Friday, July 27, 2012

Webquest Evaluation


War Against Extinction Webquest Evaluation

This evaluation was completed by me, Marc Schulz, for the purpose of demonstrating my understanding of the key elements for creating a successful webquest. The criteria that I will use for this evaluation include TPaCK standards and elements of a Webquest; Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation Criteria, Conclusion, Teacher Page and Resource Page.

The webquest is titled War Against Extinction and was created by Jerry Kousen of Hobart High School, Hobart ,IN.

Here is a screenshot that describes the purpose and who the webquest was designed for:
In regards to elements, this webquest is well put together, Mr Kousen has created an easy to follow outline. The screenshots below are evidence of the elements:

The Task is clear and provides an audience (fictitious) and student choice. To improve upon this Mr. Kousen could have contacted a local EPA department to serve as judges for best or most creative ideas.
The process is easy to follow, and students are encouraged to put forth extra effort. The evaluation page is setup much like a self assessment checklist and includes a requirement for the students to create a solution that goes beyond just collecting information. This allows for deeper inquiry, creativity, and ownership.

The remaining elements of a webquest are evident in this screenshot, look for the blue font:
Mr Kousen provides links under resources, search engines, and definitions to key vocabulary.
The War Against Extinction checks all the boxes when looking at elements of a webquest. But I believe it falls short of meeting TPaCK standards.

Content: There is scaffolding provided for key terms and resources but it assumes some background understanding of Interdependence (how organism affect one another).

Pedagogy - There is a nice mixture of deductive learning (answering direct questions through research) and inquiry through student choice of topic and solution. It also provides a problem that needs to be solved with an audience. However it seems like the audience is fictitious in the sense that the students will never really present to the EPA. This may minimize the quality of the final product.

Technology - This is the weakest section of this webquest. It using the Internet only for research and possibly a presentation. But does not use it for collaboration in and out of the classroom, nor does it suggest creation of more exciting final products: creation of a blog or wiki, an online campaign to save one of the species, etc.

The technology resources or website links are not very effective. Many are broken and those that do work tend to take you to sites that may be overwhelming in regards to the information.

In conclusion the framework of this webquest is strong and I am sure when it was first made that it provided a nice learning experience. With some new updates to the resources and perhaps a stronger focus on the technology components (focusing on the ISTE’s NETS-S) this webquest could become a “great” learning experience.




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