Webquest Sample Project

Webquest: The Big Election

GahrWebQuest

Webquest: The Big Election-Rebric

A Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests

The WebQuest format can be applied to a variety of teaching situations. If you take advantage of all the possibilities inherent in the format, your students will have a rich and powerful experience. This rubric will help you pinpoint the ways in which your WebQuest isn't doing everything it could do. If a page seems to fall between categories, feel free to score it with in-between points.

	Beginning	Developing	Accomplished	Score
Overall Aesthetics (This refers to the WebQuest page itself, not the external resources linked to it.)
Overall Visual Appeal	0 points There are few or no graphic elements. No variation in layout or typography. OR Color is garish and/or typographic variations are overused and legibility suffers. Background interferes with the readability.	2 points Graphic elements sometimes, but not always, contribute to the understanding of concepts, ideas and relationships. There is some variation in type size, color, and layout.	4 points Appropriate and thematic graphic elements are used to make visual connections that contribute to the understanding of concepts, ideas and relationships. Differences in type size and/or color are used well and consistently.  See Fine Points Checklist.	2 points  There only a few graphics in the webquest. More would be better and could help better with a student's understanding.
Navigation & Flow	0 points Getting through the lesson is confusing and unconventional. Pages can't be found easily and/or the way back isn't clear.	2 points There are a few places where the learner can get lost and not know where to go next.	4 points Navigation is seamless. It is always clear to the learner what all the pieces are and how to get to them.	4 points    The process is well set up.  It is very straight forward.  Yes, on the surface it may look like each student will be completing their project in the same fashion, but in the long run they are required to make it their own.
Mechanical Aspects	0 points There are more than 5 broken links, misplaced or missing images, badly sized tables, misspellings and/or grammatical errors.	1 point There are some broken links, misplaced or missing images, badly sized tables, misspellings and/or grammatical errors.	2 points No mechanical problems noted.  See Fine Points Checklist.	2 points
Introduction
Motivational Effectiveness of Introduction	0 points The introduction is purely factual, with no appeal to relevance or social importance OR The scenario posed is transparently bogus and doesn't respect the media literacy of today's learners.	1 point The introduction relates somewhat to the learner's interests and/or describes a compelling question or problem.	2 points The introduction draws the reader into the lesson by relating to the learner's interests or goals and/or engagingly describing a compelling question or problem.	1 point The students may not particularly find this incredibly appealing especially if they don't like speaking in front of people.  However, if the students are interested in things going on in politics and the world, they will probably find this interesting.
Cognitive Effectiveness of the Introduction	0 points The introduction doesn't prepare the reader for what is to come, or build on what the learner already knows.	1 point The introduction makes some reference to learner's prior knowledge and previews to some extent what the lesson is about.	2 points The introduction builds on learner's prior knowledge and effectively prepares the learner by foreshadowing what the lesson is about.	2 points
Task (The task is the end result of student efforts... not the steps involved in getting there.)
Connection of Task to Standards	0 points The task is not related to standards.	2 point The task is referenced to standards but is not clearly connected to what students must know and be able to do to achieve proficiency of those standards.	4 points The task is referenced to standards and is clearly connected to what students must know and be able to do to achieve proficiency of those standards.	4 points  It's straight forward and easy to understand.  The students will know what is expected.
Cognitive Level of the Task	0 points Task requires simply comprehending or retelling of information found on web pages and answering factual questions.	3 points Task is doable but is limited in its significance to students' lives. The task requires analysis of information and/or putting together information from several sources.	6 points Task is doable and engaging, and elicits thinking that goes beyond rote comprehension. The task requires synthesis of multiple sources of information, and/or taking a position, and/or going beyond the data given and making a generalization or creative product. See WebQuest Taskonomy.	4 points  The task is doable and engaging.  It requires research, taking a position, and going on passed generalization.  Creativity is also required.
Process (The process is the step-by-step description of how students will accomplish the task.)
Clarity of Process	0 points Process is not clearly stated. Students would not know exactly what they were supposed to do just from reading this.	2 points Some directions are given, but there is missing information. Students might be confused.	4 points Every step is clearly stated. Most students would know exactly where they are at each step of the process and know what to do next.	4 points
Scaffolding of Process	0 points The process lacks strategies and organizational tools needed for students to gain the knowledge needed to complete the task. Activities are of little significance to one another and/or to the accomplishment of the task.	3 points Strategies and organizational tools embedded in the process are insufficient to ensure that all students will gain the knowledge needed to complete the task. Some of the activities do not relate specifically to the accomplishment of the task.	6 points The process provides students coming in at different entry levels with strategies and organizational tools to access and gain the knowledge needed to complete the task. Activities are clearly related and designed to take the students from basic knowledge to higher level thinking. Checks for understanding are built in to assess whether students are getting it. See: Process Guides A Taxonomy of Information Patterns Language Arts Standards and Technology WebQuest Enhancement Tools Reception, Transformation & Production Scaffolds	4 points
Richness of Process	0 points Few steps, no separate roles assigned.	1 points Some separate tasks or roles assigned. More complex activities required.	2 points Different roles are assigned to help students understand different perspectives and/or share responsibility in accomplishing the task.	0 points
Resources (Note: you should evaluate all resources linked to the page, even if they are in sections other than the Process block. Also note that books, video and other off-line resources can and should be used where appropriate.)
Relevance & Quantity of Resources	0 points Resources provided are not sufficient for students to accomplish the task. OR There are too many resources for learners to look at in a reasonable time.	2 point There is some connection between the resources and the information needed for students to accomplish the task. Some resources don't add anything new.	4 points There is a clear and meaningful connection between all the resources and the information needed for students to accomplish the task. Every resource carries its weight.	4 points
Quality of Resources	0 points Links are mundane. They lead to information that could be found in a classroom encyclopedia.	2 points Some links carry information not ordinarily found in a classroom.	4 points Links make excellent use of the Web's timeliness and colorfulness. Varied resources provide enough meaningful information for students to think deeply.	4 points Nice selection and useful.
Evaluation
Clarity of Evaluation Criteria	0 points Criteria for success are not described.	3 points Criteria for success are at least partially described.	6 points Criteria for success are clearly stated in the form of a rubric. Criteria include qualitative as well as quantitative descriptors. The evaluation instrument clearly measures what students must know and be able to do to accomplish the task. See Creating a Rubric.	3 points
Total Score

Things I would Change:

1.  Instead of everyone doing the same job and being a president, maybe more roles could be created (Speechwriter, etc.)

2.  I would add more graphics to the Webquest.
3. I think that a student evaluation would be kind of neat.

Webquest for Modification

The Big Election

WebQuest/High School/The Altitudinist

Your Impressions

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Gorillas	There are several why and how questions which will make the students think more than just recalling info.  I also like that students can research about different organizations.  Being that their conclusion should be how they would save gorillas is impressive.	Some of the questions are just factual, simple answers.  However, that's not as much of a bad thing since there are other questions that make you think.
Shakespeare	This one is very good.  There is a lot of creativeness in this WebQuest which will make students think and more likely to be interested.  I like that the word 'analyze' is sprinkled through out the WebQuest.  Being responsible for researching information and then presenting it through the way of a play/scrapbook/PowerPoint presentation/etc. is nice.  It gives the children a wide range of options but still requires them to do a fair amount of work.	Can't find any major ones.
Earthquake	This allows students to create something on their own and I'm sure most students would find this activity pretty fun.  Students work together in groups and are responsible for different tasks.	I understand the building requirements and that they are a vital part of the activity.  However, this may cause groups to be less creative and play it safe.  There's also the possibility that groups will produce very similar projects because of this.
Foreign Country	I really like the overall idea and it does have some positive aspects to it.  I like that the students are trying to convince people why their trips were the best.  Choosing where they would go and how they will present the information are good.  It's good that they have a choice when it comes to certain parts of the project.	The actual information presented on the trips may be plain and simple.  I would see Wikipedia being used by many students.
Waves & Sound	In the Task section it points out that you are supposed to logic and high level thinking.  The process of the assignment requires a lot of thinking.  The word describe and solve pop up quite a lot.  Very good.	It would probably get pretty boring pretty fast.  That may prevent better work being done on the assignment.

Double Journal Entry #15

1. What is the purpose of this chapter? The purpose is to, yet again, try to get the term "Digital Natives" away from being associated with kids. This chapter specifically has to do with decision making. 2. What is the major finding from a review of studies that have looked at technology adoption of young people?. Does this finding seem to reflect your own use of technology? It shows that more students than not aren't constantly adopting new forms of technology and that it takes time for them to adopt it. In a way, yes, it reflects me because I usually wait before I try something new. I wait to see what others think of it. 3. How do the authors define Information Literacy? "The set of skills and knowledge that allows us to find, evaluate, and use the info. we need, as well as to filter out the info. we don't need." 4. What is the "clear message" from a review of the studies focused on college students information seeking behavior? Do these findings relfect your own information seeking behaviors? It says that sometimes students may be efficient and persistent while researching. However, they often tend to get bored and frustrated whenever they can't find something quickly. I agree. 5. What does the term "satisfcing" in the area of decision making mean? It is a term that reflects acceptability. It concerns finding the best possible solution to a problem. Satisfying + Suffice 6. What are the differences to deep and surface level approaches to a learning task? Deep concerns looking into the meaning of some material. Surface level just involves the main concept and it doesn't go into the meaning. 7. What should educators aim to do to improve the scripts student have for sophisticated online information seeking? Educators should train students to do better research and how to do it efficiently. 8. Why is Google's page rank system problematic for information seeking? They are satisfcied when it comes to google info. An example is Wikipedia. 9. Are you "digitally wise" when it comes to information seeking? Give an example of how you approached an information seeking task for one of your academic courses this semester (do not include this class). I am digitally wise. I haven't really had to do much research this semester in my other classes. However, it is important to check the info. you find and make sure it is valid. 10. Has the popularity of the Internet and the information contained on the Web created a new problem for undergraduate students research skills? Why of Why not? Yes, mainly because there is so much more to do on the internet that is fun. Students would much rather be anywhere else than researching.

Thanksgiving

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