Llengua anglesa a secundària. Competència digital

A webquest is a search-oriented activity in which the information the students handle comes primarily from the net. In a webquest, the students work in groups and are given a role in order to do a task which involves searching the net, reading, analizing, organizing the information, elaborating a hypothesis and creating a final product. Everything they need to complete the process is found in a single webpage, which includes a rubric so that they know beforehand what and how they will be assessed.

Webquests are usually interdisciplinary and highly motivational. The focus of attention is not the teacher, but the task itself. The kids don’t just retell, but learn to see things from different perspectives, to accommodate points of view and to summarize them in a document, that is, they develop higher level thinking abilities.

In the following articles, Webquest taskonomy and A taxonomy of tasks you will find a classification of webquests according to the task to be carried out.

All webquests consist of six parts:

• Introduction, just a short paragraph to introduce the activity to the students.
• Task describes the end result of the learner’s activities.
• Process describes the steps the learners must go through to accomplish their task, and some guidance on how to organize the information they gather.
• Evaluation describes how their performance will be evaluated. It includes the end result but also the process and the group work.
• Conclusion summarizes what the students will have learnt in the process. Sometimes it includes some further questions and links in case they want to go deeply into the topic.
• Teacher’s page includes information to help teachers implement the webquest, such as teacher’s notes, answer keys and methodology.

• Go to http://www.xtec.es/recursos/webquests/,

click on Secundària and Llengües estrangeres. Choose Multi Colour Web Quest.

This webquest is suitable for 2nd cycle ESO or 1st Batxillerat. Students will learn about different cultures in the world with the aim in mind to understand them and therefore be able to fight intolerance and discrimination.

• Read the Introduction and the Task. The students will be asked to talk and convince their classmates, with the help of a Power Point presentation, of the richness of the diversity of cultures.
• The Process explains the learning activities in detail. It also divides the students into groups of five, and assigns each member a different role: a historian, an economist, a human rights activist, an artist and a journalist.

Only Activity 2 is individual work. The rest must be done and agreed on in group.

• In the Evaluation the pupils know where their mark comes from. They are told what aspects of their work will be taken into consideration before grading them. The Evaluation chart specifies (and justifies) how many points will be awarded to the different activities.
• The Conclusion is a final thought on the topic for the students.
• The Teacher’s notes includes some methodology tips and technical aspects worth taking into account.

• Methodology: students work in group. They know what they have to do, and work autonomously. The teacher becomes more of an observer and only intervenes to give technical assistance, manage group work and occasionally, give help when language problems arise.
• Timing: web quests can be any length. This particular one can be done in 2 or 3 sessions in the computer room.

WebQuests at the CRLE contains readings and a number of selected webQuests to practice language learning.

Webquests at WQ.cat indexes some portals in Spain where to find webquests.

The WebQuest portal click on Find webquest. It contains a database of over 2500 webquests and a search engine to find the one you need (webquests may be searched by subject and grade, or by text).

If you would like to create your own webquest, you may use any of these Webquests templates and generators.

Webquest templates and generators http://webquest.xtec.cat/httpdocs/eines/eines.htm

To learn more about webquests, check these Readings & training materials at San Diego State University or these Articles i entrevistes at WQ.cat.p