Aim: for teachers to easily see if a particular
web quest is suitable for their class.
Our Team of Teacher Reviewers describes each webquest by the following questions as
guidelines:
Does it have the six main components of a webquest? ie.
introduction, task, process, resources, evaluation and
conclusion
Who is it made for? Year Group and Subject Area - Key
Learning Area (KLA)
Reading level/complexity: is the reading level or complexity
suitable for the students it is intended for.
When was it made?
What are the Pre-requisites?
What prior learning is required?
Is the topic relevant and interesting to students? Is it
quirky? Allows students to investigate different points of view?
Is this topic and content suitable to the targetted Year
group?
What are the tasks? (this is the most important aspect
of a webquest)
Is it just a "find and tell", therefore only a
research assignment? If this is so, it cannot get a rating above 2.5 out of 5! (as the
rating is based on higher order thinking skills - evaluation, analysis and synthesis Bloom's
Taxonomy)
Are there roles that students have to investigate a
particular issue in eg. If there is a webquest on Whales the roles could be: a New
Zealander who is interested in protecting the environment, a Japanese eater of whale meat,
an Australian Government official interested in protecting the waters around the Antarctic
and an official from the United Nations investigating the dispute.
What tasks do these roles have to undertake? Are higher order thinking skills
required? To what extent?
Are the tasks interesting, relevant, require higher order
thinking skills?
Are the tasks inclusive?
What product do the students have to produce? Are higher
order thinking skills required? To what extent?
Are there adequate and appropriate web resources?
Are there any other resources listed?
Are the links broken? Majority? Some?
Is there real world feedback?
Does the graphic design (if any) help the students
understanding of the webquest?
Is the navigation around the site simple and easy to follow?
As many rich key words describing the webquest as possible
to aid in searching
Form used by WebQuest Direct Team to review webquests
These
six elements or components are vital to the foundation of a webquest:
An introduction that draws the learners attention to the
topic and inspires them into action.
A task that is drawn from the introduction and sets out
the goal.
A description of the Process the learners should go
through in accomplishing the task.
Resources that are necessary for the task, most of which
will be Internet resources.
A conclusion that brings closure to the quest, addresses
the task, and maybe challenges the learner to act upon what they have achieved.
The assessment and rubric should show students what is
expected of them and the grading process. Some will only show % others will show outcomes.
