WebQuests are an innovative way of creating online thematic and project work 

for student. It was developed by Tom March and Bernie Dodge. Filamentality is 

the software developed to create WebQuests.  "Filamentality is a fill-in-the

-blank interactive Web site that guides you through picking a topic, 

searching the Web, gathering good Internet sites, and turning Web 

resources into activities appropriate for learners. So it helps you combine

 the Filaments of the Web with a learner’s mentality (get it?)." Tom 

March

• Decide what you want the students to do and search out web sites that will help them 

accomplish that goal. Add those sites to your bookmarks or favorites.

• Decide on different roles or groups for the students.

• Think about the procedures and outcome.

Scroll down and under "Can I Log-in on a Topic?" click on New.

If you were returning to a topic to edit it you would click on Ongoing.

Fill in the blanks on the first page. Make sure it looks the way you want it to 

before clicking on Spin This Thing at the bottom of the page.

Click on Add Links. This pulls up a page that gives you hints for finding sites. 

Then when you scroll down you get fields to actually put sites into the fields.

Where is says "Location" copy and paste in the web link address. Make sure 

you don’t get the http:// in the field twice.

Links are added in sets of three.

To add more links click on Add Links again.

This saves your work, shows you what you have so far and then gives you more 

fields to fill. By setting up the links that you want to use, you are creating a 

data file that can then be turned into several different formats.

DON"T USE YOUR BACK BUTTON. You will end up with duplicate links.

Click on Edit Links.

Then go in and fix the links that you need to fix by clicking in the box and 

adding or deleting material.

When you have the links that you want to use in place, click on WebQuest on 

the bottom menu bar. Steps in that section walk users though the process of 

creating a WebQuest.

However, Filamentality has other format options. The format determines the 

type of activity students do and the level of learning involved.

Hotlist- A hotlist is a collection of Internet links broken into categories for 

ease of use by students. A hotlist is the beginning point of a unit of study, 

however instead of sending students out to surf the Web blindly they are 

directed to a site with material organized for them.

Scrapbook- Creating a scrapbook is like creating a multimedia textbook that 

students will explore and use as the basis for research and projects. Scrapbooks

presume some background information and have a wide array of materials 

available.

Treasure Hunts- Hunts combine links with questions to which students are 

searching for answers. The links and questions can be paired or scrambled. 

Treasure Hunts are capped off with a large synthesizing question designed 

to get students to ponder and rethink the topic they are learning.

Subject Sampler- Samplers a selected set of links with multiple questions and 

the goal to get students to compare, interpret, explore and dissect the given 

topic. Right answers aren’t the goal; deep thinking is the goal. Samplers allow 

students with different interests to explore the same topic in different ways. 

So the topic may be space but the links maybe an interview with an astronaut, 

an online activity, a virtual tour, a historical document, a collection of artwork, 

newspaper clippings of NASA events. The variety lets students choose how 

they learn about space and fosters sharing of findings.

Mentality Tips at the beginning of each section and throughout the software 

give you the hints on how to work in each section of this software.

You have the choice of posting your creation or not. A preview pops up and you 

review it and then decide.

Title_____________________________________________________

Password__________________________

__________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Roles/Perspective

1._______________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

2._________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Background Information Links

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5.

Links for the Different Roles

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