Webquest

Since some time ago, I'm interested in webquests as a format. The reason why was that I didn't know what they really were and I think that although this might not be preying on your mind, you could feel the same as regards its definition.

To make it short, its main characteristic is that the teacher provides his/her students with online resources to achieve a set task. The format is in some way similar to a website (this is my personal opinion). Some sites give you a kind of template for you to fill and the webquest is automatically produced, but I've found another one which is more appealing, at least for me and Brian, and with which we have been working for our third practical work.

Zunal.com is the name of the site. It is free to login and create as many webquests as you wish. It is also good that we could access to other users' webquests and in that way learn from their styles. As every webquest it has an introduction, task, process and evaluation section; you can also find a conclusion and teacher page section but those could be hidden.

In our webquest, we have hidden the latter sections. However, we have used the previous ones to develop the first lesson I delivered as part of my teaching practices at EET ner 324, in Monte Vera. Doing it was great because I learned a lot from both my planning and webquests as a source for teaching. However, I think that in order to use this students should have at least a computer per 2. 

Now I'm going to tell you a little bit about the lesson and the way we replaced some tools in the classroom for online ones.

Lesson and Webquest

• Introduce myself and yourselves

I used a very simple activity to do this. I introduced myself and after throwing a cloth-made ball to my studenets (after saying their names) they introduced themselves and told something about them.

For the webquest, we designed a Popplet. So the first box is mine and students have to 'popplet' from that box with their information. In a way, replacing the going and coming of the ball in the horseshoe arrangment we worked with.

• Sports - The Olympic Games introduction

By the first time students watch the advertisement of the Olympics, they didn't know we were going to work with that topic, but in the webquest it was necessary to advance that in the introduction section. Therefore, in the webquest they have to watch the video in order to find the hidden sports directly. 

And instead of writing their findings on the blackboard, Brian and I prepared a Linoit to replace it in the webquest, so every student would collaborate in that activity.

• Sharing our knowledge of the Olympics

For this activity I used a projector to show my students the Prezi presentation I had made. And by talking about that we completed a worksheet I gave them printed.

In order to use the same material on the webquest, what we did was to insert the link to the Prezi and to upload the worksheet to Google Drive. 

• Project presentation and homework

Finally in the lesson, I told them what we were going to work on during the lessons to come. We were to write an article about Argentinian olympic athletes' routines. That's why their homework was to get to know something about some athletes. This was also explained in the webquest as part of the 'evaluation' and the link was attached (of course, in the lesson I delivered I wrote it on the blackboard).