In a WebQuest, a teacher will guide the students through their task, often using a numbered, step-by-step process.

The teacher may advise ways to manage time, assign roles, or collect data more productively. Some teachers many have a time–line for students to follow with deadlines, strategies for working together in a group, or directions for creating a written storyboard. This helpful advice may be useful to students in their WebQuest, but are separate items that are not part of the actual WebQuest.

In the following, we will cover resources, using webites.

Resources: Gathering Relevant Materials and Links

Once a topic has been chosen and the introduction to the task at hand has been written, teachers must identify the resources for students to use. Teachers will have to cite texts, books, videotapes, places, and people who may be useful or even essential to solving the WebQuest. Students might interview their peers, teachers, or parents, and go to the library, a museum, or a local store to gather information.

Using Web Sites

Web sites can be placed in one of three categories: commercial noncommercial, or sites run by a usually uncompensated individual.

• Using commercial sites. Commercial sites can be rich with information. Commercial web sites might be supported by network and cable television stations, newspapers or magazines. Travellers’ information sites also fall into this category. These sites can be interesting, current resources, but the advertising can be very distracting and at many times inappropriate.

• Using noncommercial sites. Noncommercial sites are organized and run by nonprofit institutions such as museums, public school systems, and universities and vary greatly in quality, but can provide valuable and advertising-free information.

• Using individual's sites. Individual's sites are web pages assembled by individuals who are usually uncompensated and provide the websites out of personal interest. Many individuals post valuable and free resources such as public domain clip art. There are many unreliable, inappropriate, and out-of-date sites, and they can disappear suddenly and without notice. Some sites have content which school administrators and parents might find objectionable, and often with good reason! Teachers must explore each site that they intend to use in the WebQuest thoroughly and restrict students to only those sites for their projects. Furthermore, since any site can change, teachers should occasionally recheck the sites to insure that they continue to be relevant and nonobjectionable.