A web quest for teaching fifth graders to build web pages

¶ … product design summary for a web quest that teaches 5th grade students how to build a web page using Microsoft Word

In recent years, web quests have been used to great effect by educators with the purpose of giving students the ability to search the World Wide Web for instructional as well as entertaining information. The web quest format allows students to employ an interactive form of knowledge seeking with a visual, audio, and verbal component. The importance of instructing students in the use of the web as a tool that can be deployed to educate through the use of technology and to connect students to the world has not always been deployed to its full potential, partly because of a certain level of teacher discomfort with computers, partly because of certain district's technical limitations, and partly because the nature of the information available on the web has only recently become expansive and appropriate for young persons.

First of all, what is a web quest? Ideally, web quests "are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation." (Dodge, 2004) The quest usually involves an introduction, a task, and virtual information sources, that a group or individual student deploys through the use of a single or multiple disciplines. (Dodge, 1993) In this case, the project will actually use a 'web quest' format to create a new product on the web in the form of a web page for a fifth grade class

Needs Assessment web quest that teaches students at this grade level how to build a web page using Microsoft Word would meet the goal of enabling these students to become more comfortable and creative as well as more fluent in the use of information seeking and creating technology. (Schrock, 2004) It is crucial that younger students can integrate technology and search techniques into student's learning 'tool kits' at an early age, as well as make use of the web during their social time. The danger for some students in some communities is that they will become unfamiliar with technology. The danger for other students is that the web will simply be a source of amusement, rather than information and creativity. A web page is creative and personal, and using a web quest is a way to enable students to become more comfortable with technology.

Section II: Three Performance Objectives of the Project

Performance Objective 1: Students will find currently existing web quest formats and web pages designed by classes of their age group on the web that they enjoy using and have proved useful in past research. They will be able to articulate and define why they liked these tools.

Performance Objective 2: Students will make use of web creating technology on Microsoft Word by logging onto the web and creating concrete and observable web pages on the Internet. They will determine the subject of the page, after learning on the web, how to assemble a simple web page via the web quest format. District permitting, the web page created by the fifth grade class could be located on the school's own web page, accessible through a link.

Performance Objective 3: Students will be able to creatively use the web for their own class web page regarding a subject the class as a whole both enjoys and has educational merit.

Is the website visually interesting?

The 'pre testing' part will be conducted as an evaluation of student performance in teams, over the course of the project, with the aim of documenting student progress, as well as evaluating the final result.