter at a conference I attended last year. I should go investigate. . .
Anyway, I think you will find some information in the forum called "WebQuest Module".
atw
Thanks for that link, plenty to look at there. I've read through that stuff and also had a look at something called PhpWebQuest.
Given what is now possible with Moodle, I must admit I am now wondering whether WebQuests are worth worrying about in their "official" form. With all due respect to the pioneering work of Bernie Dodge and Tom March, I now have the impression that WebQuests are perhaps a quaint artefact from the early days of the internet.
It is clear to me that a WebQuest is/was more a process than anything else, and that Moodle as it stands is already a superior tool for constructing the kinds of learning experiences that WebQuests aspired to be.
With due respect to its developer, PhpWebQuest appears to be an example of what can go wrong when a good idea becomes rigidly codified. My criticisms are not with the quality of the code or presentation, but with the formulaic underlying pedagogy.
Some of the sample webquests on the PhpWebQuest site are truly appalling from a pedagogical perspective. This doesn't reflect badly on the developers of the WebQuest idea or the developer of PhpWebQuest, but does show what can go wrong when a good idea becomes an educational fad. The sample WebQuests of a religious nature (in Spanish), where the conclusions are provided for the user to swallow without question, are particularly bad in my humble opinion. But maybe that's the nature of dogmatic religion more than anything else ...
I'm kinda thinking aloud here, but maybe this is why the WebQuest module never really took off ... Moodle itself is already "on the next level" and has made WebQuests somewhat obsolete?
Given what is now possible with Moodle, I must admit I am now wondering whether WebQuests are worth worrying about in their "official" form. With all due respect to the pioneering work of Bernie Dodge and Tom March, I now have the impression that WebQuests are perhaps a quaint artefact from the early days of the internet.
It is clear to me that a WebQuest is/was more a process than anything else, and that Moodle as it stands is already a superior tool for constructing the kinds of learning experiences that WebQuests aspired to be.
With due respect to its developer, PhpWebQuest appears to be an example of what can go wrong when a good idea becomes rigidly codified. My criticisms are not with the quality of the code or presentation, but with the formulaic underlying pedagogy.
Some of the sample webquests on the PhpWebQuest site are truly appalling from a pedagogical perspective. This doesn't reflect badly on the developers of the WebQuest idea or the developer of PhpWebQuest, but does show what can go wrong when a good idea becomes an educational fad. The sample WebQuests of a religious nature (in Spanish), where the conclusions are provided for the user to swallow without question, are particularly bad in my humble opinion. But maybe that's the nature of dogmatic religion more than anything else ...
I'm kinda thinking aloud here, but maybe this is why the WebQuest module never really took off ... Moodle itself is already "on the next level" and has made WebQuests somewhat obsolete?
Yes and no: in the beginning a Webquest was a clever set of fill-in webpages to put your classroom activity online. The inspiration was to send students on a discovery trip over the waves of WWW. Using this as a formula or a trick can kill the best ideas: I have seen awfull examples of that in Moodle too..
Bernie Dodge and Tom March did not stop with the templates, but developed ideas about the different roles students must fulfill to finish a succesfull project and also other aspects: they even disagreed about the direction the next generation Webquest should move.
Trying to implement these roles in a Moodle module failed, but when we have roles it will revive, I think..
We even could (now) try to make a combination of a new course format for a webquest with groups as roles, mmm