ELM 330

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Welcome to the wiki for ELM 330.

You will be using this wiki to share the results of your webquest group work. Already in your groups you have taken into account four different perspectives (efficiency expert, affiliator, altitudinist, technophile) and you should have arrived at a compromise consensus about your team's nominations for best and worst. Did you agree on what would be best for the learner?

One person in each group, the recorder, will now record the group's thoughts in the space below. Remember, your task as a group was to answer these questions:

Directions: To begin, click on edit. Make sure you save your work often. (You may want to write your "report" in a Word document first and then copy/paste it into the wiki.)

These are the webquests you evaluated:

Group 1: (Reporter: Elizabeth)

As a group, we agreed that the two best WebQuests were "Ancient Egypt" and "A Stitch in Time." In regards to "Ancient Egypt," we believed that WebQuest was visually appealing, was complete with interactive and interesting activities, and left us wanting to learn more about the subject. On the "Stitch in Time" WebQuest, we agreed that it was VERY detailed, creative, and had a number of useful links for the students. Both of these WebQuests seemed as if they would engage the students, and challenge their thinking. Additionally, these WebQuests allowed the students to work together towards developing a final product.

The two worst WebQuests in our opinion are the "Bowhead Whale Hunting" and the "North Carolina Zoo Breakout." As a group, we felt that the "Bowhead Whale Hunting" WebQuest was reduntant and boring. As we researched this WebQuest, we couldn't get the links to pull up, and we felt as if the graphics were boring. Also, there was TOO much reading! In regards to the "North Carolina Zoo Breakout," we felt like this WebQuest was extremely overwhelming, especially for younger students. It seemed as if the information was too vague.

When discussing the definition of "best" and "worst," it is evident that we all have individual perspectives on these ideas. However, it is obvious that the "best" WebQuest would be the one which included detailed graphics, color, and information. It would be easy to follow, and lead to a higher understanding of the topic. It is evident that the "worst" would NOT use detailed graphics, and lead the students to feeling overwhelmed.

Group 2: (Reporter: Casey) Our group thought that the best two Webquests were Meeting the Immigrants and Whale hunting.We thought these seemed to be the two "best" because they were very challenging for the students. Both of these webquests gave very good instructions on how to complete the assignment as well as provided a good source of internet websites that students can easily navigate. Both of these also allowed students to work in groups and learn from each other by completing the project together. Meeting the Immigrants, in our opinion, was the most challenging but looked like it would be most fun to learn about just by the way the webquest was designed.

The two "worst" were North Carolina Zoo and A Stitch in Time. When discussing A Stitch In Time, we thought that this project would not spark interest for the entire class. Quilting may not be what the boys would be most interested in learning. We didn't think that the Stitch in Time was very valuable because the students didn't have to do as much work or research for this project since it only required a 1-2 page summary or a chance for much higher level thinking. We thought that the Zoo webquest provided too much information and asked students to research too much information and didn't focus really on one specific topic. We believe that if the students were doing Webquests, they should be allowed to pick the ones they would like to do because this would create an opportunity for higher level thinking and would learn more if they are interested in the topic the choose to Webquest!

Group 3: (Reporter: Amanda) Our group decided that the best two were Whale Hunting and Ancient Eqypt. We thought that Whale Hunting challenged the students through a well organized process. The site gave many useful links for the children to use as a learning tool and allowed them to create their own questions and points of view. We thought that Ancient Eqypt was also one of the best because it allowed the students to make themselves the investigator. The webquest gave several levels of research and the children were able to learn about other cultures. The links on the website we thought were really cool and fun to go to!

The webquest we thought was the worse was A Stitch in Time and North Carolina Zoo Breakout. Both of these were not as visually appealing as the other webquest. They did not provide the children the opportunity to explore and extend their knowledge on a higher level. Zoo Breakout was not as organized as other webquest and although it had many links it was just to much information. A Stitch in Time did not allow the children to think outside of their box, it was filled with to many facts.

Group 4: (Reporter: Rebekah)

Our group decided that the best two webquests were the Bowhead Whale Hunting and A Stich in Time. We thought that they had nice use of pictures, easy to navigate, the primary questions were clear, and that they have to do with real world action. These two WebQuest seem to be topicsof interest as well as projects of interest. We could see the students easily getting involved in the assignments and having a lot of fun while learning.

We thought that worst webquest was the North Carolina Zoo Breakout. It was too vague and we felt that it did not give the students the informaiton needed to suceed in their assignments. It needs lots more pictures, is set up to be of an individual project than a group one, not enought informaiton given to work directly from the site.

Like group one, our group seemed to all have different opinions about what was the best and worst about the WebQuest in the different areas that we were looking at. They all seem to have had at least one strong area but still did not clearly give the objective or allow for creativity fom the student. In some cases we felt that the topic was not developed enough or that it would be a greati nterest to the students.

Group 5: (Reporter: Ashley) Our group decided the best two webquests were Whale Hunting and Meeting the Immigrants. We thought Whale Hunting allows for students to take a stance, analyze information, create multiple perspectives, provides many links, there is lots of useful information and not too much accompanied busy work, and there includes group work with individual roles where the class comes together to answer questions. We thought Meeting the Immigrants was another really good one because it helps students to think from someone else's persepctive, each member has a different role and then they come back together as a class, there are lots of bright colors, many pictures to make points, and it allows students to learn about different cultures and put their own input into it.

As far as the worst ones, we only had time to discuss one. The one we discussed was the NC Zoo Outbreak; we decided there was too much busy work that really did not accomplish much learning, the children could do everything by themselves (and not in a group atmosphere), there was not much creativity involved, and the website didn't have many colors.

Group 6: (Reporter: Audrey)

The two sites that we thought were the worst were A stitch in time and Ancient Egypt. Both of them were very factual and did not require a deep level of thinking. A stitch in time was very specific, but you don’t learn about a lot of things you learn about one specific thing. Neither of the exercises required much group work it was mainly independent assignments and responsibilities.

The two sites that were the best were Bowhead Whale Hunting and Meet the Immigrants. Both require a deeper level of thinking, not just learning the facts. They were both fun and had a way to draw kids in to want to do this assignment. They also promoted group work. The layout of the site was very well organized and for the work they had to put in did not seem like it would take up too much time.

To our group best means it met the entire criterion that we had to assess and what we were looking for. It also means the kids will get the most out of these sites that were the “best”. We think worst means that for everything we considered it met the least of our expectations out of all the choices. The students would not get as much out of the “worst” sites.