INTERNET WORKSHOP 2:
How are educators expanding classroom
boundaries with networked communication resources? |
Overview
This Internet Workshop will provide an opportunity to explore different
ways that students and their teachers are connecting and communicating
with others from around the world through email, listervs, electronic discussion
boards and central curricular web sites. The experiences are intended
to raise your awareness of various types of telecollaborative opportunities
available and suggested practices that can successfully enhance student
learning and support professional development in schools. *
WHAT IS TELECOLLABORATION?
The Internet can be powerful tool for communication within and between
schools around the world. As an educational leader, you should
become familiar with how telecollaborative projects are being used to
ground local inquiry, provide resources in the form of expertise, data
and information and to introduce learners to new ways and purposes for
communicating. An important question to keep in mind throughout
this workshop is to ask yourselves if and how access to this information
and processes can help deepen students' understanding of the academic concepts
that are covered in your school's curriculum.
Judi Harris (1998) believes that the Internet offers educators
three structure types that function as flexible frameworks for teachers'
instructional design tools. Each activity structure encompasses five
to seven different types of activities that are flexibly designed to
support various learning goals.
- Interpersonal Exchanges are those activities
in which individuals communicate electronically with other individuals,
individuals communicate with groups or groups communicate with other groups.
Interpersonal Exchanges include: keypals, global classrooms, electronic
appearances, telementoring, question-and-answer activities, and impersonations.
- Information Collection and Analysis activities
are those that involve students collecting, compiling, and comparing different
types of interesting information. Information Collection and Analysis
activity structures include: information exchanges, database creation, electronic
publishing, telefieldtrips, and pooled data analysis.
- Problem Solving activities promote critical
thinking, collaboration, and problem-based learning. Problem Solving structures
include: information searches, peer feedback activities, parallel problem
solving, sequential problem solving, telepresent problem solving, simulations,
and social action projects.
CATEGORIES OF TELECOMMUNICATION
The structured Internet activities discussed above usually fall
into one of four categories of telecommunication (Informatica, 2002).
- Class to Class: Classes use the information,
help or resources other classes have to offer, or they share information,
resources and activities in collaborative or co-operative exchanges. Each
class should have it's own e-mail address to ensure ownership and follow-up.
- Teacher to Teacher: Teachers can use electronic
networking for planning, sharing and support. For this type of interaction,
teachers need to have a separate e-mail address as they will discuss and
share with their peers.
- Teacher or Expert to Class: Mentors or other
experts can help students, answering their questions or communicating
in the guise of a persona. You can even plan "live" interviews with experts
or celebrities through a "chat" or “videoconferencing”.
- Student to Student: As in keypaling, this
is only one of many ways to use e-mail, and experts agree usually not the
one that guarantees the best chance of success.
HOW DO YOU DEFINE SOME OF THE
TELECOLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENTS CURRENTLY BEING USED FOR LEARNING?
A listserv is an online email community of individuals who
are interested in a common topic. When you join a listserv you receive
email messages posted to that list. You may also post a message to
the list. Listservs (mailing lists) provide special opportunities to support
all educators with a means of continuous professional development.
A bulletin board system is like an electronic message center.
Many bulletin boards serve the particular interests of educators of a
certain grade level or specific content area. They allow you to review
from a website an archive of messages previously posted by others and
to leave your own message if you want. Bulletin boards are a particularly
good place for posting a question you have and checking back a few days
later to find answers posted by many others with similar interests.
A chatroom is an environment within which two or more users
communicate via computers in real-time (simultaneously with immediate
feedback). Once a chat has been initiated, each user can enter text
by typing on a keyboard and the entered text will appear on all the other
user's monitors. Chatrooms are helping to provide real-time opportunities
for educators to meet and dialogue with other peers and experts in their
field without the expenses typically associated with face-to-face interactions.
There are thousands of listservs, bulletin boards and chatrooms
on the Internet. A number of them are devoted to discussion of
important educational areas. Are you looking for answers to questions
in educational leadership, reading education, math education, science
education, social studies education, or any other curricular area?
There is a telecollaborative learning opportunity out there just right
for you.
More information about telecollaborative activity
structures is available at these resources:
Harris, J. (1998). Virtual Architecture:
Designing and Directing Curriculum-Based Telecollaboration. Eugene,
OR: International Society for Technology in Education. Available:
http://virtual-architecture.wm.edu/index.html
Informatica. (2002). Organizing and Facilitation Telecollaborative
Projects with Informatica Circle. Available: http://www.ardil.info/index.php?ardil=projects.inc
On the next few pages, you will complete an Internet Workshop
experience together around the use of telecollaborative learning projects
and networked communication resources. You will have 30 minutes
to explore and gather information in one area. You will bring the
information gathered back to our workshop session where we will share and
discuss it for 15 minutes.
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Exploring Networked Communication Resources
and Telecollaborative Learning Projects: (An Internet Workshop)
Directions: You will complete one of the following activities
and bring your information to our workshop session, where you will share
your results with others. You will have 30 minutes to gather your
information in one of the following areas. Decide which one you
would like to explore:
- Explore several online dialogues and listservs for educators
in various curricular areas.
- Explore email and discussion list opportunities for
students.
- Explore collections of telecollaborative projects that
teachers and students can join.
- Read an article about Internet Project as a telecollaborative
instructional model.
- Read articles about the effective use of telecollaborative
projects with students.
Click on one of the following areas to explore in the next
30 minutes.
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