User:Pavleta kolova

INTRODUCTION
Fact № 1 We all know that children like playing.

Fact № 2 We also know that they like studying interesting things and, moreover, they like using the knowledge they have gained. Or in other words, children like active learning.

Why, then, most of the students eventually lose their interest in school? Because, we teachers, eventually forget these two facts.

Knowledge for the real life Nobody likes studying something that is useless. Children are not an exception. It does not matter whether you are a teacher in Maths, English or Computer Skills you should motivate your pupils that they are studying something very important for their lives and also you have to show them how exactly they could use the new knowledge.

Children and school nowadays Children nowadays communicate less and less with each other. Most of them spare their time in front of the computers surfing in the Internet. Undoubtedly, there is a lot of useful information there. Children nowadays are much more informed on different topics then ever. Sometimes, pupils even know more on particular topics than their teachers. Is it possible to make pupils interested in school then? Yes, teachers can make pupils interested in school by using interesting and useful topics shown in an amusing way. One possible method that fulfills these acquirements is the Web Quest.

HYPOTHESIS
Web Quests are a very interesting and effective complementary method for making teaching more interesting. It combines effectively Computer and Interenet Skills, English, World Orientation and Social Skills. If it is used once or twice during the school year, it :

•	motivates children;

•	makes them more skillful at finding and working with information in the Internet;

•	develops their skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening in English;

•	develps their social skills;

•	develops their skills to work in a team and in a group;

•	meets them with important, useful and interesting information that shows them the connection between school and real life.

WEB QUESTS
What is a Web Quest? The inventor of the Web Quest is Bernie Dodge. He defined his new learning method as an “inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from recourses on the Internet.” In other words, it is a didactic concept within which explorative activities with the Internet are planned by the teacher and he/she transforms from a teacher into a guider of the learning process. The aim is the autonomous acquisition and presentation of knowledge.

A good Web Quest has the following structure:

•	Introduction – it aims to motivate the pupils about the topic in a visually interesting and thrilling way.

•	Task – explanation what they have to do in every lesson.

•	Process – detailed step-by-step instructions how to do their tasks.

•	Recourses – all internet addresses used in the Web Quest.

•	Evaluation – pupils use it for self-evaluation and then the teacher evaluates them using the same evaluation criteria.

•	Conclusion – concludes the result of the successfully finished work. What pupils know now and how they could use taht knowledge in their lives.

•	Teacher Page – information about the teacher who has designed the Web Quest and about the Web Quest itself.

What skills does a pupil need to develop in order to work with a Web Quest?

Working on a particular Web Quest means that a pupil has to:

•	follow strictly their teacher’s instructions

•	work with particular internet addresses

•	find particular information

•	work on this information with a partner

•	find the answers on particular questions by themselves or in a team

•	make a final project (in a group)

•	self-evaluation.

MY WEB QUEST
Example This is my first try to make my own Web Quest

RESEARCH
If you open the link to my Web Quest above, you will see that after the Conclusion I have added Give Opinion. There students have to give an answer to 10 questions. Nine of them are with options and the last one is an open question about their personal opinion. The results will be automatically calculated.

Here you could see the Questionnaire

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
My hypothesis was proved and the results from my research show that more than 90 per cents of the students who have taken part in it:

• were very interested in the Web Quest and listened to me with a great interest as they had never done a Web Quest before;

• thought that they have developed their reading, speaking and writing skills;

• had learned new words in English;

• had learned more about healthy food;

• thought that the Web Quest was a good exercise for looking for specific information n the Internet;

• thought that the knowledge they gained was practical;

• would like to have such lessons at school.

I can conclude from the results that Web Quests are an interesting and effective complementary method for making teaching more interesting, effectively combining Computer and Interenet Skills, English, World Orientation and Social Skills.

Here you could see the detailed results

MY PROJECT HOMEPAGE
After my hypothesis was proved I made a homepage of my project. Here you could see it