Webquests

I actually enjoyed looking through these webquests. I'm glad this is one of our class topics, because I'm wanting to investigate further what these entail. I found one that I thought could be useful for my jrhi science class, so they'll be trying it out later on this week. I get so hung up on using their laptop for "educational purposes", so hopefully this will help my students understand what is meant by "it's a tool, not a toy". Anyway, I picked the middle school webquest, because I was curious what reading level they'd be in. Of the five I webquests I checked, I picked two that I liked and disliked. I liked the one on "Bowhead Whale Hunting". Number 1-it's relevancy to my students' lives is right on-at least to boys-hunting! I liked the two perspectives used also-to show that there are two sides to everything. I liked the life science aspect of the webquest also. I'm teaching JrHi science so this relates to me too. The directions are short and to the point-not so convoluted with too many words. Art is included too-and the research side of the webquest I like too because the JrHi and High School writing classes have a research papers to do so this could integrate with other classes as well. The weakness I noted was the high vocabulary-my kids would have difficulty understanding the text, and it would require lots and lots and LOTS of reading! The other webquest, "North Carolina Zoo Breakout", I did not like. Not so related to us! Immediately, I was turned off by too many links and too much information. Too long and too much to do-I think this would require a logistical work and lots of recordkeeping. Other than that, I thought it was well organized, and could be used for kids that are advance academically. Overall, pouring through these would require lots of personal time...