Choose Your Tool

Dear Mrs. Cheek,

With the growing fascination of technology with our young students, I have taken the initiative to learn more about what is new in the technology age. I have been taking a Teaching with Technology class this semester that has opened up many venues for the use of technology in the classroom. The most important thing that I have learned this semester is that we as teachers do not use technology just to say we've used technology. When we use technology, we should have a true educational purpose.

With that being said, I have researched many ways to incorporate technology in the classroom and would like to approach you with one way that I feel could be beneficial for our students. The Web quest. What is a web quest? A web quest is an assignment where the teacher asks a student to use the world wide web to learn and synthesize their knowledge on a specific topic.

This web based activity can be more engaging than your typical read the chapter and answer the questions lesson. This web cast activity also allows students to research a topic more in depth but at the control of the teacher. Which provides a safe and ethical venue for students to become familiar with the world wide web.

The significance in this tool is that the materials selected to be in the web quest will be age and ability appropriate. Since the information that will be selected will be filtered and scrutinized by the classroom teacher first.

Not only is this an engaging way to grab the interest of our students, it is a highly visual activity that will meet the needs of our diverse learners. This activity can also be done independently or in small groups where students can collaborate with one another which addresses the needs of other learners as well.

I think allowing our technology savvy students the opportunity to use their skills in a safe and controlled environment will help them become better researchers and more advanced learners. I would be happy to take the lead on creating content based web quests for our team of teachers to use to enhance the learning of our students.

Sincerely,

Whitney Cox