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Overview of the idea
This model for telecommunications activity involves students engaging in information-centred processes when investigating problems and issues. In this model, groups of students undertake an investigation from a variety of perspectives, playing the roles of stakeholders or stakeholder groups. The students are scaffolded through a teacher-designed investigative process to develop and publish solutions for problems.

This model for NetQuests is a broadening of the concept of WebQuests constructed by Bernie Dodge (San Diego State University) and Tom March (ozline) and which has since been further developed by oz-TeacherNet. This model adds connectivity between students and stakeholder groups and online experts into what was previously a web-centred model. The model adds connectivity between students simultaneously undertaking a NetQuest, to provide peer community and authentic audience for student work.

In this model, teachers interested in developing NetQuests around a theme or issue would be invited to construct an Aussie NetQuest in collaboration with their peers. A calendar of activities would then provide teachers with NetQuests to join and enable them to register their interest in participating with their classes. In each quest, learning teams, led by the initiating school, would be developed between the schools considering the theme, so students have an audience for their questions and investigations as well as an audience for their products. Participating teachers would also form a support network and use their network as a help-desk, sharing device and an organisational structure. The initiating teacher could take a leadership role in the project, organising access to online guests and experts, developing a circular ring model for communication between pairs of schools and using this structure to organise a web-ring of published quests. The completed NetQuest ring could be entered into an Aussie NetQuest exhibition which acts as a professional development resource and a source of Australian content for students and teachers.

The model has a number of defining attributes. It enables teachers to collaborate in the design of an information-centred investigations' process. It also enables students simultaneously participating in any NetQuest to collaboratively conduct investigations, share ideas and critique solutions. It provides links between students and the stakeholders whose positions they are investigating, thus creating an authentic contemporary perspective on the issues in a problem. The project model then provides an audience and critical community for these investigative processes and solutions. The project model primarily aims at the much more highly cognitive process of communicating through role play and communicating ideas and defences of arguments. The project model also aims to help children develop high-level information process skills that are the new life skills in a connected society. Its most significant attribute is that it generates content for teachers and provides teacher communities with access to developed and tested ideas and the people who developed them.

The model enables teachers to implement NetQuests together, thus giving participants a common ground through which to share ideas, provide support and offer critique. This would also enable project managers to offer a small number of expert guests to the teachers' and students' communities to stimulate ideas and develop improved information processes and resultant solutions.

The choice and nature of investigations or themes to be hosted is important. Projects using this model will have added value and longevity if they take account of the connected context in which school curricula are implemented. This project model has opportunity to enable students to undertake investigations with Internet-abled sources and communities. Further, it encourages teachers to choose problems which exist because of connectivity, as well as choose projects whose contexts are altered by connectivity.

WebQuests have popularity because they appeal to students' affective domains and engage them personally in issues. They have catchy themes and titles and are open-ended, problematic and fun. Aussie Netquests would need to have similar attributes.

The model for NetQuests contains many of the attributes of the Natcom models described in accompanying documents. It identifies the model components which are central to the activities of the stakeholder groups, teachers, students, project mangers and minor stakeholders.

An example of a NetQuest Project
In a theme about "The Role of Youth in Shaping Australia's Information Economy", a group of Economics or Computer Studies teachers might agree to cooperatively design a NetQuest for their classes. One teacher or a project coordinator would take the lead in developing and managing the project. The teachers may meet or use email and other media to communicate in the development phase. They would develop a precise and engaging problem designed to stimulate students' curiosity, affective domain and sense of fun. Literacy and numeracy elements would be negotiated and developed into this project. Teachers might then use NetQuest structure and the tools of Filamentality or Web and Flow, to publish teacher and student materials to a web site. The project leader would then add the resource to the NetQuests calendar and invite teachers to participate.

Participating teachers would register to participate via a registration tool and may become involved in an online professional development program. The project coordinator would group participants into circles for communication. Teachers would begin to plan the participation process for their classes. Teachers who plan to vary the original quest would add their web site to a web-ring.

Classes would undertake activities which are likely to be scaffolded into stages. Students would identify roles and stakeholders in the issue and undertake preliminary investigation using the questions designed by teachers. In the small groups or communication circles, students might exchange sources of ideas, share their perceptions of the role and generally develop expertise in this role. In the second phases of the project, community stakeholders might participate in online events which connect students to community ideas and resources. Students might practice the arguments of their roles with each other and the stakeholders. In the third phase, students would follow the NetQuest structures working towards their solution. These would be shared with the schools in each communication circle. On completion of the project, the circle of NetQuest solutions would be added to a gallery of solutions to become educational resources and online content for Australian teachers and their students. The coordinator would close the project and conduct a debrief on the teachers list.

Further examples
The Technology Federation of Australia (TEFA) have developed a curriculum project based on this model that suits these purposes. TEFA project description.

Oz-TeacherNet has been collecting WebQuests developed by Australian teachers and have developed some exemplary models for teachers to follow.
http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/projects/webquests/index.html

Rationales
Information skills are at the heart of the new information economy. In schools, attention is often given to skills which involve locating and extracting data. Teachers overwhelmed by the volume of online content, and tend to concentrate on developing strategies to help students sift through, organise and assess the quality of information. Some early adopters have begun exploring the notion that highest-level information skills are linked to thinking and communication skills and that construction of knowledge is inclusive of all lower levels of information skills. Early attempts to implement these sophisticated activities and help students progress through stages of cognition, reinforced that scaffolding students experiences from simple to increasingly complex was a useful strategy. For future citizens to develop complex information skills, decision making and creative skills in an information context, teachers need to develop strategies which help student develop their skills gradually through the stages of cognition.

NetQuests enable teachers to help students develop and extend high level thinking skills by working with existing information to construct new knowledge while undertaking roles and developing expertise within the roles. The process involves scaffolding students information and communication experiences until they are able to participate in complex activities and engage in high level synthesis and construction of knowledge. Information experiences range from very simple techniques for locating and extracting information to complex questioning and problem solving experiences which encourage students to immerse in information as a pathway to constructing their own meaning for information and talk with others about their ideas. This project model will extend WebQuest concepts to consider the variety of tools and media now available online, all of which can have potential to stimulate higher-order thinking and communication skills.

Connections between information and ideas is vital in this process. Hypertext is natural environment to communicate connections and links. It is expected in projects derived from this model, that students will be immersed in hypertext environments. Students will develop skills in interpreting the powerful messages that hypertext links convey, as well as develop skills in comprehending hypertextually-structured collections of information. In turn, it is expected that students will transfer these literacy skills into the construction process and that they will develop high-level skills in using hypertext environments to organise ideas, communicate link structures and generally publish multiple views of ideas.

In educational settings, immersion in online information is usually an anonymous act. Teachers and students work in isolation from others while using information and constructing new information. Usually they do not connect with the owners of information sources or talk to stakeholders involved in the issue under investigation. Although online environments provide the capability to connect with owners of information, first hand sources of data, people's interpretations of information and stakeholders in the issues, little of this has been achieved in web-based learning activities. New web-based tools are linking people and information and adding new dimensions to the source, context and truth of information. A pivotal point has been reached. Potential exists in this model for Aussie NetQuests, to extend web-based learning to make greater use of the connectivity between humans and to personalise the sources and audiences of information. Further NetQuests can provide unique opportunities for Australian students to develop Australian content for use by educational groups and the community.

This context could shape how teachers adopt open-ended strategies in curriculum areas which rely on information literacies and new digital literacies. The NetQuest structure provides a model to help teachers analyse the new literacies for professional and curriculum purposes and provides a model for implementing this dimension into learning experiences. The design of the problems and ability of teachers to develop quests which exhibit the defining attributes of NetQuests will determine their usefulness in Australian education. Professional development will be an important factor in this model.

Telecommunications curriculum projects provide an authentic audience for students thinking, questions and debates. Telecommunications provides students with access to audiences outside of the school and provides access to the opinions of others, a wide variety of sources of ideas and background information. This model in particular, encourages students to develop expertise in the roles of stakeholders in contemporary issues and problems. Teachers, experts and students can work together to develop arguments and work cooperatively towards solutions. Publishing solutions is important as it provides an opportunity for students to develop tolerance to the positions and solutions of others while also providing an authentic audience and peer community.

Engaging in information-centred investigations and synthesising ideas through development and communication of ideas are core curriculum processes embedded in many KLA's. Most curriculum documents articulate the processes students might practice. This model enables teachers to insert different information and digital literacy models to the design process. The model also encourages constructivist approaches, problem solving, project work and student-centred learning approaches to be built into curriculum activities. It enables teachers to try different communication and discussion strategies and to explore different ways of integrating online activity into learning experiences. It also provides a chance for project designers to try different approaches to enticing teachers to participate with their classes. Further, the open-ended nature of the model, from which specific examples will be built and implemented, enables exploration of different technologies such as text, voice and video chat, bulletin boards, email lists and conferencing systems. The model's flexibility then enables different subject areas to make use of this model while implementing their particular curriculum models and subject matter.

This project model design provides a pedagogical model for teachers to experience within a supportive professional atmosphere. By participating in this project idea, teachers are undertaking on-the-job professional development and have an audience for their questions and reflections. The project is an exemplary model of curriculum practice. The project model incorporates a number of structures which are specifically aimed at teachers undertaking the curriculum development process and broadening their understanding of the impact of learning technology on subject matter, curriculum interpretations and pedagogical opportunities.

Project model components

In this description, the project structure is unravelled as structures for students, teachers and project managers. 

Student components

Teachers' components

Project manager's components