Spotlight on the 1997
SIGTel
Online Award Winners
Qui suis-je? (Who Am I?)
Jane Scaplen
Sacred Heart
Elementary
Marystown, Newfoundland, A0E 2M0 Canada
Project
Description
The national history of Canada is the featured topic in the Grade 6
social
studies program in Newfoundland and Grade 5 in other Canadian
provinces. Although
advertised for Grades 5–8, this activity could easily be tailored
for other
age groups. Students create sets of five clues describing an important
figure
in Canadian history. These clues are then sent by e-mail, one per day
for five
days, to the participants. The other classes try to identify the
figure using
as few clues as possible. Although the activity was carried on in
French for
my French immersion class, it is easily transferable to other
languages.
Author
Reflections
Qui suis-je? was inspired mainly by the desire to make the social
studies program
more interesting for my students. The contest format appealed to me
because
I personally enjoy contests. As well, my students had been
contributing answers
to two other contest-based online activities, and they seemed highly
interested
in them. (These two contests, The Great Canadian Trivia Contest and
The Little
Math Contest, send out a new question every week throughout the school
year.)
The fact that the children work in groups is also a motivating factor
for them,
although the occasional student would prefer to work alone. Apart from
making
it more interactive for the students, certain other skills are
developed through
this type of effort. They learn to organize themselves, delegate
different tasks
to the various members and cooperate to achieve a finished product
acceptable
to all members of the group. These skills have wide applications in
other school
and real-life settings. In addition, students who are more challenged
by the
reading and writing that normally accompanies research are supported
by other
members of the group.
Because this was the first online project that I had run, I wanted to
keep
things fairly simple and of short duration. The simplicity was
important from
the perspective of the participants, since my experience up to this
point with
Internet activities seemed to indicate that most teachers did not want
to involve
themselves in projects that required major commitments on their part.
This was
probably due to the fact that most people were still only getting
their feet
wet. Also, what fits in well with the program objectives of one
teacher will
not necessarily jibe with those of another, thus a project of short
duration
would not demand too great a departure from the regular
curriculum.
The first year that we ran the project, we had a number of wrinkles
to iron
out. One such snag was caused by the fact that we had participants
from France
to British Colombia; the time zone differences meant that when some
students
were finishing their day's work, others were only just getting out of
bed to
start their day. Being in Newfoundland, we found ourselves more or
less in the
middle. Originally, we counted responses that arrived before the next
clue went
out. Everyone had twenty-four hours in between, regardless of when
they received
it. Frequently, however, people had technical problems and indicated
that they
had reached the answer by a given clue, but couldn't get it to us. We
decided
to accept people's honesty at face value, and we awarded points on
that basis.
Some of the classes in France were hesitant at the start because they
felt
that they would not have adequate access to reference materials.
Although it
is true that Canadian participants would have the upper hand,
especially if
they had already studied Canadian history, we always cross checked the
clues
to ensure that well-known encyclopedias would provide the necessary
information.
To encourage those who might be at a disadvantage, we stated that
participants
were not disqualified after a wrong answer, but could continue to
submit guesses.
Eventually, however, we had to stipulate that we could only accept one
response
per day, per class. We deliberately withheld the correct answer until
the following
week in order to encourage classes to continue to check the clues and
to thereby
validate their own responses.
Some of these problems, as well as a difficulty we had in
straightening out
how to best organize the point system, could be eliminated by having a
"dry
run," or at least having a colleague read critically through the
project description
beforehand. After running this project for two years, I feel that we
have it
fairly well under control. Next year, though, I would like to create
an interactive
Webpage so that answers can be submitted through a browser, inviting
casual
participants to join us. I would keep the e-mail format intact though,
because
I think that it would be more convenient for the regular participants.
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