EDOL 533: WebQuests

Prior to this week, I had no experience with WebQuests. I had never completed a WebQuest as a student and hadn’t ever seen one. I think the hardest part about creating a Quest would be making sure that isn’t something you could normally do without using the Internet.

For me, the hardest part of creating my WebQuest was deciding on what I wanted the content to be, since I am not yet a teacher. I looked at dozens of examples of both well done and quickly put together Quests. I looked through them and tried to find examples that would help serve a cross-curricular purpose. The ones I found to fulfill this the best were the traveling Quests. I explored several Quests before starting on my own.

I decided to do a WebQuest where the students will plan a trip for a “Pen Pal from England”. The scenario is that they were planning a five day trip for their pen pal’s family of four to Kentucky. 

Screen shot from my WebQuest

The main goals of my WebQuest were three fold. One: Students research the counties in Kentucky that were approved (I limited the area they could have the trip be in, to lessen the overwhelming amount of options) to discover interesting and different activities and locations. This will help them to learn about their home state! It would also be a great way to learn about your county and the impact of tourism on the local economy.

The second goal was for them to maintain a travel budget for the trip of $2,000. In this scenario, the family had already paid for their travel to the US, but the students were responsible for allotting funds for activities, lodging, travel (such as a rental car) and food for the trip.

The final goal was for students to create a brochure marketing their trip to the family. This will help them to utilize and demonstrate an understanding of the principles of design while allowing them a creative outlet within the project.

These goals, focusing on social studies, economics, math, and art are all wrapped up in a fun and exciting project!

To visit my WebQuest, go here: Plan  your Pen Pal’s trip toKentucky.

Please let me know what you think!