Last year as part of my SOSE assignment I was required to create a Webquest. The making of a webquest takes on many responsibilities from the content of the material, the setting out of the information and the technical side of making the webquest. Once I and my partner got more involved in the process the task became easier and enjoyable.
One advantage to the implementation of a Webquest would be having all the unit information in one place students. Students would work at a self-regulatory pace to complete each section of the quest.
A disadvantage to the webquest would be the lack of interaction with other students and the Learning Manager.
A risk of the webquest would be the possibility of not covering all of the curriculum requirements for that unit. This would be a time consuming project for any pedagogue but if done well could reap many rewards in the engagement of students and the achievement of results.
Our students the 'digital immgrants' would find a webquest easy to navigate and investigate as they are already used to engaging in multiple websites online. A digital immigrant such as myself would print off every page of the webquest so that I had it down on paper which in reality would defeat the purpose of a webquest.
Looking at the framework of a webquest it follows the principle of the engagement theory as explained by Kearsley & Shneiderman (1999). A webquest requires the student to engage in active cognitive processes including creating, problem-solving, reasoning, decision-making, and evalauting (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999).
References
Kearsley, G & Shneiderman, B., 1999, Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning, http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm viewed 20th August, 2009.Dodge, B., 2007, Webquest.org, http://www.webquest.org/index.php, viewed 2oth August, 2009.
Prensky, M., 2001, On the horizon, Digital natives digital immigrants, University press.
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