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Mauritius: MIE Launches First National Inquiry-Oriented Group Task
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L'Express (Port Louis)
9 October 2007
Posted to the web 10 October 2007
Pauline Etienne
Port Louis
The days of lecturing, taking notes and rote assignments are over. Fully aware of this, the Home Economics department of the Mauritius Institute of Education (MIE) recently organised the first edition of Webquest competition for secondary school students. The excellence award went to 'Dipain' group from Imperial College and 'Ze Bread Boya' from London College.
The MIE thus wanted to support the ministry's initiative of integrating technology in education. "That's how the idea of a Webquest competition came up," said Brinda Oogarah-Pratap, head of the Home Economics department at the MIE. The competition, in which some fifty secondary school students participated, was organised in close collaboration with Les Moulins de la Concorde Ltée (LMLC).
"The WebQuest competition involved an inquiry-oriented group task in which most of the information required to prepare a Powerpoint presentation was drawn from the web," explained Brinda Oogarah-Pratap. There is no doubt that the competition helped in "fostering the ICT, creative and critical thinking skills of youngsters". Students had to work in groups of three where each had a specific role; a historian to investigate the history of bread, a baker to investigate how the different types of bread commonly consumed locally are prepared and sold, and a nutritionist to examine the nutritional importance of bread in the daily diet.
Obviously, as the competition was organised by the Home Economics department, emphasis was also laid on knowledge of the cultural and nutritional importance of bread in the diet.
However, one of the main objectives of the competition was undeniably to try a new instructional method, which involved group work, hands-on activities, interactive computer software and Internet research. It was Bernie Dodge, professor of educational technology at San Diego University in the USA, who came up with the idea of a WebQuest, which he defined as "an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet".
Brinda Oogarah-Pratap further explained. "A WebQuest is designed to help students use their time efficiently and effectively while searching for information on the Web; the focus is on using information from reliable resources on the Web. Students have to analyse, synthesise and evaluate the newly acquired information to complete the required task."
This is in accordance with what the MIE acting director pointed out on Teachers' Day last Friday. She emphasised the importance of an "activity-based approach for meaningful learning. The process of learning is as important as what is produced afterwards. It is only if learning is meaningful that it stays with you".
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This is probably why elements of design and implementation of WebQuests have been integrated in the training programme for all teachers at post-graduate certificate level.
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