Musayeva K.S. - candidate of pedagogic sciences, professor

Bekkozhanova G.H. – candidate of philological sciences,

Abai Kazakh National pedagogical University

 

Teaching foreign language through Web-Quest technology

 

         Abstract. The Internet has become one of the most powerful tools available for teaching virtually any subject.  Some 85% of the world/s electronic information is said to be in English language [1, 50]. That makes it the potential goldmine that maó be of use for teachers for developing students’ knowledge and skills. One of the effective strategies that can help teachers to integrate the power of the Web with student learning is the Web-Quest strategy. Originated by Bernie Dodge and Tom March in 1995 at San Diego University, the Web-Quest has gained considerable attention from educators and has been integrated widely throughout the world into curricula in secondary schools and higher education as a way to make good use of the Internet while engaging their students in the kinds of thinking that the 21st century requires. This paper describes the Dodge’s model of a Web-Quest, its design process as suggested by Tom March, provides the reasons for its use in teaching and learning process and suggests some excellent sites to explore with the aim of helping teachers to master this effective instructional tool.

         Key words. Web-Quest, teaching,

        

         Introduction

         A Web-Quest is an instructional tool for inquiry- based learning in which learners interact with resources on the Internet, develop small group skills in collaborative learning and engage in higher level thinking. Most or all of the information used by learners is found from pre-selected websites [2, 1]. A Web-Quest is designed to make the best use of a learner's time, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners’ higher level thinking skills. In other words, students use the Internet in such a manner that they learn not only to research information but to use the Internet to critically think about important issues. The key idea that distinguishes Web-Quests from other Web-based experiences is that they are built around an engaging and doable task that elicits higher order thinking of some kind. The thinking can be creative or critical, and involve problem solving, judgment, analysis, or synthesis.

To achieve its efficacy and purpose, Web-Quests should contain at least the following parts, which are outlined by Bernie Dodge as critical components in a Web-Quest [3, 2]. 

         The main part.

         1. Web-quest: purpose. The purpose of the Introduction section of a Web-Quest is two fold: first, it's to orient the learner as to what is coming. Secondly, it should raise some interest in the learner through a variety of means. It can do this by making the topic seem relevant to the learner's past experience; relevant to the learner's future goals; attractive, visually interesting; important because of its global implications; urgent, because of the need for a timely solution; fun, because the learner will be playing a role or making something. When projects are related to students’ interests, past experience, or future goals, they are inherently interesting and exciting. For the example of an Introduction visit the Web-Quest Creative Problem Solving designed for ESL students at http://php.indiana.edu/~fpawan/creativestudent.html

          2. A task is a formal description of what students will have accomplished by the end of the Web-Quest. Developing this task - or the main research question -is the most difficult and creative aspect of creating a Web-Quest. Students can be asked to publish their findings on a Web site, collaborate in an online research initiative with another site or institution, or create a multimedia presentation on a particular aspect of their research. A well designed task is doable, interesting and elicits thinking in learners that goes beyond rote comprehension. A good example of the Task is given in the Searching for China Web-Quest at http://www.kn.pacbell.com/ wired/China/ChinaQuest.html#Task.

          3. Information Sources. This block in a Web-Quest is a list of web pages which the instructor has located that will help the learner accomplish the task. The Resources are pre-selected so that learners can focus their attention on the topic rather than surfing aimlessly. 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. Very often, it makes sense to divide the list of resources so that some are examined by everyone in the class, while others are read by subsets of learners who are playing a specific role or taking a particular perspective. This can ensure the interdependence of the group and give the learners an incentive to teach each other what they've learned. You can see an example in the Web-Quest Creative Problem Solving at http://php.indiana.edu/ ~fpawan/creativestudent.html.

         4. Description of the process. The Process block in a Web-Quest where the teacher provides clearly suggested steps that learners should go through in completing the task. It may include strategies for dividing the task into subtasks, descriptions of roles to be played or perspectives to be taken by each learner. The instructor can also use this place to provide learning advice and interpersonal process advice, such as how to conduct a brainstorming session. For example, the Web-Quest Pollution and Solutions at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/ PollSol/ Week1. html.

          5. Guidance provides guidance on how to organize information. This can take the form of guiding questions, or descriptions to complete organizational frameworks such as timelines, concept maps, or caused- effect diagrams etc.

          6. Evaluation. The Evaluation block is a new addition to the Web-Quest model. Each Web-Quest needs a rubric for evaluating students' work. Evaluation rubrics would take a different form depending on the kind of task given to the learner. To help teachers to deal with evaluation  Dodge has developed A Rubric for Evaluating Web-Quests which can be found at http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html.It allows teachers to assign a score to a given Web-Quest and provides specific, formative feedback for the designer.

         7. Conclusion. The Conclusion section of a Web-Quest provides an opportunity to summarize the experience, to encourage reflection about the process, to extend and generalize what was learned, or some combination of these. It's not a critically important piece, but it rounds out the document and provides that reader with a sense of closure.

         Results and Findings.

         Web-Quests are an inquiry-based, learner-centered, project-based approach to teaching, learning, and information inquiry that integrates the power of the Web with sound learning theory and instructional design methods, such as constructivist philosophy; critical and creative thinking questioning, understanding, and transformational learning; scaffolding; cooperative learning; motivation and authenticity [6, 1-2].

 Constructivism is a theory of teaching and learning involves the process of questioning, exploring, and reflecting. This theory says that learners should construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through varied experiences. By reflecting on these experiences, students assimilate useful information and create personal knowledge.

 Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It's the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, associative thinking, metaphorical thinking and forced relationships [1, 1].                

Cooperative learning is an approach to teaching and learning where students work in small groups or teams to complete meaningful activities such as solving problems or creating products. Groups share their strengths and address their weaknesses as a team. Cooperative strategies are applied to necessitate each student's input. As students complete more Web-Quests they will become aware that their individual work has a direct impact of the intelligence of their group's final product.

 Student Motivation & Authenticity. Tom March points out to the following strategies that are used in Web-Quests  to increase student motivation. First, Web-Quests use a central question that honestly needs answering. When students are asked to understand, hypothesize or problem-solve an issue that confronts the real world, they face an authentic task. The second feature that increases student motivation is that they are given real resources to work with. Rather than use a dated textbook with the Web students can directly access individual experts, searchable databases, current reporting, and even fringe groups to gather their insights.

Developing Thinking Skills. One of the main features of any Web-Quest is that student’s deal with questions that prompt higher level thinking. The question posed to students can not be answered simply by collecting and spitting back information. A Web-Quest forces students to transform information into something else: a cluster that maps out the main issues, a comparison, a hypothesis, a solution, etc. In order to engage students in higher level cognition, Web-Quests use scaffolding or prompting which has been shown to facilitate more advanced thinking. In other words, by breaking the task into meaningful "chunks" and asking students to undertake specific sub-tasks, a Web-Quest can step them through the kind of thinking process that more expert learners would typically use.

Using Web-Quests in our classrooms can help build a solid foundation that will prepare our students for the future by developing a number of skills that tomorrow’s workers will need. No one can ever learn everything, but everyone can better develop their skills and nurture the inquiring attitudes necessary to continue the generation and examination of knowledge throughout their lives. For modern education, the skills and the ability to continue learning should be the most important outcomes. And this is where Web-Quest can help use to meet these needs.

           The Web-Quest Design Process

          Writing a Web-Quest is time-consuming and challenging, at least the first time. To make this process easier for teachers Tom March developed the Web-Quest design process which consists of three phases that are presented below [8; 1]:  

The Web-Quest Design Process.  Phase 1.

Choose and chunk the topic

It is necessary to identify a topic that is worth spending time on it and one that takes advantage of the Web and Web-Quest format.     The best use of the Web-Quest format is for topics that invite creativity and problems with several possible solutions. They can address open-ended questions like:

-                     How do other countries deal with learning English as a foreign language, and what, if anything, can Kazakhstan learn from them?

-                     What is it like to live in a developing country such as Kazakhstan?

-                     What would Mark Twain think about the lives that children live today?

Once you have some ideas for topics, chunk them out into sub-categories by clustering. You might look for things like relationships to other topics, controversial issues, multiple perspectives about the topic, etc. This clustering will help you when it comes time to uncover your main question and devise roles for learners.

  Inventory Resources

         When teachers inventory their learning resources they should collect all the raw materials that COULD go into their Web-Quest. Later they will need to make choices that limit their options. In terms of finding good Web sites, the following sites that lead to a huge number of interesting and useful lessons, resources, and activities can be a good starting points for exploration:

-                     Education World-  http://www.education-world.com/

-                     Language Arts- http://www.mcrel.org/lesson-plans/index.asp

-                     Foreign Language - http://www.mcrel.org/lesson-plans/foreign/index.asp    

Decision: Uncover the Question

The single most important aspect of a Web-Quest is its Question. The Question / Task serves to focus your entire Web-Quest and helps students engage in higher-order thinking. It makes students look beyond the facts to how things relate, what is the truth, how good or right something is. In writing Question / Task Statement, Tom March suggests to consider the following things that provide higher levels of thinking:

-                     analyzing and classifying the main parts of a topic

-                     using these main parts as criteria from which to evaluate examples of the topic

-                     analyzing perspectives and opinions through comparison / contrast

-                     using an understanding of people's opinions to make a persuasive argument

-                     analyzing how things change through cause and effect and If/Then statements

-                     using if/then statements to problem solving new situations [9, 1].       

It is important to note that this last box in this phase isn't actually a box like

the other three. This section requires a teacher to make a decision. The decision is, "Do you have what it takes to make a Web-Quest?" Answering the questions below questions will help a teacher to elicit a positive response:

-                     Is the Topic worth the time and effort needed to build this Web Quest?

-                     Is the level of potential student cognition worth the effort?

-                     Is a Web-Quest the right strategy?

-                     Are you excited by the available resources (both online and local)?

-                     Does the Web offer so much that its use is warranted?

-                     Does the Question ask something that people in the real world find important?

-                     Is the answer to the question open to interpretation / argument / hypothesis?

If you've answered “Yes” to all the questions above, you're on the way to creating a great WebQuest!

         Teachers need to learn how to effectively use the Internet to support the teaching and learning process. They should spend time defining an information need, searching for information, and evaluating the information before attempting to incorporate it into a lesson. Being one of the effective strategies the Web-Quest strategy can help teachers to integrate the power of the Web with student learning is in a way that makes sense for the New WWW. This is because Web-Quests are found to be an activity that integrates the power of the Web with sound learning theory and instructional design methods and plants the seeds of change and growth so that students will internalize some of these cognitive strategies and apply them to lifelong and self-directed learning.

 

         Bibliography

1.     Creative and Inventive Thinking. Available: http://virtualinquiry.com/scientist/creative.htm.

2.     Dodge B.  Active learning on the web. Available: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/active/ActiveLearningk-12.html, 1996.

3.     Dodge B.  WebQuest rubric. Available: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html, 2001.

4.     Dodge B. WebQuest.org. Available: http://webquest.org, 2004.

5.     March T.  Working the web for education: Theory and practice on integrating the web for learning. Updated 2001. Available: http://www.ozline.com/learning/theory.html, 1997.

6.     March T.  Why WebQuests? Updated January 6, 2004. Available:

7.     http://www.internet4classrooms.com/why_webquest.htm, 1998.