WebQuests

Selected by Lee Dotson

Colony Regions grades 3-5

http://questgarden.com/41/26/5/070311200703/

“This WebQuest was designed to educate students about the three regions of the 13 American colonies.”

The task is for students to create a magazine about a specific colony the region the colony is in. Students are to research Natural Resources, Jobs, Religion, and other interesting facts.  Some of the links go to site called brtprojects.org others go to wikipedia.org. Two links went nowhere and one had a large match.com ad at the top I thought was very distracting.

Overall I think the idea was good but the quest was lacking in good resources and the task (magazine) had no examples or real guidance on how it should look.

Life in Colonial America

http://www.webquest.org/questgarden/lessons/36118-061030173925/index.htm

This is a very well thought out webquest the tasks are not to difficult and could be easily modified to grade level or student level. There is both an individual task (diary) and group task (skit). This will help to make sure that one or two people are not doing all the work. The links on the process page are very good. One link is to a think quest page that has student video examples of the skits. This is one I would like to try with my students.

Colonial/Revolutionary War Newspaper Webquest!

http://www.kyrene.org/staff/agavin/webquest/

The task of this webquest is to read an historical fiction book set in the Colonial/Revolutionary War period and then create news paper set during the revolutionary war. I really like the news paper idea. This task for lower students such as ELL will have difficulty with this type of work. The students are supposed to have true events that happened, editorials and advertisements. The group work is divided into members of a newspaper staff that would include an editor, reporter(s), and advertising manager. Students must write or type their contributions and use Microsoft Publisher to create the newsletter.

The pages are set up with the Process and Resources on separate pages which are a little confusing. The resource page is set up very well with descriptions of the web sites and how the students might use them.

Also is a great list of Historical Fiction for the students to choose from this was something I was looking for my self before I stumbled across this sight. This list has about 35 books, reading levels ranging from third thru sixth grade, and a brief description of each book.

Settling a New Colony in North America

http://imet.csus.edu/imet7/pesmark/Southern%20Colonies%20Webquest%202/index.htm

This webquest has groups putting proposals together to submit to the Dutch East India Company for money to start a colony. The groups determine the location of the new colony, supplies need for the voyage trades colonists will bring, and how your colony plans to pay back the Company. The groups presentations are done with power point and are the students are given step by step instructions. The links in the process are good but some require a lot of reading.

Life in Colonial America

http://www.sandomenico.org/page.cfm?p=450

This webquest is has only an individual task rather than a group task. It is really easy to follow because every thing is on one page from Introduction to the Rubric. Students will create a character and make a journal describing the life in this New Land. Then they create a Power Point Presentation from your journal writings. The power point instructions are precise down to the layout of the slides.

The Links for the resource on this sight often go main pages of websites and further searching is required. This would probably be better for students that have a higher level knowledge of searching the web.

EXPLORERS WEB QUEST

http://www.gkonstantinou.com/Eport/Explorers/index.htm

This is a really amazing webquest. It is imaginative and very easy to follow. The students follow the quest step by step and answer specific questions at each step. In the end they have a group choice of five activities to complete. The can write a newspaper article or essay, create a power point, create a very small book, or form a collage with information and images from the web sites. This type of choice can focus on the individual learning styles of different children. If they follow the steps they should have the information needed to complete the projects with out much difficulty.