Week 5. A few addittional thoughts on the challenges of this week.

http://kuanyugeoportfolio.wikispaces.com/Webquest

You are right! It's a WebQuest! I would like to add a smile here, yet I cannot...I feel tired, absolutely exhausted and this time I cannot deny this fact and cannot even deceive myself. :) Hey, here it comes back...:) I guess such feelings have visited me after I have completed the most difficult assignment I have ever had. I don't know if it says something about me as a teacher, but I am not complaining here, I am admitting the difficulties I face with. I did my best to complete an assignment given to us by Sean and I did that not because he encouraged us to do that, but to give it a try to a Web tool, which has been so much praised by a bunch of teachers worldwide and by the majority, if not all, of my groupmates here on the Webskills course. 

I will definitely add that WebQuest is an amazing tool that develops students' creativity, critical thinking, analytical mind, reading, listening, speaking and writing skills. It teaches students how important it is to collaborate if you want to attain your goals. It makes students use the target language, English in my case. It teaches them a sense of responsibility for their choices, ideas and the result. It makes them look for solutions rather than give up when facing with a problem. It makes them self-confident and independent learners who believe that authentic language and materials are ways to learn and use the language in real-life situations. I see WebQuest as a tool for bigger or smaller projects, as a way to apply Rubrics in a very creative and constructive way, as a way to be one of many technology related changes in my future plan.

However, I would also like to share some ideas with you over the difficulties I have faced with while creating my first WebQuest. It took me 2 days to look for all the material I needed for the topic I had selected to work on. I should also add here that I have droped the idea on my innitial topic due to the fact that I did not manage to find enough information. You might smile and wonder now...how can this be, the Internet is full of information. Maybe? I always think of my students first of all and then the topic, skills, ideas, syllabus...I want my students to enjoy the learning process, to fall in love with English, to leave the class and want to learn outside of it as well as come back inside to share all the ideas and emotions! When I found all the necessary information, videos, pictures, etc. I needed to describe the stages in my WebQuest and well, this is not easy. It has to be clear not for you as a teacher but for your students. You need to think of their interest, motivation and engagement, hence your words mean a lot there. I have spent one more day for that and I am still thinking there is a lot to improve there. Therefore, what I want to say here is that we, teachers, should not only be excited over the WebQuest as a tool but take it seriously to a certain extent and be responsible for the content we choose. This is a wonderful, creative and promissing tool, but also time-consuming and requiring lots of efforts on the side of a teacher.

Nonetheless, this has been an unforgettable and invaluable indeed experience which has made me grow as a teacher once again. :)

Jurga.