Webquest Possibility

The webquest project that I will have to create for my online class has been weighing heavy on my mind. There are so many possibilities and so many aspects to consider that I have had trouble selecting a topic, until now. I am considering a quest that would have students working in small groups (maybe 3-4) to produce a television travel show episode. The learning goals of the quest would be: names and geography of countries, writing for a professional purpose, and speaking to an audience. There would be one reporter and 2 or 3 travel guests to interview in each group. The group would choose one continent from which each guest would pick one country. The students would research their countries and write a script in collaboration with the interviewer. Each group would then broadcast their travel show to the class. The groups would all create a map of their continent with political boundaries as a prop for the TV show, and would create handouts for the rest of their classmates to fill in. I think it has possibilities. Any suggestions?

Factual reliability of blogs

The author of the textbook that my online class is using has made me think about a topic that is extremely relevant to teachers who use blogs as sources of information for their students: How do we know that the information found in blogs is factual and not just opinion, hearsay, or even patently false? The author states, “In general, I would say that any site that has more than 100 links to it has earned a reputation as a good source of information by its community.”(Richardson, W. 2006 Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms)

Students may take the time to find how many links are attached to a blog, but will they be able to determine what sort of community it is that is valuing this source of information? I ask this because I was doing some research into the validity of I. Q. testing recently and came across a wide variety of websites and blogs dedicated to this issue. One blog in particular seemed to be extremely well researched, with many sources sited, but which at the bottom of page hosted a flaming White Supremacy logo. I can imagine that this site could be deemed “a good source of information” by its community, but which would probably not be accepted by a wider section of society. Many adults would have the background knowledge and skepticism to doubt the validity of data hosted on a site like this, but school students would have a much harder time doing so. Therefore, I am a little hesitant about having students using blogs as credible sources of factual information.