On-line Curriculum Projects that Your Class Can JoinMany Internet-based projects have been developed over the past few years that foster school-to-school, classroom-to-classroom, and student-to-student interactions and collaborations. The following projects range from the simple and short term to the complex and long term. They have also been chosen because they illustrate
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CENTRALIZED PROJECTS IN THE SCIENCES There are a number of projects in the sciences in which the participants gather data and send it to a central databank, where it is then analyzed and posted for all participants to see. Most of these projects have research scientists to help analyze the results. In projects of this type, the main point is to gather enough data so that the shared results reveal patterns and/or larger (non-local) processes. Globe is one of the
oldest, largest, and best-known of the scientific data-collection projects,
in which students and teachers from over 7,000 schools in more than 80
countries make environmental observations at or near their schools and
report their data through the Internet. Among other subjects, Globe students
have tracking the environmental effects of El Nino and acid rain.
Sponsored by the Center
for Improving Engineering and Science Education at the Steven Insitute
of Technology, this project has students from around the world comparing
the water quality of their local rivers, streams, lakes, or ponds with
other fresh water sources. The next run of the project starts on September
13 and lasts until December 10.
CENTRALIZED PROJECTS IN SOCIAL STUDIES AND THE HUMANITIES Fewer projects in social studies and the humanities take the results of student research as seriously as do science projects, but they are beginning to appear. One example is the
New Deal Network, where a cumulation of student studies of New Deal projects
will, when taken together, build a picture of the New Deal as it operated
across the nation. Smaller projects within
the New Deal, such as the WPA Murals Project, focus on only one aspect
of the larger whole but have the same aim. This particular project has
great cross-disciplinary potential because it is looking at public art.
WEB-BASED PROJECTS FOR THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL The following two projects are examples of how seemingly simple projects can provide powerful ways to raise awareness of economic, social, and cultural difference. This type of project is often organized by a school or school district, which then gets other schools to join in. In
the Global Grocery List project, students at different sites collect
grocery price data for comparison and analysis. The
Monster Exchange is a combination art and language arts project: students
draw monsters, describe them in words, send the descriptions to other
students--who then draw the monsters. The fun is in seeing how much
they look like the originals and why, or why not. The project can be
adapted for use in one classroom or one school. VOYAGE PROJECTS, OR INTERNET FIELD TRIPS In this type of project, students follow a group of voyagers, sometimes research scientists and sometimes simply adventurers, as they investigate some far-off region of the world. Students are generally in email (and sometimes video) communication with the voyagers, can ask questions, etc. The Jason Project,
one of the best-known of the voyage projects, is sponsored by the National
Geographic Society. In 2000, JASON XI "Going to Extremes," will compare
NOAA's Aquarius Underwater Laboratory (Florida Keys) and NASA's International
Space Station as research platforms that enable humans to go beyond their
physical limitations to explore the unknown and ask the question "why?".
Extensive curriculum guides are prepared for project. In the Journey North,
sponsored by the Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project, thousands of
students each fall and spring track and share information on migrating
animals and seasonal changes. This fall, the project is tracking the migration
of Monarch butterflies south to Mexico. The migration begins in August
in northern regions and, by early November, the first butterflies arrive
in Mexico. Students report their sightings of southbound monarchs and
help track their journey south. Classroom Connect's
current quests are AsiaQuest and GalapagosQuest: Adventure Online's
virtual journeys connect science and social studies. CENTRALIZED SOCIAL JUSTICE PROJECTS These projects encourage students to interact with a range of people outside the classroom and with their local communities. In the UN CyberSchoolBus's
Demining Schools Project, students not only learned about the devastating
effects of the land mines left behind after the civil war in Mozambique,
but joined an international campaign to ban land mines and help raise
funds to clear the mines from a schoolyard.
PEER-TO-PEER PROJECTS Most peer-to-peer projects use email for classroom-to-classroom or student-to-student communication. There are a number of websites that facilitate this by providing links to schools or specific projects. ePALS advertises itself
as the world's largest and most active epal network--with students in
over 90 countries. At its website, you can find a classroom somewhere
else in the world that is interested in your topic. The North Carolina
Center for International Understanding at The University of North Carolina
hosts this website where you can find projects with overseas schools,
including several email penpal projects. Web66's clickable
maps make it easy to find schools in the United States and around the
world that are interested in communicating with other schools. FIND-AN-EXPERT PROJECTS
Electronic Emissary
is the longest running Internet-based telementoring and research effort
serving K-12 students and teachers around the world. Teachers can search
the project's database by subject to find expert mentors for their students. For help finding
information and answers to questions about school subjects, fascinating
facts, research topics, and more. FINDING AN ONLINE PROJECT Global SchoolNet has an Internet Projects Registry, searchable by age level and start date, that includes projects from Global SchoolNet Foundation, I*Earn, IECC, NASA, GLOBE, Academy One, TIES, Tenet, TERC, and more. Another excellent annotated list is at On Line Projects. The state of Pennsylvania has created a website called Link2Learn (http://l2lpd.arin.k12.pa.us/default.htm) that is supposed to supply the kind of information that would be helpful to teachers. They have a database of activities on the web that teach various topics, tutorials for teachers, online projects, workshop information that they run throughout the state and pictures that can be used for classroom projects. The courses are offered free to teachers whose districts have chosen to participate in the Link2Learn project and are taught by teachers or technology people in the consortium of schools.
When you are considering a web-based curriculum project for your classroom, here are some questions you might want to ask about the project. |