Review on Webquest

WebQuest. A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. These can be created using various programs, including a simple word processing document that includes links to websites.

WebQuests provide an excellent way to involve students in authentic learning activities. The inquiry-based WebQuest format encourages students to utilize higher level thinking skills as they complete assignments using information gleaned from the Web. Whether you're looking for ready-to-use WebQuests that you can integrate into your curriculum or online resources you can use to create your own WebQuest, these sites should prove helpful. Included: Five resources for creating and using WebQuests in the classroom.
Weaving the World Wide Web into your curriculum requires knowledge, planning, and a certain level of technological skill. One of the easiest routes to authentic technology integration is the WebQuest -- "an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information learners interact with comes from the Internet." The WebQuest format requires students to engage in online research as they complete a series of tasks leading to a final project. A WebQuest requires students to integrate, transform, and utilize information, not just to locate it. Depending on your level of technology skills, you might use one of the thousands of ready-made WebQuests found online, or utilize online resources to create your own WebQuests.

The Beauty of Web Quests are their flexibility since they can be anything to anyone. This makes it hard to identify a typically effective Web Quest. Nonetheless, Web Quests that promote learning typically have 6 common attributes.

1. Introduction:
The introduction is a means of providing the students with background information that is intended to be a springboard for them to begin the process of inquiry. One way is to present a simulation that leads students to develop a product/service, evaluate a time period, give advice on a given issue, manage a business situation, engage in a debate, or tackle one of life's challenges.
2. Task:
Formulating challenging questions is the difficult part of developing an effective Web Quest. In most cases, a single question is posed that requires students to analyze a vast array of information. For example, "Compare the leadership styles of George Washington and George Bush," or "You just made a revolutionary invention, what steps would you take to insure that no one can steal your ideas for profit?"
3. Process:
In this section, the teacher leads the student through the task. The teacher offers advice on how to manage time, collect data, and provides strategies for working in group situations. Teachers sometimes label this section: learning objectives or advice. In some cases the section is replaced with a complete time line for the project.
4. Resources:
Students are provided with tools (usually web sites), or leads to tools that can help them complete the task. In order for this to be valuable, a teacher must thoroughly review each source. When deciding on sources consider the following:
a. Only list sites that support the proper view for which you are aiming. For every site that explains how > helpful the rain forest is, there are two sites to explain how bad it is.
b. Make sure all the sites you choose are appropriate and do not link to any inappropriate sites.
c. Make sure the source is credible. Anybody can create a web page. Try to use a commercial (.com), non-profit (.org), or educational organization (.edu) site. These sites have something to lose by providing you with poor content.
d. Make sure the site is up to date.
5. Evaluation:
The outcome for Web Quests is usually a product, in most cases, in form of a written/oral report or multimedia presentation. An effective assessment tool to evaluate a product of a Web Quest is a rubric. Rubrics help make the teacher's expectations clear for students. Ideally, rubrics can be created collaboratively with students' input.
6. Conclusion:
Effective Web Quests have a built in mechanism for student reflections. To receive feedback, you can survey your students about their experience, or have the students send you an e-mail sharing their thoughts.


Why should we use webquests? There are a number of excellent reasons, including:

• They are an easy way to incorporate the Internet into the classroom. No specialist knowledge is needed to either produce or use them.
• They lend themselves well to group activities.
• They lend themselves well to cross-curriculum projects.
• They encourage critical thinking skills. Learners are not able to simply regurgitate information, but are guided towards a transformation of that information.
• They can be both motivating and authentic tasks, encouraging learners to feel they are doing something ‘real’ or ‘useful’.

So according to me it is a very helpful site to get all the information comes from the web easily that learners work with .

Advantages and disadvantages of a tutor blog and Facebook group for teaching English Language

Nowadays, internet is growing rapidly. Users can get updates from second to second to seek daily and business information. In the world, either from the artists, officials, teenagers, and even students as young as ten years old had already their personal accounts in different sites of internet. internet has become very important part of our life. It helps us in many ways and also harming us in other ways.

Blog: A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete and very much informal in writing. There are three types of blogs for use in language classes. These are:

1.     The Tutor Blog

2.     The Class Blog

3.     The Learner Blog

The Tutor Blog is run by the teacher of a class. The content of this type of blog can be limited to syllabus, course information, homework, assignments, etc. Or the teacher may choose to write about his or her life, sharing reflections about the local culture, target culture and language to stimulate online and in-class discussion. In this type of blog, students are normally restricted to being able to write comments to the teacher's posts.

Bloggers and many other regular Internet users are well aware of Blogs and Facebook. In addition, interested learners should be aware of sites like Blog and Facebook, where users can quickly and easily create their own blogs for free.

However, Tutor Blog and Facebook Group are very helpful in learning and teaching English language.

Advantages and disadvantages of Tutor Blog 

Advantages
1. They made everything easy for you.
2. You are already following most web standards in the web by using a popular form of blogging.
3. Syndication of way to become popular by distributing your content is pretty easy with a blog.
4. SEO is also easier when you use a blog, especially if that blog allows you to write script like the blogspot.net.
5. It's an easy way to give fresh content to your users.
6. It keeps track of the time when your articles were published.
7. You can host multiple independent sites from blog CMS like Wordpress.
Disadvantages
1. The navigation is usually based on dates or categories
3. Even when you can create other pages, they may not be fully customizable.
4. Most blogs don't allow the user to edit the code, or adding new scripts.
5. Blogs may not be seen the same as webpages by search engines.
6. You may not be able to use SSL encryption, email
Actually most of these disadvantages may apply to free blogs and not to self hosted blogs.
Self-hosted blogs could offer all the advantages of a full flesh website by installing modules.

Facebook :  Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. The site is available in 37 different languages. Many teachers and students are familiar with using digital media, for instance, Facebook for private communication and for participating in groups. The familiarity with the use of groups on Facebook opens the possibility for teachers to create groups for educational purposes. Enabling creative learning design through semantic technologies. Crossing boundaries: Identity management and student/faculty relationships on the Facebook  in order to discuss themes related to classroom practices with their students. The connection between teachers and students provided by Facebook can potentially be an addition to learning environments were students’ engagement is limited by the lack of communication between teachers and students.

Advantages of Facebook group:

• Facebook group helps to find right the students with similar interest. 
• Members can share any necessary documents from internet and can post it in the group to share with everyone.
• As Facebook is quite handy, students can check the group regularly seeing the notification instantly. 
• Facebook group keeps everyone in a loop to get informative information in one click.
• Group members can interact directly with anyone at any place, who may have questions.
• Students can also have group chat, tagging, sharing related pictures and videos with the group members.
• Facebook group keeps everyone in a loop to get informative information in one click.
• Group members can interact directly with anyone at any place, who may have questions.

Disadvantages of Facebook group:

•  In Bangladesh, the users of Facebook from class 8 would be very poor and whoever are using, are not that much well aware to find out the educational elements from Facebook group.
• Students are more likely to join groups that are affect their personal or social life rather than created for educational purpose. They show less loyalty on the group.
•  The young students are more interested in socializing with friends in Facebook rather than searching for educational purpose.

 In sum, those are some advantages and disadvantages by using Facebook account. It is okay that people think that Facebook is a fantastic social networking tool. The reality today, it is difficult stop people to visiting Facebook especially students. I think students should not use this account too often. Education is the most important thing, if the students use Facebook too much it can be disturb their concentration in study. It will be better if students more responsible not waste nor abuse their time.

Review on TedEd

TED is a video-based learning site that provides lectures and other talks from leaders in a myriad of fields. The talks are designed to inspire thought and promote learning.TED uses a unique design to present video content. Rather than the typical layout of screenshots laid out in rows, users will find a single image of a speaker within a mosaic made up of images of other videos. Hovering over a given image will reveal a brief synopsis of the talk and the speaker.

 nce a visitor has selected a talk, the site becomes fairly familiar. A video player appears, and all of the usual controls are present. TED does a good job of incorporating a new format (the mosaic) alongside the more traditional media player.

 The site is a clearinghouse that offers presentations by the world's most inspired thinkers. It also acts as a community of curious people who are looking to engage with ideas and each other. Interested in what Andrew Stanton, the filmmaker behind Toy Story, thinks are the keys to good storytelling? Hear it from his own mouth. Perhaps you’d prefer to hear what Steve Jobs has to say about accomplishing goals. The Apple visionary’s address on the topic is here, too. Users should preview videos before using any of them in class. Some of the videos on the main site contain profanity and would be inappropriate for the classroom. That said, all of the presentations are worth viewing at least once.

TED-Ed is a website featuring a curated series of educational videos on a huge variety of subjects. Videos are primarily geared toward a high school audience, but motivated middle school learners and they might enjoy a lot of the offerings as well. Along with all of the free video content, the site allows teachers to take any educational video to make their lessons and exercises for their classes. This product serves as a wonderful teaching tool. It provides videos on special topics that help engage students and provide additional information. The information contributes nicely to classroom lectures and allows students to see what they are learning in action. It works as a homeschool instructor, it can help provide specialized information on a topic. Each video is almost like a mini presentation by an expert, and it is informative. Users can use TED-Ed's videos and lessons to supplement almost any subject. And while it may take a bit of searching, it'll be worth it.TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within TED-Ed’s growing library of lessons, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can then distribute TED-Ed lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student. This platform is also the home to TED-Ed Clubs — an exciting new program that aims to stimulate and celebrate the best ideas of students around the world.

When watching one of the Ted Ed Lesson videos, I find that they are just long enough to grab the students' attention, but not so long that they tune out. The accompanying activities help to extend students' learning and provide opportunities for students to practice skills or deepen their understanding. It's important to remind students that with the "Think" questions, there are several and if they are completing this individually, they need to advance each questions before clicking on the next "slide." The tool provides lessons with clear messages and student-friendly video. After each lesson, TED-Ed provides discussion questions, multiple-choice questions designed to inspire thought about the lesson, and additional resources on the topic for students and teachers to explore. Ted Ed is a great way to enhance any lesson. These videos allows  students to hear content in ways that may be difficult for the classroom teacher to get out sometimes. These videos are educational, and usually very entertaining. Ted Ed videos in multiple lessons allows students to get a better understanding of information.

So TedEd is  a great website to learn many interesting topics through many videos, lessons, exercises and many more! 

 TED is an educator’s dream. Users will enjoy this vast collection of video-based knowledge presented by leaders in their field.