Introduction
Hello Earth Science students! Welcome to my brand new Webquest!
You will be embarking on a remarkable, collaborative journey of discovery as you work together to complete an awesome (and permament) webquest for future students to enjoy! This purpose of this webquest is to provide the parameters needed for you and your team to finish and publish a professional-looking webquest.
You'll need to click on the "task" button to understand what you and your team will be doing.
Task
During the fifth week of this course, I will post a document with email addresses (and names) of groups of five people. You will find this document under the "Semester Project" button under Blackboard. One of the names in the list of 5 people will have an * next to their name... they will be project manager/team leader. [more on their role later]
I will also post a schedule for completion of your webquest by your team(s). The project managers will need to check in with me during certain checkpoint dates in order to stay "on track" with the time table.
At the end of the semester, each team will have created their own webquest based on whichever topic from Earth Science they chose. In determining the topic of your webquest, you should discuss which age group you would like to target. Suggested ranges: K - 3; 4 - 6; 7 - 8; or high school.
The best advice that I can offer is to "keep it simple". You and your team are going to have to put some thought into what topic you want to cover and you're going to have to do your part... but you don't have to make it overly complicated. Make it crisp and clean and you should be on your way to a well-designed webquest that is both fun and educational for all.
Click on the "Process" button to learn how to create your own webquest.
Process
Following the webquest schedule, you and your team will need to work together to complete this webquest. After you have determined who is on your team and who is the designated team leader, you will each need to find out some basic information regarding webquests.
Click on the following links to learn more about webquests.
1. https://www.createwebquest.com/what-is-a-webquest
2. http://kidsactivities.about.com/od/HomeSchoolConnection/a/What-Is-A-Webquest.htm
3. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index.html
Here is a really good webquest created by a school: http://pwp.franklincollege.edu/ABOWLES/Earth%20Science%20WebQuest.html
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After you have determined what a webquest is, the team leader must coordinate with you in some way and assign sections for you to complete. Since there are 5 members of a team and usually 5 sections, each person will be responsible for completing their respective section. There are many ways in which the duties can be "handed out" but one way would be to assign sections alphabetically. For example, if Allison, Jane is one name... then she would do the 'Introduction' section. The next name would do the 'Task' section, and so forth.
Before any of this is done, you all have to decide (as a team) which topic in Earth Science you would like to focus on for your webquest. Click the following link for some possible suggestions for topics in Earth Science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_earth_science
http://middleschoolscience.com/earth-science/
http://www.mytopdozen.com/Best_Earth_Science_Topics.html
After some email collaboration, let's say that your team has finally selected a topic for your webquest. For example, perhaps you want to do a specific webquest regarding the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Phillipines in 1991. Your topic can be this specific or it can be more general. Nevertheless, the team leader must coordinate with me to make sure that it is ok.
Once approval has been given, you will then each work on your respective sections to complete work on the webquest. This webquest (the one that you're reading that I have done for you) is acting as a rough template for what you are supposed to do.
The team leader needs to create an account with this website (https://www.createwebquest.com) and then share with the group, including sharing account login information. You can then create your own sections here (as I have done) and everyone has access to their respective section.
Of course, some sections have to be [probably] be completed before others. Here are the sections that most webquests will have:
1. Introduction
2. Task
3. Process
4. Evaluation
5. Conclusion
Each one of these sections... one person will be responsible for completing, with a team leader overseeing all sections. But, of course, the team leader will complete a section as well (preferably the conclusion section but the team leader can decide).
Again, follow the schedule for completion of this webquest. Your team's webquest will be due on the Friday before the last week of school. That will give me the weekend to compile the web addresses where your webquest is found. Each team will be responsible for evaluating each other's webquest using the evaluation schema that I will create in the "Evaluation" section.
If you have any questions regarding these instructions, you can always email me and ask.
Click on the "Evaluation" button to find how out how your webquests will be graded.
Evaluation
Evaluation Rubric
|
|
Excellent (25 pts) |
Good (20 pts) |
Fair (10 pts) |
Poor (5 pts) |
|
Communication Skills |
Students have effectively communicated with each other to create a really good webquest. |
Students have mostly communicated well in order to create a successful webquest. |
Some students have not communicated with each other as well as they should. |
Communication between students was very poorly executed and the webquest is not good. |
|
Critical Thinking |
The webquest was methodically thought out and very well executed. Each component is intact and complete. Clean. |
Many sections are very well done but some sections are lacking content and/or value. |
Most sections were not well thought-out and are of a poor design. |
The webquest is really too simplistic and absolutely no planning was done with its completion. |
|
Empirical/Quantitative |
There are sections where numbers and calculations were used in determining goals and objectives. |
Some numbers were used in a few sections but not for “data gathering” purposes. |
Only a couple of numbers were listed or mentioned in the webquest. |
There are absolutely no numbers of any kind used in any parts of the webquest. |
|
Teamwork Skills |
All members of the group worked together as a whole to accomplish the completion of the webquest. |
Even though many members worked well, some members did not. Teamwork not as complete as it could be. |
Only a few members of the group worked together; the rest did not do substantial work to complete the objectives. |
All members worked individually and independent of one another; no communication between members. |
This is the scoring rubric that teams will use in order to evaluate the other team's webquests. There are four categories, as you can see on the left. The maximum number of points per category is 25, for a total of approximately 100 points for the entire project. These points are both a group tally and an individual tally. In other words, as you evaluate a webquest, you're giving points for the team yet each individual will receive the number of points given to each team.
Of course, I retain the final judgement for webquests and final points earned for this project. This evaluation process will begin the Monday of the last week of regular classes (during the 16th week) and will be completed on the Friday of the last week of classes. Also during this week, you will need to begin to look over all materials for your final exam, to be scheduled sometime during the final exam week.
Please continue to the 'Conclusion' section in order to complete this webquest.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have successfully completed a webquest that will used by me (and future members of this online Earth Science course at San Jacinto College) to showcase the possibilites of good webquest design.
If you have any questions regarding anything shown on this webquest, please let me know.
- Mr. Sadler
