Spotlight on the 1997
SIGTel
Online Award Winners
The Gallery of Unsung Heroes and
Heroines
Dalia
Naujokaitis
St. Elizabeth
Catholic
School
893 Admiral Ave.
Ottawa,
Ontario K1Z
6L6 Canada
Project
Description
“The Gallery of Unsung Heroes and Heroines” is a
CyberEvent hosted
on the World Wide Web by the Grade 6 students at St. Elizabeth School.
Created
with the help of students (ages 8–16) from 15 schools around the
world,
“The Gallery” celebrates and honors ordinary people who
have made
a difference in other peoples’ lives, have had a positive
influence, or
have inspired others to be their best—our everyday heroes and
heroines.
Through online dialogue, students debate the qualities of heroism,
then they
locate, interview, and profile their local heroes and heroines. The
gathered
profiles are used by the students at St. Elizabeth to create
“The Gallery”
on the Web. This site provides not only a permanent, international
cyberplace
where students are able to nominate other “heroes” for
enrollment,
but it also serves as a resource for the global community for insights
into
the qualities and values of persons who inspire and provide role
models for
youth.
Author
Reflections
Why look at heroes and heroines? Kids have always been fascinated by
super
heroes. They are bombarded with images of power and might in the
media. But
who is actually a hero or a heroine? What qualities make a person
heroic? These
are issues that my Grade 6 students were ready to analyze and
debate.
Throughout the project my students, together with the 15 collaborating
classes,
learned and applied many skills. Because everyone knew this would be
published
for a “real audience,” it was easier to motivate them to
edit and
revise their work. The students also learned what teamwork was all
about, not
only because they were divided into groups in my class, but also
because our
global participants became part of the team. Everyone relied on each
other and
expected everyone to pull his or her own weight. Students in diverse
communities
across the globe worked collaboratively and effectively on a common
task: defining
what qualities a hero or heroine possesses, finding real
“heroes”
in their communities, interviewing them, and then sharing the research
electronically
and finally publishing the results on the Web for the whole world to
see.
We could not have succeeded without the dedication and commitment of
all 15
participating classes from Australia, Singapore, England, Texas,
Pennsylvania,
Quebec, Ontario, Connecticut, Virginia, and Hawaii. Students and
teachers connected
by e–mail, wrote letters, planned activities, discussed
strategies, researched
information and shared their findings. Though learning was fun and
relevant,
it was not always easy, especially when the technology got a mind of
its own.
Here’s what worked for us to make the use of technology an
easier task.
Always have your sense of humor nearby. It will come in handy,
especially when
your e–mail won’t work, HTML refuses to cooperate, FTP
won’t
FTP, the server is down, and the Internet access bill is charged to
you personally
instead of the school!
Give yourself and your participants lots of time to complete tasks.
Things
always take longer when technology is involved, so give yourself more
time to
finish a task. If you need the technology right away, that is when it
just might
fail you: Murphy’s Law!
Find a techie guru. This person will come in handy when that
computer system
just won’t cooperate. Use your students as mentors and resources
to learn
the newest HTML and e–mail tricks. This is the Nintendo
generation, and
they are fearless in trying new strategies on computers. You
don’t have
to know everything!
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