REFLECTION 5

FOCUS QUESTION

Part A. Webquest

 Webquests represent a more learner-centred, inquiry-based approach to learning focused on ‘an activity’ rather than mere information or skill alone as the  unit of learning. In light of your own experience in developing a webquest, what do you think are the main advantages (and any significant disadvantages) of the Webquest model in comparison to traditional transmission and teacher-centred approaches to learning?

 Advantages

• Unlike the curriculum-centered instruction, students play an active role in this learning process.  It provides students with the opportunity to engage in cooperative learning, encouraging the development of intrinsic motivation for learning, and promoting a constructivist learning environment.  

• WebQuest consists of five building blocks; Introduction; Tasks; Process; Evaluation and Conclusion.  Within this format, there is little chance that students will prey to distractions or exposure to inappropriate web sites.

• WebQuest activity is a useful tool for enhancing the development of transferable skills and helping students to bridge the gap between schools and “real world” experience.

•  WebQuest is an evolving body of content to know, explore and process rather than being a static body of content to be taught.

• The use of this instructional technique affords students the opportunity to make connections and to discover for themselves that a meaningful education is one which teaches us to use what we have learned by applying our learning to new experiences.

 Disadvantage

• When using the WebQuest, students must have self-disciple.  If they are only simply clicking on the links and don't make an effort to read what is required of them, they would be very lost and will not be motivated to work on the task.  Thus, the teacher will have to walk round to make sure that every pupils is on task or else those lazy ones will learn nothing at all. 

• Teachers will have to spend a great deal of their time looking for reliable and suitable resources and designing the WebQuest that caters to the needs of their students.

 

Part B. Seminar Presenation Focus

Briefly recount the ‘story’ of how you developed your Web Resource in terms of addressing the following prompts (no. 2 and 3 where appropriate) : 

1. How did you go about coming up with a specific theme (in relation to a  chosen subject) that was suitable for organizing a web search and resource development?

I thought this would be a good chance to develop my web resources on this topic- OUR WONDERFUL BODY, because the students I taught during my last practicum, showed great interest in this topic when I showed them the animation of the three body systems (The Circulatory, Respiratory and Digestive Systems which they have to cover in P4) that I found while surfing the web. Rather than getting students to visualize how each system works, the internet is a good place to source for information and animations on the body systems to make lessons more interesting .  The animations show how the blood circulates in our body, how the blood moves in and out of the heart, how the food travel through the digestive system, how air moves in and out of our lungs and many more. These help to enhance their understanding on each system.  Furthermore, I've found quite a lot of information about the disorders associated with each body system.  And I think it is very important that the students are aware of the disorders so as to take good care of their body.

2. In the developing of your resource and the website, were there any design or other problems you had to overcome (e.g. getting certain effects like WordArt on your web page, or to convert a Front Page webpage into a form recognized by the Geocities format)?

I didn't really encounter any major problem during the developmental stage.  The only thing that I have difficulty with is the "hit counter".  Until now, I still can't get it to work!

3. Any bits of advice or particular design/technical tricks you would recommend or pass on to other people?

No technical tricks that I know of, but I'm not sure if you are aware about this.  You can go to this website to create your own animated text if you can't find any appropriate or suitable ones.  The website is http://www.animfactory.com/.  Furthermore, this website has this function that allows you to add transparency to the background of the animated graphics which we can't do that in FrontPage. The only setback is that it only allows us to use the transparify function to the graphics found in this website.