Strengths and Weaknesses of Civil War Webquest

 http://questgarden.com/99/92/4/100401133756/index.htm


              1. Introduction. 

1. Strength: gives an exciting scenario of time travel as well as background on the Civil War being the 1^st “media war”
2. Weakness: The role given to students is that of journalists, but beyond that there are few details…they have no specific task, not does it they say whether they are from the north or south.

2. A task that is doable and interesting. 
1. Strength: There are diverse roles that will allow kids working in groups of four to choose something that they are good at.
2. Weakness: The intro to the tasks only highlights one job.  It makes that one sound much more important than the others…as a teacher I know this can lead to slack off in other positions.

3. A process (do learners know what to do and when?). 
1. Strength: Instructions and requirements broken down into 3 processes with different addable due date blanks.
2. Weakness: Instructions may be too detailed and lengthy, it was easy to get bogged down by the paragraph of intro for each process before even getting to the bulleted to do list.

4. Evaluation. 
1. Strength: The rubric covers all essential aspects of the newspaper, so each members contribution is evaluated. 
2. Weakness: This is a LOT of work for only 30 points, and the group is given one grade. 

5. A conclusion that brings closure to the quest, reminds the learners about what they've learned...Overall thoughts.
1. Strength: The conclusion offers a trip to a Civil War Museum which would be a great reward for the hard work
2. Weakness: Not all classes have a Civil War Museum nearby, and the final reflection is a 250-300 word essay on their experience during the webquest.  I would prefer a more historically focused conclusion on what they learned. 

And, lastly:

6. Is this a webquest you think you could use without modification in your classroom (not for the project in this class -- that should be your own creation)? What might you have to change?
1. I would need to modify this web quest some. 
2. Strength: There are great pictures that hopefully would interest students
3. Weakness: The links provided are all from websites that support a very “Southern Perspective” on the civil war. 

Strengths and Weaknesses of Webquests

To truly evaluate webquests I think I need to look at them from the perspective of both a student and a teacher, however, the strengths and weaknesses for each perspective do tend to overlap. 

As a student I think the greatest strength of a webquest is that if created well it is more interesting and motivating than other class activities.  Because of webquests multifaceted nature they also gives students with different learning styles a chance to showcase their particular talents.  As a student webquests also make research easier because their is less to "wade" though when you have previewed and pre-linked websites available.  Strengths from a teacher's perspective is the amount of engagement on behalf of many students. I guess most people would call it active learning.  I think this is invaluable. 

I perceive the weakness to be the same for students and teachers.  Being side-tracked by something like advertisements or videos on the website seems to be inevitable for some students.  As a teacher who has given webquests to students working in groups of 2-3, I have found that students can incorrectly divvy up the workload or waste lots of time hanging out.  The final weakness from a teaching perspective is the amount of time it takes to create a meaningful webquest and grade the final product.  I made one for my US History class concerning the Causes of the Civil War. I was hoping to impress my visiting principal, which I did, but at the cost of a lot time grading the new project. 

Publish Post

Nothin but NETS

Design A Website that meets Accessibility requirements. (1,5)

I currently have a Moodle site that I created and maintain for daily interaction with students.  I often start my World Cultures class with a question about how World News.  I then have students login to moodle where I have a Current Events Forum where I have linked BBC and CNN articles concerning the topics/locations we are studying that day in class.  (India, Outsourcing)   I post questions concerning the article and have students answer them in the forum. 

another post that I couldn't resist commenting on

To view my comments on what technology I would buy with $2,000 click HERE!

PS Let me know if  the blog owner "approved" me....hopefully he did!

Free Technology for Teachers

Please check out my blog comment #2 HERE.