Inquiry Unlimited | Literacy Resources
Communication - Participating in Successful Internet Projects
(which broaden classwork and are related to the Curriculum Frameworks)
A "Teaching Children Social Studies using the Internet" project suggested by Marjorie Duby * , retired practitioner formerly sited at Joseph Lee Elementary School
Getting started:
- Decide if you really want to become involved in a project. If your heart is not in the project as a participant, it will not be successful for you, for the designer, and for the other participants.
- If you know how to send basic electronic mail, you can be an active participant in rewarding projects! Receiving messages and sending class results need not even be done during the school day. I have worked with many educators whose schools do not provide email or web access and who subscribe to a service for electronic mail access. They actively participate in projects fulfilling their creative pursuits as they broaden their own learning experiences and include their students in new and exciting adventures.
- Start as a participant in a short term project (One message received and one message sent might be the entire project!)
"Teaching Children Social Studies using the Internet" - Selecting your projects:
- Use technology to broaden and enrich what you are already doing in your classroom. Look for and adapt projects to fit into class work and include skills which are also related to the Curriculum Frameworks.
- Sharing with a cultural exchange project which was sited at http://www.EdenPr.k12.MN.US/forest/WCIEP.html.
[ Description and management of this dialogue/exchange type project ]
- Perhaps you would prefer a contest-like project such as GeoGame where you submitted clues and received clues and as part of your team, matched clues to cities of the United States.
- Exchanging sunrise and sunset information
- Exchanging global temperatures along with latitude and longitude
- Begin by sending an introductory message to the group.
- Record daily temperatures at noontime for one week.
- Send a one-time message to each participant or to the project coordinator who will send everyone's one-time message to the entire group which means "tons" of email downloading to do.
- OR . . . . participate in a more longterm project also related to what you will be doing in your classroom. The longterm project might begin as an email message but grow over a period of time as you complete your part of the project independently as an ongoing process in your classroom to be shared in some way with the other participants by a specific date.
- Completing an activity in your classroom which will be part of a shared group diskette or hard copy booklet.
- A HyperStudio stack or KidPix slideshow about your state (a yearlong project)
[ Description and management of this project ]
- a booklet of poetry formerly sited http://www.louverture.com/poems/poemcover.html (an 8 week project)
- a collection of folklore - formerly sited at http://archives.gsn.org/hilites/0356.html (a few weeks to accomplish)
- Create your own project based on somebody else's project. If you feel comfortable with electronic mail, modify one of the online projects to fit what you may be doing in class.
Example: Receiving current updates of a situation from a mailer such as using the information you would get from following Linda Finch's recreation of Amelia Earhart's journey. Her site was formerly sited at http://worldflight.org/youcansoar/resources/tool.html. This project broadened your students' knowledge of latitude/longitude and global cultures.
- Getting involved with another person's project that fits YOUR agenda.
- Michelle Gaines has not recently sent out a project announcement for the Women's Encyclopedia formerly sited at http://www.teleport.com/~megaines/women.html. The project was provided as a service by Portland Jewish Academy for student-authored work related to women's biographies. When I came upon it while surfing, and contacted her, I was able to send submissions.
One of our 4th grade portfolio products is to research an individual and conduct an interview with that person, asking historically significant questions and answering the questions as that individual based on the thinking of that historical period. I began with our class-based project and found the Women's Encyclopedia as a great source for my students to become published on the Internet.
[ Description and management of this dialogue/exchange type project which was also a portfolio product.]
- Follow the Iditarod dog sled race.
[ Iditarod project ]
As of December 4, 2003, you are visitor 
to share our webpage.
[ Designing travel projects ]
Project management:
[ Historical Interview | Iditarod | Geogame | WCIEP | States | Back to School Nights | artifact box ]
Created: 1997
Last modified: October 18, 2006 by Marjorie Duby *