Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Role of WeQuests in Learning a Foreign/Second Language


 

Webquest are a lesson format developed by Dr .Bernie Dodge. The activities and lesson that put in this webquest student don’t jut memorized but they are expected to take the information that they interact and create new information that has meaning to them. Student use the webquest to create meaningful project that they share with others. The focus in the webquest is on using the information rather than   looking for it.
Role of teacher:
The teacher will use this webquest to be more modern way to teach rather than tradition way because, webquest will increase student motivation. And when student are motivated, they are more thinking and active.
Role of student:
Student will use a real recourse from their life rather than using the text book or material that only presented from one point of view. The webquest will be enjoyable for the student and less formal. WebQuests give students a task that allows them to use their imagination and problem-solving skills. The answers are not predefined and therefore must be discovered or created. Students must use their own creative-thinking and problem-solving skills to find solutions to problems.
Class environment:
When the student use this webquest in class they feel active and a wake in another words they feel more free and they be more active and enjoy their time not only a regular class.
Critical thinking:
One of the key reasons for using WebQuests is that they prompt higher-level thinking. The questions posed to students require more than just finding and spitting back information. They must take the information they research and transform it into something else. Often students have to evaluate a variety of information sources that contain multiple opinions. Prior to the Web, it was difficult for teachers to provide resources with varying perspectives.
Student oriented activates:
In the webquest student will be working all the time. Also, they will can work with many topic not just one. And the important point that student will learn how to work with a group.


Cooperative/Collaborative learning and project-based learning:
WebQuests are often cooperative in nature, requiring students to take on roles where they are part of a team that must accomplish the task. They have to become experts on a certain topic and share this information with their group. They know their teammates are counting on them to contribute to the completion of the final task. Because they know their results will be shared with others in some format, often times on the Web, they know they have a real, sometimes worldwide audience.
WebQuests are also a wonderful way of capturing students' imagination and allowing them to explore in a guided, meaningful manner, "Communication, group work, problem solving, and critical and creative thinking skills are becoming far more important in today's world than having students memorize predetermined content."
As an ESL future teacher:
WebQuests, say the teachers who use them, promote high-level thinking, develops problem-solving skills, and provides an avenue for seamlessly integrating technology into the curriculum. And creating one is easier than you might think! Many sites are available to walk you through the process. As n ESL teacher in Saudi school I will use this webquest because, I want my student to think to create to open their mined I don’t want them to only memorize what I give them in class. Also, I want my student to creative and have the opportunity to put their goals in front of them. However, as a teacher  I encourage the all teacher that  not just use the school book to teach the student they need more than a school book that way they need to be more creative and that will happens when they tray with the Saudi school the webquest.
  


 

 

 




 
 

 

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Website Evaluation






This website belongs to an organization, and it is about how to enhance ESL grammar and vocabulary. This website produces various quizzes with many languages and activities to improve your vocabulary and grammar knowledge, and this website considered as a good website.

 For the content and content accuracy categories, this site has a clear purpose and theme that will help students to develop their learning process. This site about grammar and vocabulary, and the content matches the purpose of the website. Moreover, all the instructions are clear for the students, and the ambiguity is not being available in it. Also, the information provided by the organization is accurate.

For the background, layout, navigation, and the links, the design of the website has an attractive and colorful design.  Also, this website has a usable layout, and the links allow the reader to easily move from one page to another one, and user rarely becomes lost. Most of the links open with us, so these links have high quality and clearly label. Also, the learners can discover all the important elements easily.

For the background, color choices and fonts, this website has an attractive background, and it does not reduce from readability. This colorful background can get ESL learners attentions to each sections. Also, the color choice of the background is appropriate with the fonts and does not reduce the importance of the content. In addition, varies size of fonts are appropriately for heading and text. This consistency between the background, colorful choices and fonts will make this site as a useful site for the users.

For the copy right category, this site points to high quality copyright because all the pages of quizzes, puzzles and activities have at the bottom the citation, and this considered one of the strength point of this website. 


Suggestions:

In this website, we have several criticisms:

First, it needs more attractive layout to capture the attention of the learners.

Second, we suggest for this website to put attractive graphics and images to attract the users and to put more attractive background because the use of graphics and images can enhance readers understanding of the questions.

Third, it’s important to have lessons about learning vocabulary and grammar in this website, so the learners can benefit from the explanations of the lessons and solve the activities in more accurate way.

As Future English language teachers:

From the knowledge about website evaluation, we learned how to evaluate any website, and how to direct our students to a good website which is appropriate to their levels and will improve their skills.