Abstract:

Webquests (WQs) are one of many Web 2.0 components that can be used to enhance the teaching-learning process. These tools defined by Bernie Dodge and Tom March as an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that students work with comes from the web are having a profound impact in the methodological field in primary and secondary education. Nevertheless, even though they were developed at a university, WQs have not been used widely enough at higher education.
In a knowledge-based, networked economy, students who are leaving university need to have acquired skills in collaborative and creative project-based work and to have developed critical and reflective practices. The EHEA, European Higher Education Area, is enabling many education professionals to achieve this goal, since it provides the perfect institutional environment to adopt new teaching methodologies-based on constructivist theories-to their daily practice.
Within this framework, WQs are powerful tools to promote not only collaborative work, but also creativity and higher-level thinking among learners. Furthermore, they can offer students and lecturers a more active participative relationship with web-based materials. This paper tries to analyze how webquest-based projects can be used as part of a pedagogical practice which aims to cultivate translator competence in university students.

Keywords:

webquest (wqs), web 2, 0, european higher education area (ehea), collaborative.