Jürgen wrote:
> is there an English equivalent for the French or Franco-canadian
> expression: "activités de repérage"? In what I erroneously called
> webquests or cyberenquetes for German learners of English or French
> as a foreign language, students do just that. They localise / spot
> the correct answer (which in your 3rd year of language learning in
> the presence of an authentic site can be quite an achievement in
> itself).
>

(Just clearing some back mail and came across this request)
I agree that while such activities can be valuable learning experiences
for language learners, they are not Webquests, but scavenger hunts,
treasure hunts or knowledge hunts.

This said, it often requires little additional work on the teacher's
part to transform a simple "find that info" activity into a very modest
WebQuest - you figure out a role from real life, have students use the
info they've found to produce something new, and you have a simple
WebQuest.

If you wish you could use the teminology from Tom March's "Thinking
through Linking" article (1996). I summarize:
1) Topic Hotlists, which are simple theme-based links to resource
sites.
2) Knowledge Hunts, which also include worksheets to guide students and
encourage them to find specific pieces of information.
3) Subject Samplers, which are similar to the above, but intended to
provoke an emotive response, or help students "connect emotively with a
subject."
4) Insight Reflectors, which ask students to "look more deeply" into a
subject, examine their own point of view, and produce written work
based on that examination.
5) Concept Builders, where students "analyze a series of examples that
illustrate a concept," and develop their own explanations and
hypotheses to describe it.
6) WebQuests, where students "engage in critical thinking," most often
by adopting different roles that orient their investigations towards
specific goals.

Though in fact, if you look around the web, there are a whole lot of
things being called WebQuests that don't fit the basic criteria.

Cheers, --- Phil

Philip.Benz@...
Lycee Astier, Aubenas, France
Viva, le Village Interactif Virtuel en Ardeche, at:
http://www.ardecol.ac-grenoble.fr/viva