Slide 1

What do we mean by a collaborative activity?

• Students working with other students online
• Often the online work is preceded by local work in class

Slide 2

Examples from past projects

• Students design something locally, share ideas online, critique other designs
  • Online From Jupiter 97
  • S/MORE's Great Plant Debate
  • Coming in January: NeurOn's Great Habitat Debate

• Students collect data and share it with one another
  • Currently active: Shuttle Team Online
  • Star Census from Live From the Stratosphere
  • Weather activity from Live From the Hubble Space Telescope

• Students propose ideas, debate and reach consensus
  • The Great Planet Debate from Live From Hubble
  • Planet Explorer Toolkit from Live From Mars
  • Currently active: Weather Worlds from Live From Mars

Slide 1

Reasons to have Collaborative Activities

• Get ideas from other teachers and professionals
• Increases student interest and investment
• Adds variety of ideas and data
• Increases keyboarding and communication skills

Slide 2

Project Sources

• Quest/Sharing NASA Series -- http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/interactive/
• Global School House -- http://www.gsn.org/index.html
• LabNet/TERC -- http://labnet.terc.edu/
• SAMI--Annenberg/CPB -- http://www.learner.org/sami/
• JASON -- http://www.jasonproject.org/

Slide 3

Different Types of Projects--

• Most big ones set-up for Middle School; others ages with adaptations
• Key-pals -- easy but lose interest quickly
• Organized Ones I've Done
  • Journey North/South -- http://www.learner.org/jnorth/
  • Live From Mars: PET, WeatherWorlds
  • KGS--Univ. of Mich. -- http://www.onesky.umich.edu/kgs98/
  • Where in the World is Cynthia San Francisco -- http://k12science.stevens-tech.edu/curriculum/weather/c3wregister.html
  • Earth Day--World Class '98--can't remember this one!
  • Postcard Geography -- http://www.town.pvt.k12.ca.us/Collaborations/PCG/postcard.html

Slide 4

Organize Yourself--

• CLEO -- Helps to Organize your thinking -- http://cleo.terc.edu/cleo/cleo-home.cfm
• Provides place to put data, interact with each other
• Decide Project goal/question
• Decide audience--age/quantity
• Methodology of data gathering and reporting

Slide 5

Problems

• May not coincide with your curriculum/schedule
  • Fake it--squish it in anyway
  • Save it--most archive data--use it when it fits
  • Find the standards it does meet--problem-solving, language arts, graphing, geography, etc.
• Wrong age group
  • Most provide adaptations--do what you can/add/delete
• Not on-line or limited at school
  • Do from home--use WebWhacker or print out
  • Have kids with trustworthy parents upload/download
  • Have kids work in groups and alternate
• Too much access--you're responsible for what they upload
  • STRICT Internet licenses--revoke if abused
  • Extra supervision by parents
  • Approve EVERYTHING before uploading
  • Don't release passwords

Slide 6

How to Get Involved

• Many are annual events
• Check with other teachers, professional meetings
• Sign up for "Hilites" Global School House summary e-mail
• Sign up and observe one year/session--participate next year