To go along with our WebQuest assignment for the week, I wanted to go into some detail about my thoughts and experiences building a WebQuest. Our textbook says that "In a WebQuest, students follow an electronic map or tour, moving from Web resource to Web resource to gather information and learn about a particular topic" (Maloy). I think that this is a nice description, but I would have defined a WebQuest as more of an investment made by teachers to carefully describe an experience that they want a student to have. I really enjoyed making my first WebQuest and I found myself thinking of it as just that - an investment I was making into something that I wanted my students to experience. I wanted them to share with me a bit of literary knowledge that I had come across not too long ago. I wanted to make philosophical leaps and bounds with them, hear what their ideas and explanations for things were and see if they were similar to mine or if they would see something I had missed. I think that a WebQuest is an opportunity, if done right, for a teacher to learn something from his/her students in return for the time spent designing it. I also really enjoy how easy it was to add links and images and videos into the template that I used. I think that, like the textbook tells us, there is a ton of room for creativity and for learning valuable internet skills when working with this kind of tool. When I was creating my WebQuest, I did feel as though I was crafting a sort of research project, but I was able to give it a unique spin and allow for the students to step into a more free-thinking role rather than just read some boring pages or listen to some repetitious lecture. I think that WebQuests can certainly motivate a student to enjoy what they are learning because they have a lot more freedom than they would when just writing a research paper. I am excited to consider all of the possibilities that exist for the subject area that I want to teach. I can already think of a hundred different WebQuests that are well suited for a Language Arts class that do not involve lengthy papers or dull homework. I also really enjoy the fact that a WebQuest has a certain freedom to it as far as time constraints. Information that I feel is relevant or helpful to a student can be loaded onto the pages and I will not have to use up valuable class time going over all of the material. Instead, I will have the freedom to use my class time to answer questions and relieve concerns, or to assist students who are not yet comfortable with writing. I think that this is the biggest reward of having lessons like this available to modern teachers. We can use our time to teach!
The third and final section of chapter 6 that I want to cover this week is Real-Time and Recorded Data websites. Although this topic is only given a small section in our chapter (a paragraph really), it is a huge passion of mine. I spend a great deal of my time (when online) acting as a "remote observer". What I mean to say is that I love webcams that show nature in real time such as the links below:
Bruce's Critter-Cam
Decorah Eagle Camera
NASA Spot the Station
I was addicted to watching Ozzy the eagle in real-time, but I was surprised (and pleased) to learn that my son's 3rd grade class was watching a real-time camera of an eagle's nest. The class was anxiously awaiting the hatching of two eagle chicks! Almost every day, until the chicks hatched, my son would try to guess when they would come out of their eggs. It really peaked his interest in nature (which is hard to do for some kids!). After the chicks were born, his class continued to watch as the parent eagles nurtured their hatchlings, bringing them food and caring for them. He was very excited to tell me about the baby eagles' day - sometimes more excited about them than he was to tell me about HIS day!
I have learned that there are many real-time cameras available on the web and that when a teacher needs to excite a student on a particular subject, these sites can really do the trick.
Here is a great Real-Time Cam that I like to show my kids every few days. Enjoy!
undermicroscope on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free
Resources:
Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2011). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.
Love that you have found value in both social bookmarking tool, Delicious, and WebQuests, too. The great benefit of WebQuests (if done correctly) is that they are so inquiry-based. So many teachers struggle with the inquiry lesson planning - even if they don't want to put the effort and time into creating their own, there are so many good ones out there. :) Very creative comic strip, too!
ReplyDeleteWebcams - How fun! I participated in a virtual field trip last week to the arctic region and they have a webcam on the polar bears. http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/saveourseaice - there are so many of them out there! What a great opportunity for learning.