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First
Steps in Telecollaboration
By Judi Harris
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An e-mail program and a Web browser can give any teacher
access
to a wide variety of learning activities that can be done
with students
in different locations. This month, Judi Harris discusses
opportunities
and choices for joining telecollaborative projects
designed by other
teachers.
Telecollaboration
Opportunities
Note. The Web sites listed
in this
page 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.
Several
“virtual places” on the World Wide Web can help
us find
curriculum-based telecollaboration opportunities.
Particularly helpful,
frequently updated telecollaborative activity indexes
include:
- Global SchoolNet’s Projects & Programs (www.gsn.org/project/index.html):
This is the most comprehensive of all of the K–12 telecollaborative projects
directories. Don’t miss the searchable Internet Projects Registry at
this site (www.gsn.org/pr/index.cfm).
- KIDPROJ
(an aspect of KIDLINK, www.kidlink.org/KIDPROJ/index.html):
These globally focused projects involve learners aged
15 and
younger from many different countries. All student
participants
must answer four questions about themselves and their
ideas
for making the world a better place prior to project
participation.
- I*EARN
Projects (www.igc.apc.org/iearn/projects.html):
These are primarily social action projects involving
participants
from very diverse geographic locations.
- NickNacks Telecollaboration (www1.minn.net/~schubert/EdHelpers.html):
This site contains many helpful suggestions about how to participate in educational
telecollaboration. NickNacks also sponsors and points visitors to high-quality,
curriculum-based projects.
- Blue
Web’n (www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/):
This project-review service helps us locate
telecollaboration
opportunities according to curriculum area and four
activity
types—Web-based activities, Web-based projects,
Web-based
tutorials, and Unit & Lesson Plans. The contents
of Blue
Web’n’s large projects database can also be
searched
by keyword.
- Innovative
Teaching Projects (www.interserf.net/mcken/projects.htm):
This is a comprehensive, frequently updated,
alphabetized list
of Web-based projects. It constitutes one section of a
much
larger set of online resources that assist and reflect
“innovative
teaching.”
These
sites can be perused and searched productively in several
ways.
You might:
- Look
for an activity idea in a particular curriculum area
and for
a specific grade level.
- Look
for an activity that asks students to engage in a
particular
learning-related process, such as writing persuasive
essays
or estimating distances.
- Scan
all of the project ideas listed for a particular
curriculum
topic, regardless of grade level, because many
educational telecollaborations
involve students of varying ages working
together.
- Seek
out multidisciplinary, multifeatured projects that you
sense
would be particularly motivating and beneficial for
your students
to experience.
- Periodically
revisit these index sites, reviewing the project
announcements
that have appeared since your last perusal,
considering each
in terms of its applicability to your students’
interests
and needs.
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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 more than 140 articles and four
books, most
recently Virtual Architecture: Designing
and Directing
Curriculum-Based Telecomputing (1998, ISTE) and
Design
Tools for the Internet-Supported Classroom (1998,
ASCD).
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Copyright © 1999, ISTE (International
Society for Technology in Education).
All rights reserved.
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