Using Webquests

What is a webquest?
The Advantage of Making Your Own
Designing a Webquest without HTML

Links to Webquests
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What is a webquest?

A webquest is an inquiry-oriented activity. The student gets most or all of his/her information from the Web. The teacher provides the links to the websites, books, and other materials, allowing the student to focus on the use of the material rather than the search for information. Webquests, if designed correctly, can encourage the higher level thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. They are especially appropriate for use with science and social studies topics.

The webquest model was developed by Bernie Dodge with Tom March at San Diego State University. If you want to know more about designing webquests, you can get advice from the experts at The WebQuest Page which is included in the links below.

The Advantage of Making Your Own

It is possible to find webquests designed by other teachers. Just put the word "webquest" in a search engine. You will also find links to webquests at many other sites, some of which I have included in the links below. However, these webquests may have some problems.

Some of the links will be dead. The Web is constantly changing. Web pages get modified, moved, or deleted. Unless the designer of the webquest frequently checks for and corrects dead links, they will be there.
The webquest may not quite fit your curriculum.
The webquest may be poorly designed. Many of the webquests I have seen have been done as assignments for classes. Just placing it is on the Web doesn't make it of high quality.

So to have a webquest that works, fits your curriculum, and meets your high standards, you may have to design it yourself.

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Designing a Webquest without HTML

Most people think that they must know HTML or how to use an HTML editor like FrontPage to be able to create a webquest. But it is not necessary unless you plan to put the webquest on the Web or your school's intranet. Webquests can be done with any software that can insert hyperlinks into the text. The ones that come to mind are PowerPoint and Hyperstudio with which most teachers have some experience. PowerPoint and Hyperstudio allow you to use the colorful backgrounds, clipart, and photographs that you find on most webquests.

Whether you do your webquest in PowerPoint, Hyperstudio, or HTML, you can save your webquest to a floppy disk or to the hard drive of a computer that has an Internet connection. Open the Internet connection and the webquest. The student can click on the hyperlinks just like they would from a web page.

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Links to Webquests

The WebQuest Page: As mentioned above, this is the website of the creator of webquests. You can learn everything you need to know about designing a good webquest at this site. There are also links to many good examples of webquests.
Bat Quest : In Search of Stellaluna: This webquest was designed for second and third graders.
WebQuest Locator: A database for searching for a webquest by subject area.