Erin's+review+of+ThinkQuest

The cool tools presentation on Monday, July 13, 2009, was on ThinkQuest ([|thinkquest.org] ) sponsored by Oracle Education Foundation, presented by Denise Hobbs. Immediately, I thought of a WebQuest when I saw ThinkQuest, but there are some major differences. ThinkQuest is students creating inquiry projects for other students, and is a completely safe site. WebQuest is teacher created, includes rubrics, and is available to anyone through the World Wide Web. Both are project based learning. ThinkQuest focuses on creativity, collaboration and cross cultural participation. The age range for Think Quest is ages 9-19 (or grades 6-12), whereas a WebQuest can be anyone, mostly ages 5-19 (or grades K-12). ThinkQuest does offer two major competitions; one for best website design, one for best narrative. There is also a local competition. ThinkQuest exemplifies the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework of teaching. ThinkQuest scaffolds technology skills with content knowledge in a pedagogical form that fosters global learning, collaboration, and inquiry based learning. ThinkQuest is a cool tool because it incorporates all of these skills within a student-centered project based learning environment.
 * Review and Reflection **
 * ThinkQuest: **

I knew about WebQuest, but was not familiar with ThinkQuest until this presentation. I now understand some of the benefits of have the project be student created as opposed to teacher created. If I were still teaching high school English, I would create a unit in which my twelfth grade students read //Hamlet//, and then learned about England (due to Shakespeare) and Denmark (due to the setting of //Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark//). I would then have students in groups collaborate with other students from England and Denmark to create a ThinkQuest project based on //Hamlet// and their knowledge of the England and Denmark. The ThinkQuest project might be a scavenger hunt through England and Denmark. Another example of how I might incorporate ThinkQuest into high school English classroom would be for tenth grade students who read //All Quiet on the Western Front// and study World War I and Germany. The students would then collaborate in groups with students in Germany (or other countries that were involved in WWI) to create a ThinkQuest related to WWI or some aspect of what they learned from //All Quiet on the Western Front.//

My goal is to teach pre-service teachers at a college. If given this opportunity, I would teach pre-service teachers how to incorporate cool tools like ThinkQuest into their lesson plans. Another venue in which to share my new knowledge would be for me to lead a workshop to teach teachers how to structure their lessons around the TPACK model and use cool tools like ThinkQuest to enhance student learning, collaboration, and global awareness.