Week 6: Webquest 1

What?
This week, we started learning about how to create a webquest. These are a way of giving students a kind of assignment that lets them explore through technology and a wide range of resources. We are currently focusing on the design of the lesson, including aspects such as introduction, tasks, processes, resources, and conclusions, then will continue next week to incorporate additional features, including PowerPoint. Webquests are a fun and organized way to provide your students with a lot of useful information and incorporate technology to engage students more.


So What?
When students are given learning activities such as webquests, it adds a different level to their learning. They can effectively be used in any content area and helps to mix up the every day, same kind of assignments that many students so easily get bored with. Webquests can easily incorporate all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy and include so many different projects and activities. As students are given these kind of assignments that are challenging, yet supply such helpful resources and organized steps, they will learn and remember more, be more engaged, and be able to use both lower and higher order thinking skills. Technology is wonderful to use for these purposes.


Now What?
I like the idea of using webquests in my classroom. I look forward to finding some good resources and websites on Deaf culture, and let my students more thoroughly explore a culture that is different from their own. Teaching Deaf history would be much more fun with this kind of technology use. Webquests would work in my classroom not only for culture and history, but for receptive and comprehensive ASL skills as well. I can give students links to different signers, so that they can be exposed to a richer variety of signing styles. They would even be able to see different signs, or slang, used in different states that are not seen here in Utah. I am excited to be able to use webquests to add variety, fun, and more technology use in my classroom.



Video: 3 Steps
Competition, Cooperation, and Collaboration are three things our students need to learn and succeed in the 21st century. We should do our best to teach them these three principles. One thing teachers can do is make the classroom a creative place. We can also introduce them to their "global peers" and let them collaborate. There are so many great networking tools to help us do this. If we can make things individual and personal to students, they can then have effective collaboration and learning. I think these "3 C's" fit together so nicely. If they can compete with themselves, it will give them the motivation it takes to successfully compete with others in the work force later in live. Without good cooperation and collaboration skills, they will lack what it takes to work and interact with others. These are crucial skills to have in order to succeed in school, work, and life. Loved the video!