evaluation criteria to be used to assess students' work·
Web2Quests and (f) the conclusion-consists of an explanation of what
Updating a Popular
Web-Based
Inquiry-Oriented Activity
Serhat Kurt
WebQuest is a popular inquiry-oriented activity in
which learners use Web resources. Since the creation
of the innovation, almost 15 years ago, the Web has
changed significantly, while the WebQuest technique
has changed little. This article examines possible appli-
cations of new Web trends on WebQuest instructional
strategy. Some possible integration ideas of new Web
trends into the WebQuest method are discussed.
Introduction
Technology is an accepted part of our lives. As countries
continue to invest in technology and place educational
technology in schools, teachers are expected to adopt
the technology into their teaching. One particular
example is the Internet and, more specifically, the World
Wide Web (Web). The Web has brought new possibilities
for teaching and learning. WebQuests are among the
most widely used methods by K-16 educators as a strat-
egy for integrating the Web into classroom instruction.
The WebQuest technique was created by Bernie Dodge
in 1995 with early input from Tom March. A WebQuest
has been defined as "an inquiry-oriented activity in which
some or all of the information that learners interact with
comes from resources on the Internet" (Dodge, 1997).
This technique usually requires students to work in
groups and relies heavily on information sources on the
Web. Students are guided to visit appropriate Web
resources to look for information. It involves, though,
much more than simply searching for material.
A WebQuest usually includes six steps: (a) the introduc-
tion-includes background information about the topic;
(b) the task-gives a general description of an assigned
task for the learners; (e) information sources-includes
mostly Websites that students can investigate to complete
the task; (d) a description of the process--explains step-
by-step procedures for learners to follow in order to
complete the task; (e) performance evaluation-contains
Serhat Kurt is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at
Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey (e-mail: fskurt@gmail.com).
EDUCATIONAL TECH NOlOGY /September-October 2009
the learners learned. WebQuests can be a short-term (one
to three class periods) or a long-term (one week to a
month) activity. The WebQuests can be designed within a
single discipline or be interdisciplinary (Dodge, 1997).
WebQuests have become very popular since they
were introduced in 1995, have been the subject of
numerous journal and magazine articles, and have
been widely adopted in K-16 education (Zheng et a/.,
2008). Teachers have created numerous WebQuests for
all grade levels (WebQuest.org, 2007). A simple
"WebQuest" Google search yields thousands of
WebQuests already designed by educators.
One important point to mention is that while being
applied to a wide variety of different educational settings,
the WebQuest technique has changed little (Abbit &
Ophus, 2008). Since the creation of WebQuests, how-
ever, the Web has changed a lot, shifting from Web 1.0
to Web 2.0. This article defines possible implications of
new Web approaches (Web 2.0) on WebQuests.
Web 2.0
Web 1.0 was the first and Web 2.0 is the next phase
of the Internet. Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 differ on how
they present information. Although Web 1.0 was mostly
about retrieving information, Web 2.0 represents a more
collaborative, interactive, and user-focused approach.
Coombs (2007) states that Web 2.0 is "transforming the
Web into a space that allows anyone to create and
share information online-a space for collaboration,
conversation, and interaction; a space that is highly
dynamic, flexible, and adaptable" (p, 17).
Web 2.0 offers new trends and services. Some of these
are wikis, blogs, multimedia sharing, podcasting, and
social networking. Internet users now easily build
pages, share photos and videos, and interact with each
other. These users are generating most of the content by
uploading videos, pictures, and other media, participat-
ing in discussions (for instance, making comments on
others' writings, videos, pictures), and writing (blogging,
wikis, etc.). This is why many call Web 2.0 a more
user-powered and democratic approach than Web 1.0.
In addition to the new functionalities described above,
with Web 2.0, a new design style was introduced. This
style is a more easily used approach. In this style, special
attention is given to usability, making Website designs
easy to browse for Internet users. This includes presenting
information in a clear way and not causing confusion for
the users. Presenting content is very straightforward.
Users do not spend time trying to find what they are
looking for from complicated Website layouts. Usually, in
this layout, there is content centered in one or two
columns, large texts, plenty of white space to direct
attention to the content, fewer graphics but more small
icons, and solid areas of different content sections.
35
 Web 2.0 types of sites have become very popular,
especially among young people. For instance, more than
55% of all Americans online between the ages of 12 to 17
use online social networking sites (pew Internet, 2007).
Likewise, a U.K. government agency, BECTA (2008)
reported that 78% of students surveyed, aged 11-16,
reported having uploaded pictures, video, or music to the
Web, and 74% of those students have social networking
accounts (BECTA, 2008). The majority of students are
actively participating as users in Web 2.0 trends because
they enjoy what these Web 2.0 sites have to offer them.
The possibility of using blogs and wikis in the
WebQuest model has been proposed (WebQuest.org,
2007). In fact, Dodge (2007) sees the future of this
technique as an incorporation of Web 2.0 trends with
WebQuests. However, most of the current WebQuests,
if not all, could be found to carry only very basic charac-
teristics of Web 1.0 in terms of functionality and design.
These WebQuests do not interact with learners.
One of the major weaknesses of the current WebQuests
is that the design structure of this method is not interac-
tive with learners. Interactivity here means the extent to
which learners can actively participate in the process
and collaborate with other learners. That means this tech-
nique relies heavily on written content. It does not
fully take advantage of current Web technologies, which
may increase interactivity and learners' engagement
dramatically. WebQuests should embrace the benefits
of Web 2.0 in order to engage today's learners with the
information we introduce through this method.
Use of Blogs in
WebQuests: BlogQuests
BlogQuest here means use of blogs in WebQuests. A
blog can be defined as an online journal. Blogs make
online publishing very easy. To create a blog, an online
service (e.g., blogger.com) or software (e.g., wordpress.
org) can be used. Blog users create content via an
Internet browser without needing much technical knowl-
edge. Blogs increase collaboration and critical thinking
through their feedback systems. A blog can be authored
individually or as a group. Blogs are primarily textual,
but pictures, ideas, and audio can easily be added.
Blogs can be integrated into WebQuests. For example,
(a) a blog service or blog software can be used to create
interactive and effective WebQuests easier and faster than
designing WebQuests using traditional methods; (b)
BlogQuests enable students to collaborate on the Internet,
for example, learners can publish questions they come
across at any point while completing WebQuest tasks,
and other group members or teachers can respond; (c)
students may keep blog journals during their WebQuest
activities; and (d) blogs have a modular structure.
This means that many dynamic features can be easily
added in addition to standard features. Some of these
are: polls, picture galleries, and discussion boards.
36 EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY/September-October
Use of Wikis in
WebQuests: WikiQuests
Similar to the definition of BlogQuests, WikiQuest
here means use of wikis in WebQuests. A wiki is a
Webpage with content that anybody can add to, edit,
or delete. Wikis can be public-accessible to every-
one-or private-just for people who have registered.
Wikis provide unique collaborative opportunities.
Groups can collaboratively work on the content of a site
using a standard Web browser. When a group member
makes a change, the old version is stored and can be
restored at any time if necessary. There can be a
review process implemented before something new is
posted online. Every page may have a separate talk area
to discuss proposed improvements to the page.
Wikis can also be used in implementing or designing
WebQuests. Some of the ways they can be used are
(a) learners/teachers in groups can collaboratively create
WebQuests using wikis on the Internet; (b) wikis, apart
from the WebQuest site itself, can be utilized for learners
to manage and organize information, share resources,
make decisions, and discuss work during the WebQuest
activities; (c) WebQuests may include projects or tasks
that could be done better using wikis, such as collabora-
tively creating a class newspaper; and (d) teachers can
monitor students' activities. Wikis have a revision history
feature. This means whenever there is a change, wiki
saves the before and after versions. This lets teachers see
the progression of the content students are creating.
Help from Rss Feeds
Rss stands for Really Simple Syndication. Rss is used
for sharing Web content. How this works is that a site's
contents can easily be syndicated as an rss feed to
whoever wants it. This is especially useful for
frequently updated content, as it allows site readers to
stay informed. Rss feeds can be read using rss reader
software, which can be Web-based or desktop-based.
Some of the popular feed readers can be found at
newsgator.com, feedreaders.com, and google.com/
reader! . Today, many popular media sites (e.g., news-
paper sites, social networking sites, video and picture
sharing sites, etc.) and many academic sites (e.g.,
article databases such as ERIC) have rss feeds that can
be used for educational purposes.
Many blog and wiki tools have the rss feed feature
built in to syndicate content, and an rss reader can also
be added easily as a separate module. Rss can increase
the effectiveness of BlogQuests and WikiQuests. Rsscan
be implemented in a number of ways. Some of these
are: (a) educators can create automatically updating
WebQuests with the help of rss (for instance, an rss
collection can be used for the information sources
part of the WebQuests, such as syndicating recently
published articles from the ERIC database); (b) teachers
2009
can monitor WebQuest activities via rss feeds (for
instance, teachers can set up a separate bloglwiki to
syndicate students' works; this bloglwiki would auto-
matically update every time a learner changed or added
content to their BlogQuests or WikiQuests); (c) students
can keep up with their peers' actions (for instance, when
a student posts a question on a BlogQuest, other stu-
dents and/or the teacher can be notified that a new
question/comment is posted via rss feeds so that they
can respond to this question in a timely manner).
Technical Aspects and Visual Design
Research studies indicate that many teachers believe
that they have limited expertise in using technology at
all grade levels (Albirini, 2006; Mumtaz, 2000; Pelgrum,
2001). Creating "old-fashioned" WebQuests requires
technical knowledge. Designing HTML pages with
hyperlinks and then uploading them to the Internet may
seem very difficult to many teachers who have limited
technological knowledge. This may cause teachers not
to use WebQuests or feel uncomfortable trying to use
them. BlogQuests and WikiQuests, however, can make
the creation of WebQuests simpler.
One of the reasons for blogs' and wikis' popularity is
that they simplify Internet publishing. A person with a
very basic Internet knowledge can establish an online
blog or wiki presence. BlogQuests and WikiQuests can
be set up by following a few simple and quick steps.
Once they are set up, teachers can create numerous
quests. Teachers can easily submit content through a
Web browser without technical knowledge of HTML or
the uploading of files to the Internet.
As stated above, there is a contrast between the
design of popular sites that are frequently used by
students and current WebQuest designs. This contrast
may negatively influence students' motivation during
WebQuest activities. To overcome this obstacle,
WebQuests can be created using Web 2.0 style.
Furthermore, designing a Website's visual appearance
can be very difficult. There are so many elements to con-
sider. Without going into details, some of the elements
are simplicity, consistency on and between pages, page
layout, ease of navigation, and regard to users with
older/different hardware and software (Lynch & Horton,
2008). Current WebQuests are being built by teachers
with little Website design experience, and as a result
often have substandard designs elements.
Another advantage of using blogs and wikis as a basis
for WebQuests is that they can simplify the design
aspects of this technique by making use of templates,
which are pre-developed Website page layouts. There
are numerous blog and wiki templates available on the
Internet to download and use for free. Installing these
templates on blogs and wikis is a very simple process.
Most of them are designed by Web design professionals
and are consistent with the Web 2.0 design elements
EDUCATIONAL TECH NOLOGY /September-October 2009
explained briefly above. Teachers can use these tem-
plates to easily make nice-looking Web 2.0 style
designed WikiQuests and BlogQuests that would attract
more interest from today's learners than the original style
of WebQuests.
Conclusion
In the WebQuest technique, students employ the
Web to learn about and/or synthesize knowledge.
Studies show that WebQuests can be an effective tool
for teaching and learning. However, it seems that
WebQuests have changed little since the creation of the
technique, while the Internet has changed considerably.
WebQuests should catch up with current Web tech-
nologies. More dynamic and user-focused WebQuests
can be created easily by teachers with the help of
Web 2.0 tools and services described in this article.
There are numerous studies examining the impact
of WebQuests on students' learning (for a review of
studies, see Abbit & Ophus, 2008). However, there are
not enough research studies regarding the relationships
between the visual aspects of WebQuests (the way a
WebQuest looks, or its design) and the effectiveness of
the WebQuest technique. More studies should examine
this in order to create more effective WebQuests. 0
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