by Laverne K. Gladmon

        This WebQuest was created by an elementary school library media specialist who teaches weekly half hour classes on a fixed schedule.  The Media Period is a planning time for the classroom teacher.  The fourth grade students for whom this Quest was developed have had little or no experience in school using online or offline electronic resources for research.
        The Media Center is equipped with four computers which can be used as electronic card catalog stations or Internet stations and three stand-alone workstations with CD - Rom capability.
        The basis for this Quest is an event which actually occurred and caused some level of interest and excitement among the students especially related to the gift of a familiar book in Japanese.  While the project encompasses two fourth grade units, Japan and Maryland, it is actually part of the library media unit on the reference section of the Media Center.  Previous lessons include a general overview of the reference section, exploration of several print resources, and an introduction to online and offline resources.  The  research component provides hands-on experience with various information sources.   Choosing one of two specified project formats with the option of additional student developed formats provides a multiple intelligence component, while the number and types of questions developed and researched allows for a level of differentiated instruction.  Teacher assigned pairs and groups can also be utilized to accommodate different instructional levels in various configurations.
        It is the hope of this media specialist that the Quest will be so appealing to fourth grade teachers that they will be eager to participate and will provide time during their social studies period for students to work so that the project can be completed over a reasonable amount of time and with a degree of continuity that would be difficult if spread over several weeks of media class periods.  A logical extension of this project that could be implemented by classroom teachers would be email communication with students in Japan.

    For more information about WebQuests consult Bernie Dodge's WebQuest Page.