WebQuests are Internet-based individual or small-group activities that encourage students to pursue a topic independently.  However, they provide structure and scaffolding to help students through the learning experience.  This assignment requires you to act as a teacher in constructing a learning experience for your students.  It also requires you to search the Web for suitable information resources, and to construct a viable instructional design.  Media specialists need experience in constructing webquests for direct application and in order to lead faculty members in the process.
 

Task

An excellent guide for creating WebQuests can be found here.  Other templates and examples can be found by searching for "WebQuests" or "Web Quests" through Google or any other good search engine.  I have found that spending a considerable amount of time in exploring webquests written by others is an essential key to success in this assignment.

Choose an instructional objective that will be useful to you in your professional life.  Design a simple WebQuest using Microsoft Word or another word processor that allows you to include live links.  (Students who are already comfortable with webpage construction may use a webpage authoring tool.)  A simple webquest can be a single Word document with built-in web links.  A complex one can be a website with multiple linked pages.  If you want the webquest to "live" on the Web (as opposed to on a local machine), the website version is easier in the long run.

Components

• Instructional objective and target audience
• Introduction
• Task
• Resources: 3 or more sites that students will visit with an explicit purpose
• Learning advice
• Evaluation 
• Conclusion
• Evidence of attention to at least one pedagogical theme

Format

• Word document (preferred) or other word processor document posted on your assignment page; make sure that links are clickable.  Alternative: active web pages, linked through your assignment page.
• 1 hard copy (print each page)
• Be prepared to share your WebQuest in class.