Jacob Lawrence: Exploring Stories

Webquests are guided inquiry-oriented activities in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources found on the Internet. Webquests are often supplemented with other media such as print material, cd roms or videos. Typically, there are two kinds of Webquests - short term and long term.

The instructional goal of a short term Webquest is knowledge acquisition and integration. At the end of a short term Webquest, a learner will have grappled with a significant amount of new information and made sense of it. A short-term Webquest is designed to be completed in one to three class periods, or can be done semi-independently at home.

The instructional goal of a longer term Webquest consists of extending and refining knowledge. After completing a longer term Webquest, a learner would have analyzed a body of knowledge deeply, transformed it in some way, and demonstrated an understanding of the material by creating something that others can respond to, on-line or off-line. A longer term Webquest will typically take between one week and a month in a classroom setting. Most of the Jacob Lawrence Webquests on this website are long-term.

Webquests of either short or long duration are deliberately designed to make the best use of a learner's time. There is questionable educational benefit in having learners surfing the net without a clear task in mind, and most schools must ration student's access time on the computer. To achieve the efficiency of a learner's time spent on the computer, and the clarity of purpose, Webquests usually contain the following six elements: Introduction, Task, Process, Resources, Evaluation, and Conclusion.