It’s time to tell the truth: K–12 online activities sometimes falter. Why does this happen? What valuable lessons can we learn from “developmentally delayed” projects?

Telecollaboration Opportunities
Note. These Web sites were valid when this issue of L&L went to press. We have no control over these sites, though, and the Web is very volatile. Please let us know if you find a broken link, and we’ll do our best to update it.

“Designing Collaborative Projects for the Internet” by Terry Kerns offers readable, realistic advice.
www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/kerns1.htm

The Electronic Emissary is a K–12 telementoring project that has supported more than 400 curriculum-based projects to date. In the seven years that the Emissary has been online, approximately 70% of our actively facilitated projects have been completed, mirroring Kerns’s experience.
www.tapr.org/emissary/

Suggestions on how to design Web-based project spaces are available in chapter four of Virtual Architecture: Designing and Directing Curriculum-Based Telecomputing (ISTE, 1998).

http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jbharris/Virtual-Architecture/

Hoquiam School District in southwestern Washington

http://www.hoquiam.k12.wa.us/

Judi Harris (judi.harris@mail.utexas.edu), associate professor in curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas-Austin, directs the Electronic Emissary (www.tapr.org/emissary/). She has written four books and more than 140 articles. Her most recent books are Virtual Architecture: Designing and Directing Curriculum-Based Telecomputing (1998, ISTE) and Design Tools for the Internet-Supported Classroom (1998, ASCD).

Copyright © 2000, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.