Web Quest--One More Way to Jazz Up Learning

If your student or program is lucky enough to have access to a computer on the Internet, you may want to jazz up lessons by giving your student a webquest.  The term webquest was coined in 1995 as the Internet became more prevalent in adult learner classrooms.

Even if  you or  your student lacks the Internet at home, a learner may have a computer and be able to go online via wireless at the library or even at Mcdonalds.  Some learners may have a computer --but can't afford the monthly Internet charge.  On a smaller scale, a smart phone could be used to do the research.  It won't be so easy to write up on that small screen, but the phone can help find lots of interesting facts.

A webquest is a great way to learn issues to help them pass the GED while practicing their research and critical thinking skills.

More about webquests can be found at FloridaTechnet.

Here are some steps to include in your webquest.  It is important to start with a topics of high interest to an adult learner.  For example, global warming may be impacting an English Language Learner's home country.  If so, he could start researching this topics.  Is weather changing in his home country or in his home town in America?  Are diseases like malaria moving into places they have never been before (or not?) Is the water level rising?  Are temperatures changing --or not?.  A learner could go in and reserach these or other topics of interest.

.Here are specific steps:

A WebQuest is a lesson format defined as a lesson in which most or all of the information used by learners comes from the Web.

A WebQuest has the following parts:

• an introduction designed to engage interest and wirtten up in partnership between the tutor and student.  The tutor may want to do his own webquest while the student does his..
• a description of the task written up by the tutor— a statement of what the learners will have accomplished at the end of the lesson. Again, it is important that the impact be learner centered and of high interest to the student.
• the process,  which lays out how the task will be accomplished. Within the process are external links to information, learning advice, and other forms of scaffolding.  A tutor will need to do his own webquest first to be able to write up this advice.
• the evaluation, where the tutor and student talk about the webquest/what worked what didn't what was learned or not.
• a lesson plan, which contains implementation details and other information relevant to tutors interested in repeating or adapting the lesson.

 WebQuests can be a very effective tool for adult learners to practice skills and learn new information while gaining online research skills.  Some webquests might be completed in one sitting, but others will require some time for students to research as homework.  They can be a good way to expand on topics that you are discussing in your classroom.  Some parents might be able to do a quest with their child around a homework assignment.

After you have reviewed a few WebQuests, you and your student could work together to write one about a topic that interests both --maybe around the environment and ocean as a theme!