WebQuest 2: A Look at Other School Pages

(Note... this document has not been updated since 1995. Most links, no doubt, are bad. Use this page as an illustration of the early stages of the WebQuest concept, not as a usable lesson.)

In this short exercise, you'll be looking at some of the other school sites out there on the web already. There is a directory of school sites called Web 66 that contains a clickable map of hundreds of schools. Once you begin exploring there, though, you'll find that most school sites are very new and very incomplete. I've picked out a few of the more interesting sites for you to explore over the next half hour or so.

The Task

You should be sitting near other members of your educational family as you do this, because the point of the exercise is for you to gather insights that will help you in designing your family home page.

Your task is for each person on your team to look at the web pages of at least two school sites and answer the following questions:

  1. What did you like in the pages you saw? Jot down your impressions as you look at each page.
  2. What things did you see that you would specifically avoid in doing the O'Farrell pages? Again, write them down and remember what page you found them on.
  3. Having an audience in mind as you write is always important, whether you're writing on paper or on webs. Who do the pages you looked at seem to be written for? The students at the schools? Their parents? The outside world? No one in particular? Who should your pages be written for?
  4. Summarize your experience in looking at these other school pages by writing some general design principles for school web page design. Your statements might begin with the phrase "A good page should always..." or "A school web page should never...". Be prepared to share your summary statements with the rest of the class.

Resources

Here are some schools for you to look at. You can also use the Web 66 list to find additional school sites if you wish.

Sammamish High School in Washington state has an impressive home page. You might want to look at the literary magazine Chaos that the kids there are publishing on the Web. Notice that they have separate pages for some of the academic departments, which is a little like the family pages you'll be making.

Also take a look at East Limestone School. The kids there are involved in a number of computer-based activities. In particular, there's a list of what they call "Labs" which are webquests like the ones you'll be creating in this class.

For a visually impressive page, look at the Model High School in Michigan. Click on the About Model High button to get to the school information.

Madison Middle School is a charter school that might remind you a bit of O'Farrell.

Other sites to look at:

This page written by Bernie Dodge. Last updated March 9, 1995.