The Student Web Quest By Maureen Brown Yoder K-12 teachers and administrators who are interested in using the Internet in a safe and productive way with students probably have heard at least a little about WebQuests. In this feature article, Maureen Yoder details the history and development of WebQuests and how to make the best use of them. One great way to address these concerns is to use WebQuests. Directly relevant to the curriculum and interesting and motivating to both teachers and students, they add spice to a lesson and direct a more responsible use of the Internet.
Students use current resources from authors who are often quite accessible.
Fortunately, the students usually become so busy with the task at hand that they have no time for indiscriminate Web surfing. Students were presented a scenario and a task, usually a problem to solve or a project to complete. The students were given Internet resources and asked to analyze and synthesize the information and come up with their own creative solutions. Over the next three years, teachers wrote their own WebQuests, and instructors began to teach WebQuests in their workshops and classes. Fortunately, this proliferation of curricular materials convinced many teachers that it was all right to publish their own WebQuests for others.