Web Instructional Strategies

Sherry Bina, John Fossum, Stephanie Rottier, and Brian Wilson
EDMT 380-002
Spring 2004

	Topic Hotlists	Treasure Hunts	Web Quest	Subject Samplers	Multimedia Scrapbooks
Description	A webpage with a collection of annotated links to websites that are categorized and often times revolve around a theme.	Students gather information on multiple websites by answering one question to a particular topic revolving around a theme.	Students are presented with a question or a problem and are expected to search the internet to find a solution. It is an inquiry-orientated activity.	A teacher provides five websites for students often revolving around controversial issues.	This is a website that includes information and links about a certain topic. It often incorporates pictures and information on that website.
Advantages	• Easy to set up. • Saves students surf/search time. • Efficient • Available to everyone.	• Variety of items will keep students interested. • Good way to show how multiple topics relate to each other. • Gain insight on a particular topic.	• Helps with internet search skills. • Problem solving tool.	•Presentation of the sites saves time in searching. • Because of teacher’s previous research the websites are appropriate. • Student’s views are valued and stressed. • Students feel connected to the topic.	• Pictures can be displayed for multiple people instead of in a box collecting dust. • Provides not only a visual image but, written information as well. • Contains a variety of media and content types. • Students' creations will be richer and more sophisticated.
Disadvantages	• Students will not have the opportunity to search for this separate topic themselves. • May cause frustration if links are not working properly within the page. • Will create similarity in students generated projects. • Link rot is a major issue.	• Students may get off of track. • Hard to monitor which websites they are visiting. • You must have enough computers/materials for all students. • It is not a thorough investigation of a topic.	• Can get complicated. • Can take a lot of class time. • Must be done in groups so students do not get a lot of individual practice. • Very difficult and time consuming to create. • Very learner centered and requires high order thinking skills.	• The number of websites being viewed is limited. • Teacher may have an unconscious bias, creating a skewed view on the topic for the students.	• This does not achieve specific learning. • Copyright issues.
Example	Topic Hotlist Website	Treasure Hunt Website	WebQuest Website	China Subject Sampler Website	China Multimedia Scrapbook Website

Detailed information on Web Quests

A. Web Quests are good for group activities, single discipline, problem base learning, project based learning, and whole class instruction.

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B. The six building blocks of a Web Quest are:
• An introduction that sets the stage and provides some background information.
• A task that is doable and interesting.
• A set of information sources needed to complete the task. Many (though not necessarily all) of the resources are embedded in the Web Quest document itself as anchors pointing to information on the World Wide Web. Information sources might include web documents, experts available via e-mail or real-time conferencing, searchable databases on the net, and books and other documents physically available in the learner's setting. Because pointers to resources are included, the learner is not left to wander through web space completely adrift.
• A description of the process the learners should go through in accomplishing the task. The process should be broken out into clearly described steps.
• Some guidance on how to organize the information acquired. This can take the form of guiding questions, or directions to complete organizational frameworks such as timelines, concept maps, or cause-and-effect diagrams as described by Marzano (1988, 1992) and Clarke (1990).
• A conclusion that brings closure to the quest, reminds the learners about what they've learned, and perhaps encourages them to extend the experience into other domains.

C. One computer with Internet Access
Teachers in a one-computer classroom can pair students up and create a modular classroom for working on their WebQuests. One rotating station could be the online computer, one could use print-outs from Web pages, another group could use library books, magazines, videotapes, CD-ROMs, etc. Students in this scenario would be in a good position to evaluate whether Web access made a difference. Teachers can also use the computer for whole class instruction when using WebQuests.

Few Computers
If you have Internet access in your schools, but perhaps lack a sufficient number of computers, you might also try pairing students up for each role (therefore five roles could support ten students). You might also look for access to an online computer lab that might be available for a few class sessions. Also use a combination of the above bulleted strategies to ease the crunch.

Here are some examples on how, we as future teachers, plan to integrate one of these web instructional strategies into our lesson/unit plans.

Sherry Bina
Topic: Midwest States
A topic hotlist would best suit my lesson plan of the Midwest states because the students would spend more time researching their state rather than looking for websites.

John Fossum
Topic: Trail of Tears
I think the best strategy for my lesson would be the treasure hunt. Using this strategy would allow students to look through the soft ware selection as well as visiting other sites to answer questions regarding the topic at hand.

Stephanie Rottier
Topic: Trees and Diseases
The multimedia scrapbook would probably be the most effective for my lesson unit plan because of the visual and informational understanding of trees.

Brian Wilson
Topic: Solving Algebraic equations
I think the best strategy for my lesson would be the treasure hunt. This strategy would allow the students to search the web in order to answer a series of questions relating to algebraic equations. I think the students will gain a much greater understanding regarding the topic and how it relates to the real world.

Last Updated May 13, 2004
Questions or Comments?
Contact: binasr@uwec.edu, fossumjc@uwec.edu, rottiesj@uwec.edu, or wilsonbl@uwec.edu