Ed Tech Connection

Bernie Dodge, presenter 

Blog Tag: n07s255

We began by re-organizing into k-12 or higher ed groups.  I sat with some of the higher ed folks.  Below is a summary of our discussion, followed by notes about what Bernie presented for the last part of the session, and finally the notes about our questions and answers as a whole group that ended the session.

My Group’s Discussion

• Lack of technology access – teachers and students – time consuming
• WebQuests in a wiki-like environment where we can revise, change, make a new version
• A company that did “quests” a few years ago that did America quest, Africa quest, etc.
• WebQuests are as successful with Kinders as seniors in high school
• Having students create WebQuests in QuestGarden has really helped
• Put the rubric at the beginning of the process not at the end.
• Recipes for Success has a rubric maker and automatically creates a checklist from that rubric
• Using WebQuests for adults – WebQuest about WebQuest is a good example
• Teachers collaborating – their content and my WebQuest – interdisciplinary where teachers work together so don’t have all the work as individuals
• Definition has gotten better – fewer scavenger hunts/web worksheets and more quality genuine WebQuests
• Difficulty of teachers having an essential question that makes sense tying into a WebQuest – teachers want to do their “favorite activity” but the task they select doesn’t make sense for a WebQuest
• Emphasis of students on summative assessment not formative
• Assessing the point of the essential questions
• It takes a lot of good and bad examples to give students a sense of what works and doesn’t.
• The matrix is gone – Put it back!
• Thirteen Ed online for background information - 
  
• Best:  QuestGarden        A lot of teachers creating and using to integrate
• Worst:  The matrix is gone – Put it back! The Ratings    TIME        Lack of focus on summative assessment rather than Formative
• Good Ideas:  Using Understanding by Design to develop a WebQuest
• Questions for the Good of the Group:  Wiki-like interface

NEW WebQuest portal at webquest.org

• Main use of users is finding webquests
• New interface for finding WebQuests – the matrix will come back – but for now you can just see it as an actual matrix – if a link goes back, you can click on the envelope to send a message to Bernie and get it taken care of.
• Creating WebQuests – describes what a real WebQuest and links to a set of templates that are really well done for a traditional approach and a link to QuestGarden for creating in Bernie’s online tool. – by end of summer there will be a charge if it takes more than 30 days.  Subscription will allow you to take others, modify it and publish it as your own.  More new features in the fall
• Useful Resources has the old training materials as well as links to many resources that weren’t previously available in the training materials including a link to the ERIC items
• Community is for the WebQuest forum to post and get answers – it hasn’t been available for about a year when it was overtaken by spammers, but it will be coming back soon.  Also has a Tapped In Chat every couple of months.
• Research – links to Google Scholar articles, Dissertations, etc.
• News – blog

Whole Group Discussion

• Pedagogical thinking about web 2.0 tools as parts of WebQuests
• Not many examples yet, but more and more
• Dan McDowell – social studies – conflict between Pakistan and India – did their group writing work in a wiki
• Simulated diary of a time or place seems like a blog
• TeacherTube videos inbedded in WebQuests
• SecondLife – prototype of a WebQuest about immigration – then went into SecondLife to “sit around the campfire” and discussion immigrant from their avatars’ point of view
• Sloodle – a combination of SecondLife and Moodle – the threaded discussion to keep it all manageable and keep kids from getting lost

• What is the etiquette of adapting WebQuests that others have done?
• Resources – WebQuest Development – Bernie has a whole process to follow in doing so, including getting the author’s permission.  You do your best to try to find them and ask permission, but in Bernie’s opinion if you can’t find them, you do it anyway being sure to give attribution.
• How will this work within QuestGarden – there’s a checkbox at the end of QuestGarden to give this permission and 99/100 give that permission.

• One of the problems is having teachers (in classes) spend too much time on the graphics and not enough on the quality of the text.
• Did it in wiki to start and then put it on the web with pictures after it was written.

• What about kids creating Webquests?
• If you think a kid can create one, then there’s no professionalism to teaching – there’s a lot more to it than just creating a WebQuest than making a webpage. 
• The ones kids have made have been dreadful
• Kids need more support and the scaffolding isn’t there for it yet.
• Someone suggested you could do it effectively in a face-to-face, one-on-one situation

• WebQuests as a process as part of a 1:1 program – is there research on this?
• Don’t know specifically
• Bernie has done workshops in Irving, TX, which is a 1:1 district.
• He has also done presentations to middle school in Maine where they have 1:1

• Great experiences
• Group of librarians they wanted to use annually, and the teachers were all using it so the librarians could
• Bernie suggestions pairing up with librarians to do these
  

• Bad experiences
• Using a jigsaw with WebQuesting – do some collaborative training first.

• Questions
• Creating videos – legal issues with this?
• Posting, permission, cameras built into phones, etc.
• WebQuests with early primary grades
• Bernie thinks it has to be modified to such an extent for language limitations that it’s not possible – especially since they aren’t really for higher order thinking skills.  Bernie suggests other things on the Web might be a better choice.
• Ways to do it anyway:  Whole group with a projector, partner younger and older kids, 
• Having said that, he has seen a wonderful primary WebQuest on creating new coins for famous people.
• So once you get to middle and high school, where you can have a wide variety of readers and ability levels, how do you scaffold or differentiate them for a wide variety of learners
• Working with partners
• Match product to ability level
• Tiered scaffolded with a graphic organizer
• Tasks with multiple intelligences
• How do you see the structure changing given emerging technologies
• The structure won’t change at all.  The ideas will stay constant, but the tools and resources will change.
• Appearance, more multi-mediaish, maybe completely on YouTube or SecondLife. 
• An idea from Bernie
• Most people hit WebQuest.org for the database of existing projects.  He has changed the submission process so to avoid spammers, meaning now it’s moderated.
• There is a backlog of 1300 that he hasn’t had a chance to look at.
• Is in the process distinguishing between WQ, research projects or exercises that aren’t really WQ
• Everything has to be re-evaluated.  He’s putting it out for volunteers.  Needs screened raters – teachers who have created at least one and have been teaching for several years.
• Each would be rated by more than 1 person and anonymously
• Give comments – close the feedback loop.