Reading about Webquests

This week's reading focused on the theme of webquests. I guess after readings that seemed more 'colorful' or varied, this week's readings seemed to be very much focused on the core topic. I guess there was just no way around webquests this week!

I enjoyed the online webquest by Dodge (not the car company, mind you!). Things always seem to make more sense when you can explore someone's actual work and examples. I particularly enjoyed the country one, I guess in part because it seems to have the most relevance for the world language field. I also like Dodge's description of the four "personalities" that can be used when evaluating webquests. I think each point of view should be considered and is very much justified. They are helpful lenses, that can aid teachers in evaluating existing webquests and making sure that their self-created webquests live up to their expectations.

Siekmann's article beautifully complements our current learnings in the SLA class. It offered a very interesting insight into what actually happens during pair tasks. Since the teacher can only supervise and overhear a given number of conversations at a time (although I swear I'm starting to think that I can listen to at least 4 beginning-level L2 conversations at once!), it is fascinating to read such a detailed description of partner work and the scaffolding that takes place. I sure don't envy Sabine or her research assistant for transcribing all of those camtasia sessions, though!

After reading Siekmann's article, Dodge's thoughts or definitions of webquests did not seem all that surprising or new. What I found very intriguing, however, is the fact that the website openly states that the links may not work anymore. I'm not sure I had seen such a "disclaimer" before. It's like an online relic that is not fully functional anymore. Come to think of it, it seems ironic that a website about webquests - tasks that lead learners to other websites through links - does not consider the links to be valuable enough to keep updated... (even though only two links seem to be dead despite the warning that most are dysfunctional).

In my classroom, I find that students enjoy webquests, especially when they can make some choices (e.g., chose and research in more detail one of the...). Considering the wealth of information that is available on the internet, it seems that well-designed webquests can really serve the purpose of directing students to instructional homepages. I'm actually wondering whether webquests couldn't actually be a way of combining several of the technologies that we have been discussing. I'm thinking about the possibility of including a link to a language learning page on the webquest... Would there be any use for that? I guess it would depend on the goal and task of the webquest.