WebQuests

So this week in my instructional technology course we focused on WebQuests. If, like me, you were a K-12 student during or after 1995, you've probably heard this term before. I vaguely recall a teacher or two assigning me a WebQuest when I was in school, and I also remember learning about them in my one, single EdTech class in my teacher-licensure undergraduate program. Honestly though, I thought they had all but become extinct since the mid-aughts. They are, however, alive and well.

Evidently they have a single point of origin: Dr. Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University, February 1995. You can read more about that at WebQuest.org, the authoritative repository of all things WebQuest. If you look at QuestGarden, WebQuests for English class have been added as recently as today!

Some of the pros of WebQuests are that they are inquiry-based, allow for self-paced learning, incorporate digital technology, and harness the power of the Web in that they provide students with resources they wouldn't have access to otherwise.

My biggest complaint about WebQuests is surface-level...superficial. But I think that is why not every teacher is out there trying to incorporate WebQuests in every unit they teach. They haven't really been allowed to evolve since 1995.

There. I said it.

First, there's the term: "WebQuest." It probably wasn't the best to begin with, but now it's definitely so antiquated that even middle school students wouldn't be duped by it. (And yes, my clipart image in this post is ironic.)

Next, there's the templates. They, too, look like they were forgotten back in the '90s (check out this BGR article about 1990s webpages still hanging out on the internet). Remember that I said there was an English WebQuest put on QuestGarden today? Well, it uses the same old framed template from 1999. Admittedly, WebQuest.org does clarify that the "state of the art in web page design" was only state of the art "as it was in 1999 when the web page was written." Still, that this template is still in use is a travesty.

Like I said, my complaints are superficial, but I think that's what is keeping people from jumping on board. The idea of providing students with guided research on the web to deliver your subject content and have students produce something at the end is excellent. It forces them to grapple with the material, synthesize it, and use it to produce something new at the end.

Guided resources help students know where to look, but the onus is still on them to find information within that resource. This stops students relying on Yahoo Answers, or some other terrible result that would come up with a free-for-all Google search.

WebQuests belong in the same category as flipped classrooms, mobile learning, and gamification -- that is, cutting edge EdTech concepts. It's a shame that they aren't. We need to repackage them to become appealing once again, as they really are an excellent, inquiry-driven way of learning.