School Webquest

What Is A Webquest?

The webquest model was developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University in February, 1995 and is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. Teachers appreciate how WebQuests encourage students to make good use of the internet while fully engaging them in the learning process.

Webquests provide an inspiring, technology-rich environment for problem solving, information processing and collaboration. The webquest inquiry-based approach to learning involves students tackling wide range of activities that require making good use of internet-based resources.

According to Bernie Dodge:

The WebQuest model has been around since 1995 when I developed it for use in a course at San Diego State University. The goal then, and now, was to create lessons that make good use of the web, engage learners in applying higher level thinking to authentic problems, and use everyone's time well. Since that beginning, one of the ongoing challenges has been to make it faster and easier for teachers to do all these things. QuestGarden is the end result of those 14 years of effort.

Components Of A Webquest

The necessary and defining components of a webquest are:

• An interesting and achievable task that mirrors a task that an adult might do, albeit a scaled down version.
• The need to think more deeply than simply summarising information. It involves analysis, craetivity and problem solving.
• Good use of the online resources such as Wikipedia, news sites etc.

Often, teachers create webquests using Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint. It's up to you, though. As long as the finished article has the qualities listed above, it's a webquest.