Lesson 6 in Review

Lesson six was about WebQuests and how to use them in the classroom. This weeks assignment was to create a WebQuest of our own on any educational topic.  I designed my WebQuest to allow students to explore the continents, other countries, and get an idea of someone elses culture.  I think it's very important for students to be exposed to other cultures.  It is also important for students to read a map and be able to identify countries and continents on a map, which was the sole purpose of this WebQuest.

This WebQuest also allows them the chance to work on presentation skills and collaboration skills. The students work in groups to research an assigned continent, then create a group presentation. This WebQuest allows the class as a whole to practice their writing and illustration skills by creating a book about the countries they studied.

The link to the WebQuest is listed below.

Countries and Continents WebQuest link

What's so hard about creating a WebQuest? 

Well, for me coming up with a topic was what I found to be the hardest part of creating the WebQuest.  I love to travel, and this led me to creating a WebQuest where students study the 7 continents, and a country of their choice. They must work in a group setting to study their assigned continent, then they break off individually to study a country.  With their country study they must create an oral presentation, draw their country's flag, and create a page for the Class Country Book which will be shared with the rest of the fourth grade team.  (I am not in a classroom right now, and have only worked as an assistant this year, so this is a WebQuest designed for a future classroom).

What issues might you face when creating a WebQuest?

I had issues with my documents wanting to not upload properly to attach to my WebQuest, but after several attempts, they finally loaded.  Also, I had issues with my rubric not fitting to the page width correctly, and attempted to fix it several times, and with each attempt it got worse.  After attempting it the last time it looked better but still didn't look completely correct, but was left the way it was. 

These were the problems I ran into when creating a WebQuest, but overall the experience was good. This was the first WebQuest I have ever created and I can see this being a great resource for my classroom in the future. I will design more WebQuests in the future, hopefully with greater ease each time.  I think coming up with a topic will become easier when I'm in a classroom of my own.

You can design your own WebQuest by visiting the site Quest Garden.  Enjoy and have fun creating your own WebQuests.