WebQuests 2.0 Workshop

Welcome to a New View of WebQuests

Let’s start with a brainstorm: What are WebQuests?

My introduction to WebQuests occurred in 1994/95 when Bernie Dodge shared this new format he had been brainstorming for integrating the Web into classroom / online learning.  After several years of being all the rage, many people now treat WebQuests like “old news,” as in, “oh, we did those last century.” I don’t mean to be snotty, but actually, not many people did really do WebQuests in any century.  People who know my BestWebQuests site might be aware that out of 2000 activities reviewed, only about 16% of what called themselves WebQuests actually prompted students to transform newly acquired information into new understandings.  Most were glorified info hunts, solved through skimming Web sites followed by copying and pasting.

Part of the problem is that a WebQuest demands a few areas of experience or expertise.  First,  you have to know your way around the Web well enough to tap into the rich resources and interactive potentials available. Second, you have to really “get” critical thinking.  People do best who have internalized models like Mazano’s Dimensions of Learning, Costa’s Habits of Mind, Perkins et al.’s Visible Thinking or Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design.  It’s not enough to max out at Bloom’s synthesis and evaluation, because we’re really looking at constructing new meaning, accommodating new schema, building new understandings.  The third key area of expertise is the ability to facilitate student-centered group learning – that 3 Ring circus of classroom excitement.

Sample WebQuests

Revisit What are WebQuests?

A Process for the Day

To help “edge-ucators” who already have these backgrounds, let’s look at a new process for quickly drafting what could become a vibrant and fun WebQuest, taking advantage of great Web 2 tools.

A Rich Topic, Concept and Theme

Survey your curriculum for a topic rich enough in complexity to warrant long-term and in-depth study.  Within this topic, there will invariably be at least a few robust concepts to empower student manipulation of important variables.  These concepts will certainly link to broader themes, which when tapped into connect the topic across other equally rich topics.

Examples
Topic Concept Theme
Sustainability Sustainability depends on a delicate balance among resources, pollution, population and economics Social Justice, Globalization, scientific innovations
Folktales & Fables Stories that endure across the centuries and cultures provide insights through a rich mix of core human experiences, compelling characterization and powerful emotions The fine arts, folk arts, mythology

360 Perspectives

Once you have a rich topic and some notion of related concepts and themes, take a quick 360 degree survey of who would have vested interests in the topic.  Who cares about the topic?  Who is affected by it?  Who are the “stakeholders?”  List as many of these as you can.  Finally, match up your list to see if you have a balanced list where all sides are represented.  There should be sparks ready to fly between more than a few of the perspectives you’ve listed.  For example, if you have “greenies,” you’d better have developers or manufacturers.

Quick Resource Search

Don’t take more than 30 minutes to make a quick tour of the Web to see if rich resources exist on your topic.  You aren’t gathering a complete hotlist of resources, just making sure things exist to enliven the experience for students.  Consider using your Diigo toolbar and a group or make a list. Be smart, look in TEDTalks, YouTube / iTunes EDU, Diigo groups, RSS feeds and great content providers (Trove, WWF, etc.).

Possible Questions

A WebQuest is guided by a big question – this empowers students to discover their own path through the topic and connect the new learning to what they already know.

Possible Roles

Your 360 Perspectives brainstorm now combines with your quick search to line out what would seem to be the best 3-6 roles to get students deep into the topic.  These will immerse students in areas of expertise that they will use to reshape the gray areas into greater definition and understanding.

Possible Real World Productions / Constructs

Given the topic, the question and the roles, what kinds of things to people make who spend their professional lives caring about the topic?  Do they make formal plans, create artworks, raise awareness, invent solutions?  Choose at least one that makes the most sense for your topic and also sings with some excitement for you and your students.

Possble Real World Feedback

Who could you contact who might be willing and able to provide authentic feedback to students on what they come up with?  These could be parents or older students, but better if they are professionals in the field.  The feedback could be provided in person, but comments through a social network or Skype conference can be just as good.

You’re Ready to Go!

Use the above process to draft together what could become a great WebQuest.  Use your favorite platform like WordPress to develop the WebQuest and tap into all the great Web tools you love to flatten the learning hierarchy so that you can join in on the learning fun and role-model the joy of learning for your students.

Here’s the process as a handout you can work with.

WebQuests 2.0

Resources

WebQuests .9 & 1.0

SCECGS Redlands

It’s nice to return to Redlands, Sydney Church of England Co-educational Grammar School.  I had the pleasure to work with the staff and ICT Integrators at the end of 2008 and return to share some new ideas regarding what I’m seeing as the four piece puzzle to truly supporting the 1:1 digital learning that is often available at school and almost invariably from home.

A Closer Look

  1. A Culture of Collaboration – Welcome to Wikicademy
  2. Rich Routines and Smart Online Spaces – The Edge-ucators Way: Look to Learn, ClassPortals and WebQuests & WQ 2.0
  3. An Empowered Vision of Curriculum – Disintermediate me?! and The Greek Sculpture Question
  4. A Framework for Student Self-managed Learning – CEQ•ALL (Seek All) rationale and Rubric (pdf)

Some Examples

Look to Learn:

ClassPortals:

WebQuests

Resources

Tutorials

Collaborative Tools

Task #1

  • Beyond Cut & Paste
  • Essential Questions
  • Assessment Criteria
  • Look to Learn
  • ClassPortals
  • WebQuests

Caroline Chisholm continued

Ongoing work with Caroline Chisholm Catholic College in Melbourne focuses on 1:1 learning and their Notebook program.  A special CCCC blog has been set up with sample look to learn activities, links to ClassPortals and WebQuests as well as an 1:1 ICT Skills survey.

Working with St Joey’s

Welcome!

Today I get to spend the day working with the staff of St. Joseph’s College in Hunters Hill, Sydney.

The main focus will be on supporting their 1:1 MacBook pilot and roll-out.  The challenges in such an endeavour and great, but even greater are the opportunities.  I have come to see that four key pieces must fit together to make the puzzle work.  These are:

  • Rich Online Routines
  • A Culture of Collaboration
  • An Approach to Self-managed Learning
  • An Empowered Vision of Curriculum

Ignoring any one of these will jeopardise success.  In fact, delete any one of them and technology may become the problem, not part of the solution.

My job is to persuade that this is true, to offer effective and rewarding strategies for each of the key factors and to encourage staff to create interpretations that will work at St. Joeys.

After the whole-staff presentation, groups will form by choice around the five main Digital Challenges I’ve put up for discussion.  Their ideas will be posted on a wiki that we will visit and can be a launchpad for future conversations and task teams.

Later, I will meet with a core team.  In anticipation of the kind of things that might come up in this session, I’ll offer the following links.

Resources

Working with Caroline Chisholm Catholic College

Welcome!

It is indeed a pleasure and honour to work with a school and its staff who have so dedicatedly focused itself on serving its students through continuous reflection and improvement.  My goal is to share some questions, ideas and strategies, then work together to see how well they fit with a culture that is already successful.

The main question is:

“how does teaching and learning change when all students at a school have their own laptop?”

My main suggestions are that three elements are required for a successful outcome:

  • A New vision of Curriculum
  • Online Learning Spaces
  • A Self-managed Learning Framework

Download this handout packet as a guide to the day and here is a full screen Flash version of the slides or a movie version you can download.

Online Resources and Examples

Look to Learn:

ClassPortals:

WebQuests:

CEQ•ALL

Creating ClassPortals

Introduction

Workshop

  • Create new blog at WordPress.com (from your current account)
  • Brainstorm and Choose YOUR topic for a ClassPortal (see sample?)
  • Create a Diigo Bookmarks Group on your Topic
  • Add at least one Look to Learn Post
  • Copy and paste the Web 2 Tools Panel?
  • Copy, Edit ClassPortals Feeds Pageflakes and add a link to a Pageflakes feed page
  • Add Core links (search engines, collaborators, core tools, etc.)
  • Adjust Sidebar Widgets
  • Write your About page to describe your classroom integration plan
  • Produce content (Podcasts, Videos / YouTube Channel, VoiceThread, Dipity timelines, Flickr streams, etc.)
  • Leverage the  CEQ-ALL (“seek all”) – personal learning framework? (download)

Resources

Works in Progress

ACEC – Workshop

Welcome

Thursday, 8 April 2010 4:00 – 5:30 in room 207

Use Typewith.me to post questions, interests, issues, etc.

Here’s the Workshop blurb: This session follows on from the keynote “It’s broke, so fix it” and details the main strategies discussed. Find out how Web 2.0 tools and rich media can be integrated into a research based framework that finally makes the shift from teacher-directed to student-managed learning that spans a student’s school years and results in greater achievement and preparation for their futures.

Take a targeted Self-assessment for skills related to the strategies below: Digital Learning Skills List Checklist (doc)

Here’s a snapshot Roadmap for  integrating Web 2 tools into these three strategies.

Look to Learn

ClassPortals

WebQuests

A New Take

Readings

Background

ACEC- Melbourne

speaking-at-acec2010_0Many of us in the EdTEch world in Australia will spend much of this week in Melbourne at the Convention and Exhibition Centre to attend The Australian Computers in Education Conference 2010. I’m looking forward to seeing many colleagues and friends, including Alan November, Lynn Davie, Jenny Luca, Greg Gebhart, Geoff Romeo, Adam Elliot, Trudy Sweeney and Sue Urban.

Tom March Sessions

Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Thursday, 8 April 2010

You can download a handout of links for the sessions.

Comment on the Keynote, especially Wikicademy and iPademy

Alan November, Lynn Davie, Jenny Luca, Greg Gebhart, Geoff Romeo, Adam Elliot, Trudy Sweeney, Sue Urban
Tom March Sessions
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
1:30 – 2:30 Plenary Hall Choose Your Own Keynote: Tom March – “It’s broke, so fix it” – re-making education for our digital era
4:00 – 5:00 Soapbox Tom March on his Soapbox
Thursday, 8 April 2010
16:00 – 17:30 207 Tom March “It’s broke,so fix it” Tom March Workshop

New Millennium Learners

NML
New Millennium Learners Conference
Brussels, Belgium
21-23 September

The OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) launched the New Millennium Learners (NML) project in 2007. It has the global aim of investigating the effects of digital technologies on school-age learners and providing recommendations on the most appropriate institutional and policy responses from the education sector.

Tom will be sitting on a Roundtable discussing: The New Millennium Learners – Needs, Opportunities and Responses
If appropriate, he will share these slides. (7.5mb swf)

Here is a more comprehensive set of slides with a main menu to jump to main issues.

IWBnet Gold Coast Conference

iwb-butt-finWelcome

The following links will support people attending or interested in my sessions at the Third National Leading a Digital School Conference – 2009.

First off – I’m doing a keynote I’m calling “The Future Began Last Year”.  A main point is that the world has changed around education and it’s in everyone’s best interest to invent the next model for learning in our new digital age.

Here’s the Keynote blurb:

We are entering an era when a student with broadband access to an unfiltered Internet can learn more than he or she could in many of our schools. At the same time, another student could use the same technologies to derail the course of his or her life. The key differences between the two involve intrinsic motivation, a disposition toward critical thinking and the ability to navigate this century’s digital environment. What role will your school play in support of students’ growth and learning?  Will technology enable students to “supercharge” and personalise learning or will personal technologies only disrupt last century’s assembly line schools? The important thing is that you get to choose the future you want.  The hard part is that we’re already a few steps behind. This brief session will establish the above argument and then offer a new framework to guide education’s transition from a culture focused on standardised outcomes and compliance to one that empowers students to achieve their full potentials. Perhaps ironically, such humanistic goals are best accomplished through a comprehensive integration of emerging technologies.

(Apple is putting together a composite of my talking head & slides so if it’s okay, I’ll link to it.)

Workshop: A Vision for the Future:  Building School 2.0 3.0

Session Blurb:

Blogs, wikis, podcasts and RSS?  Whatever happened to just “the Internet” and when did “Web 1” pass its use-by date? More importantly, how will your school grow and prosper in an era of YouMyFaceSpaceBookTube? Be reassured that the answer resides in developing educators into experts in pedagogy, not technology. This double session is designed as an engaging exploration of Web 2.0 technologies, the CEQ- ALL personal learning framework and classroom practices that promote the best of emerging technologies using strategies for today’s schools.

Pedagogical Foundations:

Session handouts:

Exemplars: Blog, ClassPortal & WebQuest

Activities

1 – Looking to Learn – Disposition toward Inquiry

2 – ClassPortals: Choice, Competence and Relatedness

3 – WebQuests – Flow & the Pursuit of Quality

Other Helpful Documents

%d bloggers like this: