So far today, I attempted to redirect Noah to play with his National Geographic jeep, ranger, and animals only to boot up my archaic laptop more than four times because he unplugged it while yelling, "No, Mama. Mama play! Mama play trucks. I watch owl movie. No Mama. No homework.", saved my American Constitutional Foundations text from a full mug of steaming hot coffee that he dumped on it, and settled my frightened Huskador after she endured the wrath of an energetic 25 month old that apparently wanted to ride her like a pony. After all of the craziness, I finally scoured the WebQuest link for something relatively useful. Um, I am fairly sure out of the 70 pages of K2 Social Studies webquests, there are a handful of legitimately worthy webquests. The remainder are ridiculous and I would never use them in a classroom...
1. The introduction reading level is lower than most of the webquests I viewed and I find that this is a strength as I searched K2 Social Studies webquests that generated some results with disproportionately high reading levels (beyond middle school!?) If the webquest is a student-centered activity, I question the appropriateness of writing the activity at a different level than that of the intended audience. Unfortunately, if I am targeting language as a strength, I might as well also target it as a negative attribute as well. I found a few grammatical errors and redundant statements that may cloud the clarity of the instructions, including, "Today as we travel through the lands, all of you will discover rivers, lands, mountains, and a fun adventure. There might be some pictures, and activities that everyone can participate in. Although we live in a big world, this site will cover only a small portion of what you all will be learning and exploring." I would prefer a different statement that really engaged the learners, maybe through a "you are driving across the country on an adventure during which you will discover mountains, rivers, prairies, etc"
2. Immediately, I noticed that the webquest originally stated the target area of the entire United States but the task page detailed that only the Western States would be mastered by the end of the task. Furthermore, although an image of these states is posted on the page, it lacks the components of a map that I imagine would be required for the learners to include on their finished products. Again, there is a lack of clarity in what the students should acquire by the end of the lesson. I could not identify positive attributes of this specific page besides the neat compass visual.
3. The Process page indicates a timeline that will aid learners in completely tasks within the range. Overall, I feel that the creator of the page attempted to level the writing to K2 but rather than simplifying language, the author skewed the information provided to students.
4. Resources are limited to three sites and although the teacher indicated that the learners would receive all of the knowledge previous to the webquest, the learners are not informed of how they will receive this knowledge. I would perhaps include "through reading our textbook Chapter X, Section X, we will learn the cardinal directions, what a major landmark is, etc." Or video that is found online, etc. Three sites seems rather limited in scope--there are plenty of resources that the students could explore especially given the two weeks they have for the assignment.
5. The rubric page actually is well-done. I think that each learner could effectively know what is demanded of him/her after reading the rubric page rather than the process page! My only concern is that the author suggested the power of working together as a group but I do not see the measure of participation on the rubric page.
6. The conclusion offered a section for recommended changes and perhaps what the learners struggled with during the assignment. I like this aspect of the webquest since it is an activity, as indicated in our reading on 13 ed online, that may be used in the future and tweaked as needed, made more challenging each time, etc. Even if it is through a verbal discussion measure as the learners as K2 target audience, it could really positively shape the direction of the webquest.
In the end, I could definitely utilize the concept of this particular webquest but there is no way I would ever use it without heavy modification in my classroom. Perhaps I am just grumpy today or maybe I just really REALLY care about thoroughness in instruction but I honestly feel as though most of the webquests for Social Studies straight up sucked. I can foresee the validity of using an engaging, student-centered assignment such as the webquest but unless it is written well, it is a failure in integrating technology into the curriculum.
