MERLOT!!! :)

No my friends, I am not blogging about that wonderfully fruity medium-bodied red wine that we enjoy so often with a well prepared steak or piece of salmon cooked on the grill with a side of steamed fresh vegetables...although that does sound really really good! I am speaking of MERLOT, as in the acronym for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. While these are two very different "MERLOT's"...they both are two of my favorite things. As a teacher, I have always enjoyed a nice glass of Merlot wine at the end of the day (LOL) and I am quickly becoming a HUGE fan of the MERLOT website.

According to their website, MERLOT is a "free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy. MERLOT is a leading edge, user-centered, collection of peer reviewed higher education, online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services." This site is packed with excellent ideas and resources and I highly recommend you check it out; here is the link: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm

As part of my class activity in CEP811, we were to explore this site and choose one resource that we felt would benefit us in our classroom or work. Well, I found tons of resources in a very short time period. However, I am only going to review one here for you today...WebQuest.org.

I chose this resource for several reasons. First, I know that we are doing WebQuests in CEP811 and I can use this resource to help me with my homework...hahaha! Second, I would like to use WebQuests more and I feel this would be an excellent resource to help me learn about this teaching tool. Finally, I felt that this was an excellent resource for other teachers and wanted to share it with all of you!

First off, WebQuest.org is operated through San Diego State University Department of Educational Technology and the site administrator is Bernie Dodge, PhD. For those of you who do not know, and I was one of you before I found this site, Bernie Dodge is the creator of the WebQuest! He is the Grand-Poobah of the WebQuest...the WebQuest is his baby! So, what better resource for learning about and utilizing this tool than from the creator himself.

Ok...you’re not sold yet...so what if it is run by the creator himself...is it a strong site? Does it have the necessary tools to benefit me? Is this something I can use and get the educational "bang for my buck" that I am looking for? The answer to all of those questions is...YES!

Let's get to the meat of this review. First, what is a WebQuest? Well, according to the site, a WebQuest is "an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web." It basically is like sending your students on a discovery mission for information using the internet and web-based tools. This is an instructional tool that can be utilized from elementary to college classrooms and has relevance within all curriculum areas.

I think that it is safe to say that the internet is not going away anytime soon...so, shouldn’t we incorporate it into our educational practices? This tool can be used with students to educate them on how to actually use the internet and web-tools and then later as an instructional method to have them seek information on the web independently. That's where this website comes in. With this website the novice to WebQuests can search, find, and use quests that have already been developed and successfully implemented in the classroom or use tutorials and templates to learn how to create their own. So, while you are learning about quests and how to build them, you can use the ones developed by other teachers and see how they work for your students. With this site...you are up and running immediately and the work has been done for you! I don't know of a teacher anywhere that doesn't love quality, proven lessons that can be used "right out of the can."

This site is also valid for the average users, providing new tools and information on how to further you WebQuest knowledge. Through the "Useful WebQuest Resources" tab, you can find information in areas such as Concepts and Definitions, Development, and Implementation. Once you have created successful quests, there is a section for you to upload and share them with other teachers. Finally, there is a Communication section where you can participate in the WebQuest Dialogue Ning, the sites Forum, and join their Yahoo List.

Overall, this site benefits students in every grade and teachers at all WebQuest experience levels. I highly recommend it and look forward to hearing your opinion...May The Quests Begin!