Participate in a Telecollaboration
 








The Classroom
The world is now truly our classroom. Globally, educators and students learn together on the Internet, sharing ideas, collaborating on lessons, becoming a community. These global citizens will help make this planet a better place to live and learn and grow.The incredible learning opportunities now within reach are indelibly changing the nature of the classroom.

You're Ready!
You already have what you need to enter the global classroom: a computer, an internet connection and a spirit of adventure! You can find projects, and partners and necessary tools on the Internet. You're ready...set...GO!

To find our more about joining a project, read on...
Or, if you're ready, Develop a Telecollaboration


Participating in a Telecollaboration
Know Your Resources
Before you jump right in and join a project, it's a good idea to find out what hardware and software you have and what you can do with it. Knowing your resources and capabilities ensure that when you commit to a project, you can fulfill that commitment. Exchanging information on the Internet can be more complicated than it appears.

Make a list and check it twice
If you're new to technology, it's easiest to first to find out what you have and then join a project requiring what you can do. If you're feeling more adventurous, you can decide what kind of information you want to share and then learn how to do it. One caution, many other teachers and students may be depending upon you, so temper your aims.

Our technology checklist can help you catalog your technology resources and capabilities. When you know what you have on hand, you can more easily match project requirements to your resource list. For details on exchanging files see Exchanging Information on the Internet.

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Finding and Joining a Project
It's a good idea to start simple. A short project involving one email exchange of information will let you start without making a major commitment. Gradually build your repertoire, trying more complex themes and involved exchanges of information.

Classroom telecollaborations may involve one or more of the following categories and requirements.

Kinds of telecollaborations
  • Information exchanges: sending descriptions of yourselves, your locale, or activities.
  • Data collection: answering questionnaires, measuring, tracking events.
  • Creation: making original writings or art.
  • Research: finding facts and reporting what you find.
  • Data analysis: data is supplied by the project coordinator.
  • Live Conferencing: real-time meetings on the Internet via Internet Relay Chat (IRC), video conferencing, or desktop conferencing.

    Kinds of information
  • Text: letters, stories, essays.
  • Graphics: photos, drawings, paintings, graphs.
  • Spreadsheets: tables of data, analyses.
  • Special formats: HyperStudio stacks, page layouts, presentations, movies, animation.
  • Cross-platform: Mac to Windows/DOS include special considerations in format.
  • Sounds: music, system sounds.

    Ways of exchanging
  • Email messages.
  • Attached files to email messages.
  • Web sites present project information.
  • FTP Files to or from server directories via the Internet.
  • Database: participants enter and retrieve information from a common web-based database.
  • Presentation: information is shared in PowerPoint, HyperStudio, Flash or video formats.
  • Live Conferencing: IRC, desktop, video

    Check our Exchanging Information page for details. Sharing data files on the internet can be more complicated than it first appears. The number and kinds of software formats is so large and diverse that you need to know what you have and what you can do.

    Finding a Project
    There are many good places to find internet projects. There are a number of Project/Participant Registries, where projects can be posted and found. Some of these databases are searchable. There are also quite a few sites which post and review or develop Ongoing Projects and Archives. Many are free, and more recently, some are For-a-Fee, providing supplemental printed materials and others services.

    There are also email lists you can join to which projects are posted--it's a great way to see connect with other classroom educators. If you do join a mailing list, be sure you have extra time to read all the mail you'll be getting! Sometimes your mailbox will be very full.

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    Maximizing your Participation
    A Participant's Guide
    The best way to learn about classroom internet projects is to join one. When you do, here are some hints to help you maximize your learning.

  • Be committed to the project. You are a pioneers out here on the Internet. You will encounter new amazing new learning experiences. But with the territory comes confounding new PROBLEMS. Be prepared to ask questions and to figure things out for yourself.

  • Be a student. You're here to learn as well as teach. You don't have to know how to do everything before your start.Explain to your students about the newness of the internet and how you'll have to problem solve. Encouraging and promoting creative problem solving is a major goal of education.

  • Ask for help. When you don't understand, ask questions. We're all out here learning together. Your project coordinator will try to figure things out...and learn how to do new things, too.

  • Don't give up. Remember your commitment and finish the project to the best of your abilities. You have to learn sometime. There will always be something unexpected.

  • Do what you can.Once you join a project, remember students at other schools are depending upon your input. If you can't meet the project requirements, offer to do some compromise solution.

  • Start simple. Begin by joining a project that may only involve one time data collection and a single e-mailing. With each project you do, you'll learn more.

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    • info@telecollaborate.net