For this week's assignment, I viewed a WebQuest called The Secret Magazine of Afghanistan. This particular WebQuest is stated to be for a 5th grade social studies and language arts classroom. However, I know that it would be perfect for my 7th grade language arts students with a little tweaking.
The reason I chose this Quest is because my students are studying the Middle East in their social studies classes, and this would be a great way to tie in a cross-curricular learning project. The WebQuest is very basic in its development, but the majority of my students only access the Internet at school. So, I think it would be perfect for them because there isn't a lot of "extra" stuff to cause distractions.
It opens with the Top page that details the designer, and has a picture of Afghan children posing for the camera. Next, there is a link to take students to the Introduction of the Quest. This section outlines the prompt. Parvana's mother is secretly publishing a magazine and she needs your help. The Task says that your group is to submit an article for the magazine that will deal with children and education in Afghanistan. It specifies that you are to include factual information.
Next, is Process. This section is the longest, and it includes specific requirements for the group to follow. It's broken into steps to help students check off what they have completed. Each group of four students (chosen by the teacher) will have a specific job: journalist, editor, illustrator, or publisher. Students will draw a Venn Diagram to demonstrate comparisons between Afghan kids and kids in the United States. There are four sections that need to be investigated, and links are provided for each of them. They are: schools and education, family life, growing up in Afghanistan, and fun and entertainment. There is a section that provides links to photos, Rights of the Child (laws and regulations), and the CIA Factbook. Students are to compile their information into an article for publication in Parvana's mother's magazine. Everyone will break into their own roles to complete the next part.
The Evaluation section provides a rubric explaining the specific requirements of the assignment. The Conclusion section explains that the students have become experts about children and education in Afghanistan.
There is page entitled Teacher Page, but it doesn't have any valid information (the links have been removed). It has links for standards, connections, learners, resources, process, and conclusion. The only link that works is the Student Page link, which takes you back to the actual Quest. The final page is the Credits page, which provides sources and references.
I would use this WebQuest in my own classroom, even with my 7th grade students. I know that it might be a bit basic for my higher-level learners, but I think that the students struggling to master the concepts would benefit from doing this activity.
One of the things I would change or adapt would be the Teacher Page. I would make sure it was up to date simply because I know that other teachers would benefit from having this information. Plus, parents who help their students complete the WebQuest at home would like seeing that the activity is standards based.
Overall, I think it's a great resource, and a fun activity to do with students to increase their cultural awareness. This would be great to use for a program review!
The next portion of my assignment this week was to create a WebQuest to use in my own classroom. This was a struggle for me; I'm not going to lie. I wanted to do something that we would be able to use in the classroom this year, so I looked forward to the next unit I'm planning: poetry.
It's important to note that I hate poetry. I'm pretty sure that it's some sort of blasphemy for a language arts teacher to say that she hates poetry. But, I do. However, I LOVE music. So, this Quest was an easy way for me to teach poetry in a way that the students would love. Also, it makes it more fun for me to teach it!
To begin, I went to Quest Garden and signed up for a free trial. This trial will last 30 days. Truthfully, I don't anticipate that I will continue membership in this, as I don't see myself using WebQuests very often in my classroom.
The website was easy enough to navigate, though I don't feel that I know enough about how to tweak it and make it look good. It seems very basic as far as the layout and images go.
The Quest has a lot of elements that I typically do as a lesson during this unit, so I am not sure what should have been tweaked first to make it more effective in the context of a WebQuest. I am open to any suggestions that you have to make it better!
One thing that I think really works for my Quest is the video clip of Eminem's interview with Anderson Cooper. Students LOVE watching this clip.
In case you want to view it, here is the link to my WebQuest: It's only going to be up until January 14th, so if you try to access this after that point, it won't be available. Sorry!
http://questgarden.com/166/01/1/131215090649/
No comments:
Post a Comment