The 2 Best and 2 Worst WebQuests

In the previous blog my group reviewed 5 WebQuests from different perspectives.  Today we are ranking the 2 best and 2 worst.  We've agreed the 2 best are the Shakespeare and Earthquake WebQuests with Waves and Sounds and Foreign Country being the worst.

#1  By far Shakespeare was the best.  We agreed that it was a well thought out WebQuest and it met the criteria for all 3 of our perspectives. 

• The Altitudinist - Higher order thinking.
• The Efficiency Expert - Time Management.
• The Affiliator - Collaboration.

We liked the idea that research on specific topics had to be completed and then a Play derived from that information.  Students have to agree on how to create the play and then have to learn their lines.  Therefore a lot of thought and collaboration have to be put into this project.

#2  My group agreed that Earthquakes was the second best.  Not only did it met all three criteria but it also places the students in a real life situation where materials are limited but the consequences surrounding a bad design do have an impact on human kind.

#5  My group definitely felt that Waves and Sounds was the worst WebQuest.  It was rather anemic in that not a lot of thought was placed into creating it.  It was more of a treasure hunt in that the students just followed a list of websites to click on and then watch a picture.  Although I do have to say that the animated sine waves were neat to watch.  In the end we could not find any real clear goal to meet our perspectives.

#4 There was a consensus that Foreign Countries was the second worst.  We weren't sure if the competition would hurt or help the project since there was so much focus on it in the WebQuest.  We agreed it could go either way.  The Efficiency Expert felt that there was no clear time limit on the presentation making it run too long for other students to watch and cutting into their time slot. I think the worst trait is that there was no collaboration, in that it seemed to be an individual project.