ECOMP 7007 Save our Ecosystems WebQuest Reflection

In creating my “Save our Ecosystems” WebQuest, I lamented about which approach I would use. Rather than design website and create a WebQuest, I decided to use Questgarden to provide the format thus allowing me to concentrate on the depth of the quest and information I wanted my students to access. Questgarden walks you through each step of creating a WebQuest. Upon beginning my quest however, I was concerned with all of the pages it appeared to require for the quest. I came to realize that this was just from the building version. For example, Questgarden combined the three process pages I built in the edit mode to one comprehensive process page for students or teachers. I was frustrated, however, by Questgarden’s limited space and limit in freedom for formatting. There is so much more I would have done with pictures and video clips if I had had the time and access. I also had a very in-depth excel spreadsheet which I could not upload to Questgarden or even Googledocs because of its size. I was able to import the spreadsheet onto my school blog but I have a password on that blog so this one document will not be available to the general public.
Finding the appropriate websites for my students to explore was most time consuming and I am still not completely satisfied with my choices. I struggled with obtaining the appropriate level for my target students without the information being unattainable for the rest of my student population. Many of the water quality websites are geared towards teachers rather than students but I feel my AC students and even most of my other students should be able to understand the content.
Students should have facilitators in researching and I feel my quest allows students some liberty to explore on their own but also limits them to certain information. I tried to focus the research with specific questions included on each ecologist’s sheets: teacher, environmentalist, and scientist. The jigsaw format of this quest allows students to focus on their own issues but then as a group these topics are analyzed for importance. Teachers will find informative the resources available to them about beginning their own water quality monitoring program as well as the theories on pollution in ecosystems. Teachers are able to download the rubric in order to modify it to their own students or activities.
A photo editing website was very helpful in resizing my own pictures. I was also able to access a free photo website and a free clipart website to make the quest more visually appealing. If I had had the access, I would have used my picture of the reeds as a background page throughout the quest. The freedom to change background and formatting would have been less frustrating but for my first WebQuest, I am glad I choose Questgarden to guide me through each step. Questgarden does require a subscription after the first month free trial so I suppose I will subscribe in order to make changes easily. A new feature available will allow me to export the quest and thus set up my own webpage with the same information. I may use this in my web design class to try out this feature. I will probably continue to edit this WebQuest especially after I have a chance to use it with my students. I have even made several changes today to fine tune the pictures and clipart.