Web Quests

As I was preparing to create a lesson, I was looking through our text "Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction" by Conrad and Donaldson. In it I found a lesson for a web quest and the address; http://webquest.sdsu.edu . I had taken a course several years ago and had seen the site before but upon visiting the site I found it to be much easier to use and very helpful in locating websites that would help make it easy to put together a web quest. I went to several differnet links on the site. One of them was www.filamentality.com it also had an enormous amount of resources to help create lessons that utilize the internet in an effective way. Both of these websites and the others that are listed on Web Quest will help any teacher to use the internet in a quality way.

Sitting in front of my computer.

In trying to create an online class I find my self staring at my computer, feeling as though I am not accomplishing anything. I have always be lucky when it comes to research, I am finding a great deal of information, I also know what it is that I want to convey to the students taking this class. I just am having the hardest time trying to decide the activities that will convey the information to the students in the best way. I have been reading the text book given for this class "Engaging the Online Learner" and have found a number of good ideas. I have started several assignments with an idea in mind just to realize that I am not at all comfortable with how I think it is turning out, so I start all over. I have been a teacher for 16 years and I change aspects of lessons sometimes as soon as I start them but, online classes are much more intimidating because I have never done this before and don't really know what to expect when my "little experiment in online classes" gets turned on. It is frustrating to know that deadlines are approaching and I am not in command of the ins and outs of what it is I am trying to accomplish.