Team 3, Q9440-02
Fall 2005
Catherine Hernandez
Glenna Fleeman
Rebekah Menditto
Laura Simon
WebQuest Evaluation
Team Project
		
The Vacation WebQuest, by Leah McCoy, Ed.D.
http://www.wfu.edu/~mccoy/NCTM99/vacation.html

Short description of the WebQuest:
This WebQuest uses the model of planning a vacation in order for students to develop a table and a graph including three data points for each of five National Parks. Students were asked to identify the air fare cost from their location to the nearest airport, to determine the size if the park and the height of the tallest mountain in the park. Once students have gathered and assembled the data, they must decide which National Park they will visit and give a presentation to the class. The author planned this WebQuest for students in grades 5-9. 

Summary of the evaluation data: 

Aesthetics:
Given the assignment is about National Parks and vacation planning, icons or graphics in that motif would visually stimulate students and inspire them to become engaged. Instead, the page is dull with no pictures or color, aside from a small border at the top and bottom of the page. This is not a good way to get students excited. The font is plain and the text is arranged blandly in the center of the page. While there is some use of bolding, it marginally works to organize the page, but does nothing to draw interest. There is no flow to evaluate, since there was only one page. Had the WebQuest been better developed, multiple pages would have been needed. The aesthetics of this WebQuest are unimaginative and unexciting. 

The choice of links is also not optimal. Why choose a link for a National Park that is not the site published by the National Park Service? Additional sites about the parks could of course be referenced, but certainly all of these National Parks’ “home” web pages should have been included. There are some broken links, and it should be noted that the broken links are actually not broken, just incomplete: http://www.nps.gov/yose/ is listed, but the correct link is http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm. One of our members encountered a link which was blocked by her file protection application which may mean that page wanted to send spyware to her system or was in some other way compromised. These are significant flaws in the design.

Introduction:
The introduction does little to inform the student about what is coming in the WebQuest. There is a mention of “vacation planning” and the data to be collected. The introduction assumes the student understands the key terms, graph and table, which may be unwise, since that is the learning topic for the project.  There is no invitation to explore more, nothing that makes you want to know what is going to happen. Only factual details are provided, but there is no feeling of “tell me more” to pique students’ interest. 

Task:
Detailed instructions for the student are not provided and there were no objectives stated for this project. The few instructions present were basic, vague steps. It is possible that students would not be clear about the type of graph they are expected to construct. Some in our group felt the instructions were clear, but that the WebQuest itself is vague and pointless.  We were in agreement that there should be some details about how the graph and table should be constructed: by hand or on a computer and whether to use a specific program. Perhaps an example of what the graph should contain would have been helpful.

The WebQuest does not reference any state or national math standards. The purpose for this WebQuest is never clearly stated. Why are the students doing this WebQuest? What are the goals? In the conclusion, there is some allusion to the goals the author had in mind, but there is little support for those goals in the WebQuest. It is odd that the conclusion mentioned that the WebQuest would be a “problem solving activity” “connecting real-world travel data to analysis and representation”. Unfortunately, there was no “problem” presented in the Introduction or Task. While there was some “real-world data” used, there was no guidance to the students to indicate what they were looking for in their analysis. Was the objective to see the largest park with the tallest mountain for the least money? There is not sufficient context for students to derive a decision. 

Further, we felt the task itself was not thought provoking. Student’s find information from a couple of sources and transfer it onto a graph. There is no higher level thinking required. Because the sites were so limited and each student is required to do all the sites we can anticipate that everyone’s graph will look essentially the same. Every student’s answers will probably be the same. Students are not being lead to draw conclusions, but rather to “frame” and present facts. Sadly, there is limited significance to the students’ lives in this task. Some students may want to visit a park they find out about on this quest, but how much more exciting the process would be if they were to find out other types of things besides the square footage and the tallest mountain. 

Process:
There are no clear steps for completing this WebQuest. Instead there are vague instructions that may confuse a student. Or, we can consider that the instructions are sufficiently clear, but the objective is so obscure that the task appears pointless. The process is not explicitly stated, but is mostly understood.

Another weak link in this WebQuest is the lack of collaborative work. While it may be true that the task is so simple that there is no need to work in teams, however this points out a flaw that highlights a missed opportunity.

Resources:
There were very limited resources offered: merely a website for each park and a link to a web site to price air fares. Resource offering in WebQuest can be the most enriching part of the experience for students. Using good references lets students build knowledge and explore new topics, from appropriate starting places. This is another crippling weakness with this WebQuest.

Evaluation:
There are no evaluation criteria.  We don’t know how students will be graded. We can assume they will not be graded for their vacation choice, so are they graded on the graph and tables they create. If so, there needs to be some information to describe what should be included on the graph and table, and how they should be constructed. 

There is an entire “chunk” of this WebQuest missing. There is no background for the teacher, or teacher instructions. With that would generally be presented some method of evaluation. With students in this grade level, “what they got” on the project will be very important. This is a very large hole. At a minimum there should have been a rubric or table outlining the most important evaluation points.

Suggestions for improvement - What could be done to make the WebQuest more effective? What is positive about this WebQuest?
We have a number of suggestions:

1) Establish a table to contain the website links. This would make the WebQuest flow more easily and the references more easily located.

2) Spruce up the appearance of this WebQuest. The Internet is a highly visual place and this WebQuest could more effectively draw students into the work with some graphics or photos to enhance the page. These elements must be used with a dual purpose: to pique interest and to improve information availability and flow within the site/page.

3) The background knowledge needs to be broader so that it pertains to the students. This WebQuest would present foreign concepts to children from the inner city that has never experienced a vacation or an air plane trip.

4) Eliminate the aspect of the air fare in this WebQuest. This data point seems extraneous and unrelated to the task.

5) There should a broadening of the task as well as the background and contextual information. As the activity is currently defined, it is really nothing more than a worksheet made into a WebQuest activity.

	Some possibilities for improving the overall task might include:

My idea is that students should research each one with the sites given.  Find out three things to do at each one and then pick the one they would like to visit.  Once they pick the one they want, they should have to dive deep into that particular site and find out all of the information they can that they find interesting.  Like what would you want to do there?  Where could you stay?  Is there hiking?  Biking? Other activities?  Does it cost anything to visit?  Is there a store to buy souvenirs?  What is the weather like during the year?  Is it closed at any times?  What kinds of animals could you possibly see there?  There are so many neat things kids could discover about these parks that this WebQuest doesn’t even touch.

Additionally, the topic of math to explore tables and graphs holds enormous possibilities. What about comparing park size, available habitat and 3 animal populations that the parks have in common? Students would be able to draw some interesting a conclusion about which park is best supporting these animals and why. One of the best advantages of the whole WebQuest concept is how well they lend them selves to interdisciplinary learning. Isn’t that the point? Learn something (math) and apply it to solve a problem (animal habitats and animal survival.)

I understand, though, that this is a math WebQuest and so I must include numbers in some way.  Finding out the square miles is easy to do and requires no math skills at all.  Perhaps they could print out a map of the park, find a trial they would like to hike and trace it to find how long it is.  This would require using the scale on the map and measuring the length of the trail.  Also, finding airline fares requires no math skills.  A way to change this could be to find out (on mapquest or other type of site) how many miles it is from their city to that park.  Then calculate how much gas it would take to get there if the car used 25 miles per gallon.  Then they could calculate how much it cost for the gasoline using the current gas prices.  Perhaps they could compare this with the airline miles.

Conclusion:

This WebQuest has a good foundation.  The idea is good, but the process of putting it together, gathering data, and presenting has some work to be done. I like the fact that the group/individual students will have to present their findings and project to the rest of the class. The positive thing about this WebQuest is that it gets students thinking about National Parks.  Although I think that a lot more could be discovered, this is a starting point.