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Web2QuestsUpdating a PopularWeb-Based

Inquiry-Oriented ActivitySerhat Kurt

WebQuest is a popular inquiry-oriented activity inwhich learners use Web resources. Since the creationof the innovation, almost 15 years ago, the Web haschanged significantly, while the WebQuest techniquehas changed little. This article examines possible appli-cations of new Web trends on WebQuest instructionalstrategy. Some possible integration ideas of new Webtrends into the WebQuest method are discussed.

IntroductionTechnology is an accepted part of our lives. As countriescontinue to invest in technology and place educationaltechnology in schools, teachers are expected to adoptthe technology into their teaching. One particularexample is the Internet and, more specifically, the WorldWide Web (Web). The Web has brought new possibilitiesfor teaching and learning. WebQuests are among themost widely used methods by K-16 educators as a strat-egy for integrating the Web into classroom instruction.

The WebQuest technique was created by Bernie Dodgein 1995 with early input from Tom March. A WebQuesthas been defined as "an inquiry-oriented activity in whichsome or all of the information that learners interact withcomes from resources on the Internet" (Dodge, 1997).

This technique usually requires students to work ingroups and relies heavily on information sources on theWeb. Students are guided to visit appropriate Webresources to look for information. It involves, though,much more than simply searching for material.A WebQuest usually includes six steps: (a) the introduc-tion-includes background information about the topic;(b) the task-gives a general description of an assignedtask for the learners; (e) information sources-includesmostly Websites that students can investigate to completethe task; (d) a description of the process--explains step-by-step procedures for learners to follow in order tocomplete the task; (e) performance evaluation-contains

Serhat Kurt is Assistant Professor in the School of Education atAtaturk University, Erzurum, Turkey (e-mail: fskurt@gmail.com).

evaluation criteria to be used to assess students' workand (f) the conclusion-consists of an explanation of whatthe learners learned. WebQuests can be a short-term (oneto three class periods) or a long-term (one week to amonth) activity. The WebQuests can be designed within asingle discipline or be interdisciplinary (Dodge, 1997).WebQuests have become very popular since theywere introduced in 1995, have been the subject ofnumerous journal and magazine articles, and havebeen widely adopted in K-16 education (Zheng et a/.,2008). Teachers have created numerous WebQuests forall grade levels (WebQuest.org, 2007). A simple"WebQuest" Google search yields thousands ofWebQuests already designed by educators.

One important point to mention is that while beingapplied to a wide variety of different educational settings,the WebQuest technique has changed little (Abbit &Ophus, 2008). Since the creation of WebQuests, how-ever, the Web has changed a lot, shifting from Web 1.0to Web 2.0. This article defines possible implications ofnew Web approaches (Web 2.0) on WebQuests.

Web 2.0Web 1.0 was the first and Web 2.0 is the next phase

of the Internet. Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 differ on howthey present information. Although Web 1.0 was mostlyabout retrieving information, Web 2.0 represents a morecollaborative, interactive, and user-focused approach.Coombs (2007) states that Web 2.0 is "transforming theWeb into a space that allows anyone to create andshare information online-a space for collaboration,conversation, and interaction; a space that is highlydynamic, flexible, and adaptable" (p, 17).

Web 2.0 offers new trends and services. Some of theseare wikis, blogs, multimedia sharing, podcasting, andsocial networking. Internet users now easily buildpages, share photos and videos, and interact with eachother. These users are generating most of the content byuploading videos, pictures, and other media, participat-ing in discussions (for instance, making comments onothers' writings, videos, pictures), and writing (blogging,wikis, etc.). This is why many call Web 2.0 a moreuser-powered and democratic approach than Web 1.0.In addition to the new functionalities described above,with Web 2.0, a new design style was introduced. Thisstyle is a more easily used approach. In this style, specialattention is given to usability, making Website designseasy to browse for Internet users.This includes presentinginformation in a clear way and not causing confusion forthe users. Presenting content is very straightforward.Users do not spend time trying to find what they arelooking for from complicated Website layouts. Usually, inthis layout, there is content centered in one or twocolumns, large texts, plenty of white space to directattention to the content, fewer graphics but more smallicons, and solid areas of different content sections.

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Web 2.0 types of sites have become very popular,especially among young people. For instance, more than55% of all Americans online between the agesof 12 to 17use online social networking sites (pew Internet, 2007).Likewise, a U.K. government agency, BECTA (2008)reported that 78% of students surveyed, aged 11-16,reported having uploaded pictures, video, or music to theWeb, and 74% of those students have social networkingaccounts (BECTA, 2008). The majority of students areactively participating as users in Web 2.0 trends becausethey enjoy what these Web 2.0 sites have to offer them.

The possibility of using blogs and wikis in theWebQuest model has been proposed (WebQuest.org,2007). In fact, Dodge (2007) sees the future of thistechnique as an incorporation of Web 2.0 trends withWebQuests. However, most of the current WebQuests,if not all, could be found to carry only very basic charac-teristics of Web 1.0 in terms of functionality and design.These WebQuests do not interact with learners.

One of the major weaknesses of the current WebQuestsis that the design structure of this method is not interac-tive with learners. Interactivity here means the extent towhich learners can actively participate in the processand collaborate with other learners. That means this tech-nique relies heavily on written content. It does notfully take advantage of current Web technologies, whichmay increase interactivity and learners' engagementdramatically. WebQuests should embrace the benefitsof Web 2.0 in order to engage today's learners with theinformation we introduce through this method.

Use of Blogs inWebQuests: BlogQuests

BlogQuest here means use of blogs in WebQuests. Ablog can be defined as an online journal. Blogs makeonline publishing very easy. To create a blog, an onlineservice (e.g., blogger.com) or software (e.g., wordpress.org) can be used. Blog users create content via anInternet browser without needing much technical knowl-edge. Blogs increase collaboration and critical thinkingthrough their feedback systems. A blog can be authoredindividually or as a group. Blogs are primarily textual,but pictures, ideas, and audio can easily be added.

Blogs can be integrated into WebQuests. For example,(a) a blog service or blog software can be used to createinteractive and effective WebQuests easier and faster thandesigning WebQuests using traditional methods; (b)BlogQuests enable students to collaborate on the Internet,for example, learners can publish questions they comeacross at any point while completing WebQuest tasks,and other group members or teachers can respond; (c)students may keep blog journals during their WebQuestactivities; and (d) blogs have a modular structure.

This means that many dynamic features can be easilyadded in addition to standard features. Some of theseare: polls, picture galleries, and discussion boards.

Use of Wikis inWebQuests: WikiQuests

Similar to the definition of BlogQuests, WikiQuesthere means use of wikis in WebQuests. A wiki is aWebpage with content that anybody can add to, edit,or delete. Wikis can be public-accessible to every-one-or private-just for people who have registered.Wikis provide unique collaborative opportunities.Groups can collaboratively work on the content of a siteusing a standard Web browser. When a group membermakes a change, the old version is stored and can berestored at any time if necessary. There can be areview process implemented before something new isposted online. Every page may have a separate talk areato discuss proposed improvements to the page.

Wikis can also be used in implementing or designingWebQuests. Some of the ways they can be used are(a) learners/teachers in groups can collaboratively createWebQuests using wikis on the Internet; (b) wikis, apartfrom the WebQuest site itself, can be utilized for learnersto manage and organize information, share resources,make decisions, and discuss work during the WebQuestactivities; (c) WebQuests may include projects or tasksthat could be done better using wikis, such as collabora-tively creating a class newspaper; and (d) teachers canmonitor students' activities. Wikis have a revision historyfeature. This means whenever there is a change, wikisavesthe before and after versions. This lets teachers seethe progression of the content students are creating.

Help from Rss FeedsRssstands for Really Simple Syndication. Rss is used

for sharing Web content. How this works is that a site'scontents can easily be syndicated as an rss feed towhoever wants it. This is especially useful forfrequently updated content, as it allows site readers tostay informed. Rss feeds can be read using rss readersoftware, which can be Web-based or desktop-based.Some of the popular feed readers can be found atnewsgator.com, feedreaders.com, and google.com/reader! . Today, many popular media sites (e.g., news-paper sites, social networking sites, video and picturesharing sites, etc.) and many academic sites (e.g.,article databases such as ERIC) have rss feeds that canbe used for educational purposes.

Many blog and wiki tools have the rss feed featurebuilt in to syndicate content, and an rss reader can alsobe added easily as a separate module. Rsscan increasethe effectiveness of BlogQuests and WikiQuests. Rsscanbe implemented in a number of ways. Some of theseare: (a) educators can create automatically updatingWebQuests with the help of rss (for instance, an rsscollection can be used for the information sourcespart of the WebQuests, such as syndicating recentlypublished articles from the ERIC database); (b) teachers

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can monitor WebQuest activities via rss feeds (forinstance, teachers can set up a separate bloglwiki tosyndicate students' works; this bloglwiki would auto-matically update every time a learner changed or addedcontent to their BlogQuests or WikiQuests); (c ) studentscan keep up with their peers' actions (for instance, whena student posts a question on a BlogQuest, other stu-dents and/or the teacher can be notified that a newquestion/comment is posted via rss feeds so that theycan respond to this question in a timely manner).

Technical Aspects and Visual DesignResearch studies indicate that many teachers believe

that they have limited expertise in using technology atall grade levels (Albirini, 2006; Mumtaz, 2000; Pelgrum,2001). Creating "old-fashioned" WebQuests requirestechnical knowledge. Designing HTML pages withhyperlinks and then uploading them to the Internet mayseem very difficult to many teachers who have limitedtechnological knowledge. This may cause teachers notto use WebQuests or feel uncomfortable trying to usethem. BlogQuests and WikiQuests, however, can makethe creation of WebQuests simpler.

One of the reasons for blogs' and wikis' popularity isthat they simplify Internet publishing. A person with avery basic Internet knowledge can establish an onlineblog or wiki presence. BlogQuests and WikiQuests canbe set up by following a few simple and quick steps.Once they are set up, teachers can create numerousquests. Teachers can easily submit content through aWeb browser without technical knowledge of HTML orthe uploading of files to the Internet.

As stated above, there is a contrast between thedesign of popular sites that are frequently used bystudents and current WebQuest designs. This contrastmay negatively influence students' motivation duringWebQuest activities. To overcome this obstacle,WebQuests can be created using Web 2.0 style.

Furthermore, designing a Website's visual appearancecan be very difficult. There are so many elements to con-sider. Without going into details, some of the elementsare simplicity, consistency on and between pages, pagelayout, ease of navigation, and regard to users witholder/different hardware and software (Lynch & Horton,2008). Current WebQuests are being built by teacherswith little Website design experience, and as a resultoften have substandard designs elements.Another advantage of using blogs and wikis as a basisfor WebQuests is that they can simplify the designaspects of this technique by making use of templates,which are pre-developed Website page layouts. Thereare numerous blog and wiki templates available on theInternet to download and use for free. Installing thesetemplates on blogs and wikis is a very simple process.Most of them are designed by Web design professionalsand are consistent with the Web 2.0 design elements

explained briefly above. Teachers can use these tem-plates to easily make nice-looking Web 2.0 styledesigned WikiQuests and BlogQuests that would attractmore interest from today's learners than the original styleof WebQuests.

ConclusionIn the WebQuest technique, students employ the

Web to learn about and/or synthesize knowledge.Studies show that WebQuests can be an effective toolfor teaching and learning. However, it seems thatWebQuests have changed little since the creation of thetechnique, while the Internet has changed considerably.WebQuests should catch up with current Web tech-nologies. More dynamic and user-focused WebQuestscan be created easily by teachers with the help ofWeb 2.0 tools and services described in this article.

There are numerous studies examining the impactof WebQuests on students' learning (for a review ofstudies, see Abbit & Ophus, 2008). However, there arenot enough research studies regarding the relationshipsbetween the visual aspects of WebQuests (the way aWebQuest looks, or its design) and the effectiveness ofthe WebQuest technique. More studies should examinethis in order to create more effective WebQuests. 0

ReferencesAbbit, J ., & Ophus, J . (2008). What we know about the impacts

of WebQuests: Review of research. AACE journal, 76(4),441-456.

Albirini, A. (2006). Teachers' attitudes toward information andcommunication technologies: The case of Syrian EFL teach-ers. Computers and Education, 41, 373-398.BECTA. (2008). BECTA report shows benefit of Web 2.0 inthe classroom; http://news.becta.org. uk/display. cfm ?res/0=38477.

Coombs, K. A. (2007). Building a library Website on the pillarsof Web 2.0. Computers in Libraries,27,16-19.

Dodge, B. (1997). Some thoughts about WebQuests;http://WebQuest.sdsu.edu/abouCWebQuests.html.

Lynch, P. J . , & Horton, S. (2008). Web style guide (3rd ed.):http://webstyleguide.com/wsg3/index.html .

Mumtaz, S. (2000). Factors affecting teachers' use of informa-tion and technology: A review of the literature. journal ofInformation Technology for Teacher Education, 9(3), 319-341.

Pelgrum, W. J . (2001). Obstacles to the integration of leT ineducation: Results from a worldwide educational assess-ment. Computers and Education, 37, 163-178.

Pew Internet and American Life Project. (2007). Social net-working Websites and teens; http://www.pewlnternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2007 /PIP_SNS_Oata_Memo_janj007.pdfpdf.

Zheng, R., Perez, J . , Williamson, J . , & Flygare, J . (2008).WebQuests as perceived by teachers: Implications foronline teaching and learning. journal of Computer AssistedLearning, 24(4), 295-304.

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