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Learning
& Leading with Technology, Nov 2000 v28 i3 p10
Online to Learn
or In Line with Standards. (Brief Article) Judi Harris.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2000 International
Society for Technology in Education
Curriculum-based
telecomputing need not be in competition for time spent addressing
curriculum standards. Online activities can assist students' subject-area
learning, as the example projects in this article demonstrate.
Subject: Any,
telecomputing projects
Audience: Teachers,
teacher educators, technology coordinators, library/media specialists
Grade Level: K-12
(Ages 5-18)
Technology:
Internet/Web
Standards: NETS*S
3-5. NETS*T III. (Read more about the NETS Project at www.iste.org--select
Standards Projects.)
An exceptionally
creative and talented elementary school teacher told me a story recently
that saddened but did not surprise me. This teacher has been helping her
students use computers as learning tools in many ways and for many years.
In particular, her students have been doing rich, multidisciplinary,
curriculum-based telecollaborative and teleresearch projects for more
than six years. Yet in May, this talented teacher's principal told her
that the students in their school would "not be using the
Internet" during the 2000-01 school year because their low
achievement test scores required more "concentrating on the
basics."
Perhaps you, like me,
are shaking your head now, perplexed by this all-too-familiar
misconception that in-school use of the Internet (and even computers in
general) by students is somehow an "add-on," an
"extra," or even a "new curriculum." Combined with
increasing pressure in many places for higher scores on standardized
tests, we can understand why Internet-based work in the classroom can be
seen as dispensable. Love & McVey (2000) described this tension as:
additional demands associated with current standardized testing practices. Clearly, there is a need to document student learning and to hold schools accountable. However, the often unreasonable pressure of preparing children for statewide tests has led to some instructional choices that may be of questionable worth in terms of the children's long-term educational attainment. (p. 2)
Though it's true that
some Internet-enriched learning activities seem disassociated from
curriculum standards, we must remember that tools don't constitute
curriculum. Rather, tools should be used in service of students' learning
needs.
Telecollaboration and
Teleresearch
Internet-supported,
curriculum-based learning can take many forms, but essentially it is
either online collaboration, also called "telecollaboration,"
or online research, also called "teleresearch." Telecollaborative
learning activities are those in which students communicate
electronically with others. Teleresearch learning activities are those in
which students locate and use online information. Online collaboration
and research are frequency combined in larger-scale educational projects.
Both can use text, still or animated images, and sound. Both can be
synchronous or asynchronous. Both can reproduce what students already do
when they collaborate and do research using more traditional learning
approaches. Yet to make these new opportunities worth the time, effort,
and other resources necessary to bring them into the classroom, it is
important to use the new tools in new and powerful ways.
Collaborative online
learning activities can offer many educational benefits to their
participants. The nature of these benefits depends, in large part, on the
specifics of each activity's design and how well what the activity makes
possible educationally matches the needs and preferences of participating
students. In general, telecollaboration is most appropriate when students
can be well served by:
* being exposed to
multiple points of view, perspectives, beliefs, interpretations, and/or
experiences
* comparing,
contrasting, and/or combining similar information collected in dissimilar
locations
* communicating with
a real audience using written language
* expanding their
global awareness
Online research can
offer an ever-expanding wealth and variety of current information to
learners. Whether this abundance helps or hinders students' subject-area
learning depends, like online collaboration, on the activity's design and
students' information-seeking and appraising skills. In general,
teleresearch is most appropriate when students can be well served by:
* accessing
information not available locally
* viewing information
in multiple formats (e.g., text, graphics, video)
* comparing and
contrasting differing information on the same topic
* considering
emerging and very recent information (e.g., interim reports of research
studies in progress)
* delving deeply into
a particular area of inquiry
What kinds of
learning activities can help students meet curriculum standards while
incorporating telecollaboration and teleresearch in powerful ways? The
scope and variety of curriculum-based telecomputing activities can be
understood according to their structures and purposes.
Activity Structures
and Purposes
Activity structures
are flexible frameworks that help teachers efficiently and effectively
create curriculum-based telecollaboration. They are a special type of
thinking tool for teachers--a form of design assistance. They help us
capture what is essential about the structure of a learning activity and
communicate that in such a way as to encourage the creation--not
replication--of context-appropriate environments for learning.
I have identified 18
telecollaborative activity structures to date, and I have grouped them
into three categories.
* Interpersonal
Exchanges are activities in which individuals talk electronically with
other individuals or groups, or in which groups talk with other groups.
* Information
Collection and Analysis activities involve students collecting,
compiling, and comparing different types of interesting information.
* Problem Solving
activities promote critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-based
learning.
Curriculum-based
teleresearch activities are categorized differently, according to their
apparent learning purposes rather than their structures. The purposes
include:
* practicing
information-seeking and evaluating skills
* exploring a topic
of inquiry or finding answers to a particular question
* reviewing multiple
perspectives on a topic
* collecting data
* assisting in
authentic problem solving
* publishing
information syntheses or critiques for others to use in teleresearch
More information
about each of these structures and purposes, along with examples of
classroom-tested, curriculum-based activities that illustrate them, can
be found at Virtual Architectures (Harris, 1998) Web home:
http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jbharris/ Virtual-Architecture/. Please see
the articles describing telecollaboration and teleresearch in terms of
structures and purposes at http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/ ~jbharris/Virtual-Architecture/Foundation/
index.html.
Time and Space
Have you noticed that
the only time there seems to be a profusion of space in a house (or
apartment, or classroom, or office) is when we first move in?
Somehow, as time
passes, our roommates and possessions--or, perhaps, our
expectations--multiply in such a way so that soon we feel we need more
space. As teachers, we face a similar situation with the biggest
challenge to powerful educational use of the Internet: time. Somehow, as
the years pass, we realize that we must add more to what our students
experience in our classrooms. Fortunately, Internet tools and resources
are not (or, shall I say: should not be) additions to our curricula;
rather, they can be used as "instruments of construction." So,
at least theoretically, once we have developed the skills prerequisite to
using Internet tools and resources effectively within the curriculum,
adding online components shouldn't take additional time or space.
Are some of you
starting to smell snake oil? If you have used online facilities as part
of your teaching already, does it seem that doing so took more, rather
than less, time and energy? Part of this expenditure of precious
resources may have to do with developing technical expertise, arranging
network access, and so on. Yet beyond that, it does seem that
curriculum-based telecomputing projects take longer, doesn't it?
The reasons behind
this relationship probably have more to do with the types of
telecomputing projects that we see as worthwhile in terms of time,
effort, and resources needed. Although I know of no research results that
have reported this discovery, from talking with many telecomputing
teachers and from being involved in many curriculum-based projects
myself, I suspect that what we see as worthy projects are
student-centered, active, problem-based, multi-modal, and
interdisciplinary. Planning for and implementing such rich educational
experiences requires more time, energy, and resources than traditional,
didactic, unimodal teaching. Use of the Internet isn't really what
occupies more time and space in our schedules; teaching well does.
But the very real limitations of curricular crowding and time shortage
still need to be addressed. Unfortunately, unlike a family that may be
able to move to a larger house when its members perceive a need for
additional space, there's not much hope of any of us getting more space
in our students' schedules. Might it be possible, then, for each project
to effectively combine curricular goals, telecollaborative activity
structures, and teleresearch purposes? Let's take a look at some example
projects to see how it is done.
Musical Plates
.gif) The Musical Plates project
(http:// k12science.ati.stevens-tech.edu/ curriculum/musicalplates/,
Figure 1) is a multidisciplinary exploration of earthquakes and plate
tectonics that helps secondary students learn actively in science,
mathematics, language arts, and instructional technology. Students are
introduced to this problem-based project by reading a scenario about a
geologist's work assignment (Figure 2). They use real-time earthquake and
volcano data, accessed using the Internet, to respond to the situation. In
addition, they assert data-based hypotheses about how earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions affect the plants and animals in differing natural
habitats and how local, national, and global human communities respond to
such natural events. Participants are encouraged to publish their work
online at the site for others to use.
Seen from a design standpoint, this rich project offers students engaging
teleresearch opportunities to accomplish all six purposes listed
previously. More importantly, students satisfy multiple requirements in
each of four curriculum areas. The project's creators have cited these
specifically according to two national, five state, and one local sets of
standards (http://k12science. ati.stevens-tech.edu/curriculum/
musicalplates/standards.html). For example, the New Jersey Core
Curriculum Content Standards that students satisfy by participating fully
in the Musical Plates project include:
3.2: All students will actively listen in a variety of situations in order to receive, interpret, evaluate, and respond to information obtained from a variety of sources. 3.3: All students will compose texts that are diverse in content and form for different audiences for real and varied purposes. 3.5: All students will view, understand, and use nontextual visual information and representations for critical comparison, analysis, and evaluation.
Advocates for the
Millennium
This imaginative five-week project (www.angelfire.com/mi/llennium3/,
Figure 3) from Alberta, Canada, helps students in Grades 3-9 explore
ideas related to millennia through work in language arts, social studies,
and information and communication technology. Much of this project is
telecollaborative; students engage in activities structured as global
classrooms, keypal exchanges, telementoring, information exchanges, and
electronic publishing. Teleresearch is used to help students explore
millennium-related topics from multiple points of view; for example,
students can make predictions, create inventions, or research important
people from the past 1,000 years.
The project, now in
its third year, adopts a new theme annually but is scheduled similarly
each time. During the spring of 2000, for example, the project
commemorated the International Year of the Older Person with weekly
activities including the following:
Week Two: The Past Research an important person of the last 1,000 years. Research is placed on a circle that will go on a 1,000-year timeline. Week Three: The Present Students record the stories of their own grandparents or a grandparent they have adopted. Students complete PowerPoint presentations on the millennium. Week Four: The Future Futuristic poetry, predictions, stories, and descriptive writing. What will the future look like? Where will you be? What does a car or a house of the future look like? Be creative!
Curriculum standards that the project satisfies are listed by grade level
and discipline (www.angelfire.com/mi/ llennium3/lacurobj.html). For
eighth graders, for example, 14 language arts, 19 information and
communication technology, and more than 50 social studies standards are
addressed in the context of just this one project.
Fairy Tale Cyber
Dictionary
In this simple yet
powerful project for very young students (www.op97.
k12.il.us/instruct/ftcyber/index.html, Figure 4), each participating
teacher chooses a familiar fairy tale to read aloud to his or her class. As
a group, students then retell the story in their own words and with their
own artwork, either writing or dictating their version of the tale. There's
a clever challenge in this particular project's design: In retelling the
fairy tale, students are asked to choose and include words beginning with
each letter of the alphabet that communicate important aspects of the
story.
For example, when
kindergarten students in Kapa'a Elementary School in Kapa'a, Kauai,
Hawaii, retold the story of"Jack and the Beanstalk," the)
created the sample shown in Figure 5. When you select a letter, you see
the students' captioned illustration of a word from the fairy tale
beginning with that letter (Figure 6).
Participating
classes' fairy tales are posted at the project's site for all to enjoy. Although
it was not described in the posted plans for the project, I suspect that
students visiting this cyber-collection use the student-written and
-illustrated tales to review alphabet and spelling skills.
The Fairytale Cyber
Dictionary project demonstrates that multiple curriculum standards can be
addressed even in short-term projects with the simplest of designs. As
you can see, this project addresses listening comprehension, word
analysis, spelling, memory-building, sequencing, linguistic
problem-solving, and graphic skills.
What Dilemma?
The point, I hope, is
clear: Participating in one well-designed project can help students
address many content and process standards at the same time and in
engaging, pedagogically sound ways. Although there is yet no
generalizable evidence that doing so will help improve standardized test
scores, it would stand to reason that if the testing instruments are
reliable, valid, and matched to relevant curriculum standards, the
benefits of such project-based learning should also be reflected in
higher test scores. If they aren't, perhaps we should question the tests
before we question the ways in which creative teachers are helping their
students learn. Use of Internet tools and resources in curriculum-based
ways not only directly addresses curriculum standards but can also do so
in a time-efficient and learner-centered way.
References
Harris, J. (1998). Virtual
architecture: Designing and directing curriculum-based telecomputing. Eugene,
OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
Love, R., &
McVey, M. (2000). Teachers' use of the Internet. Tweachers College Record
[Online serial]. Available: www.tcrecord.org/
printidkwparam.asp?@IdNumber=10538.
Judi Harris
(judi.harris@mail. utexas.edu), associate professor in Curriculum and
Instruction and area coordinator for Instructional Technology at the
University of Texas at Austin, directs the Electronic Emissary
(emissary.ots.utexas.edulemissary). She has authored more than 150
articles and four books, most recently the 1998 books Virtual
Architecture: Designing and Directing Curriculum-Based Telecomputing
(published by ISTE) and Design Tools for the Internet-Supported Classroom
(published by ASCD).
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