Teaching and Learning with Faraway Partners: First Steps
A Mini-WebQuest for Creative Teachers
Designed by Bernie
Dodge
bdodge@mail.sdsu.edu
Slightly modified by Philip Molebash
p.molebash@utah.edu
Introduction | Task | Process | Evaluation | Conclusion | Credits
Introduction
The internet isn't just about web pages; it's also about connecting people together. Those connections can enliven your teaching and make your class one that your students will never forget.
- Imagine having your students gathering data from your local environment and then comparing it with data from a classroom in Australia.
- Imagine your students corresponding with students in a refugee camp in Bosnia.
- Imagine your students collaborating on a collection of old sayings gathered from a dozen different cultures.
These powerful connections aren't that hard to carry out, as long as you know what you're getting into. In this exercise, you'll begin to figure it out.
Task
Working in groups, you are going to study a number of examples of telecollaboration-based lessons. Your task is to tease out some important pedagogical elements and issues and be able to explain them to the rest of us. You'll express your newfound understanding by writing a compelling letter to your principal making a case for this kind of teaching.
| THIS IS AN ACTIVITY TO PREPARE YOU FOR THE TELECOLLABORATIVE LESSON ASSIGNMENT. YOU SHOULDN'T CONFUSE THE TWO. IT ONLY COUNTS TOWARD YOUR PARTICIPATION GRADE. |
Process
- We'll begin by looking at three very different projects. Take a total
of 10 minutes to explore each of these sites:
The Way We Are Down the Drain Historical Sites
- As a class, we'll discuss what you saw at these sites. What do you
think students would learn from these lessons? How difficult do they
seem to set up and implement? What would you be doing in the classroom
while these were going on?
- Next, we'll count off and divide up the task of understanding the
various elements that make up projects like these. You work on one
of
the following investigation teams, each with its own guiding question
and sites:
Logistical Issues - What kinds of things do you need to watch out for in setting up collaborative exchanges? What details can get in the way of a successful project?
Interview with 8 Keypals Advantages - What do learners learn when they collaborate at a distance? What unique advantages do lessons like this provide? Resources - How do you find projects and partners? Which sites seem best for which kinds of projects and which sorts of students?
- Once the investigation teams have compared notes and developed a
response to their question, we'll get back together with your task
group of three.
Within your group, share what you learned from looking at the sites.
- Your final task is to write a note to your principal, making a case
for you getting some support to develop a number of telecollaborative
lessons over the coming year. What kind of support do you need? Why
should you be devoting your time to this? Provide some examples of the
kinds of projects you might do and explain how they will help you meet
your curricular goals. To demonstrate that you know what you're talking
about, point out some of the details that you'll need to cover to ensure
a successful project.
- We'll wrap this up by reading each letter aloud.
Evaluation
This activity will not be graded. The Telecollaborative Lesson, on the other hand, will count for 15% of your grade.
Conclusion
Are you now more enthusiastic about tackling a lesson like this? Do you think you could make a case with your principal or department chair to spend your time on one? If the answer is yes, you might want to look at the following sites to build on what you just learned. They are both based on the work of Judi Harris.
Credits & References
Some images in this exercise come from ClipArt.com. Thanks to Judi Harris for making her Virtual Architecture site freely available.
This exercise is loosely based on the Genre Analysis pattern from the Design Patterns page on the SDSU WebQuest Site.
We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this exercise, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this exercist. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL.
Last updated on January 31, 2006. Based on a template from The WebQuest Page