Review of two WebQuests

Finally, I finished my rubric for evaluating WebQuests, review of 10 WebQuests, and a minor revision of my rubric. I am still finishing the Inquiry definition but I thought that it might not get finished tonight so I had better get to my blog entry for this week. I will be reviewing two WebQuests that were part of my WebQuest review, the best of the ten and the worst of the ten.


The best of the WebQuests was A Balancing Act – Sharing Our World with the Grizzly Bear. This site attained a total score of 24, which on my rubric was a perfect score. Its visual appeal was outstanding, each page having a different picture of the grizzly. Navigation of the site was simple to follow. The introduction was engaging because it referred to a real problem, grizzly bear encounters in Canada. This real problem hit home because the Quest was authored in western Canada, home to these encounters. The process was well-conceived, numerous web sources were available, and the evaluation rubric, though long, was complete. The Quest encouraged collaboration as can be seen in the evaluation process. Finally, the presentations were to include items that seemed to be drawn from the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, writing a letter with recommendations supported by information that had been gathered during the Quest.


The second sight, Are All Men Created Equal?, had a score of 9, with only one category in the developing area. Had there been a 0 score available for the grading, this site would have been scored even lower. The visual appeal was lacking, only one picture and a few clip art pictures. Navigation was done strictly by the mouse, only one page housing the Quest. The introduction was poor, a real cure for insomnia. Three links in the introduction no longer work. The task was a writing task, and students were given a choice of completing one of the assignments. No collaboration was expected or encouraged. The process was in four steps, and looking at it again, I might change the score for the process, but maybe not. Only three web resources were provided for background, a very small number considering the topic of this activity. No evaluation rubric was provided; evaluation was not discussed in the WebQuest. I was not impressed by the WebQuest. Then I looked at the date it was produced – 1997. I can now understand the limited resources provided. This is an early WebQuest.

The other eight WebQuests fall between these two. To see the others and to view my rubric, please feel free to access http://nlutie.com/ecaster/iqrubric_webquest/IQ_Rubric_WebQuest.html, and soon the definition for inquiry will be added.