HOW TO CONDUCT A INTERNETPROJECT BETWEEN PUPILS/SCHOOLS IN PRIMARY EDUCATION IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES – EXPERIENCES FROM A SOCRATES PROJECT
Peter J. Dekker
Abstract
In the presentation I intent to cover two subjects.
The first is a description of the InterPriSE-project. This is a two-year project involving schools and organisations in The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark en Sweden. The project aims at writing a manual for primary-schools teachers on how to use the Internet for projects involving pupils in different countries. In the second year (this year) we are testing this manual on 6 schools in those countries. The manual consists of a step-by-step scheme which enables teachers to prepare, execute and evaluate an Internetproject.
The second subject is our experiences in working in such a – Socrates – project. I will discuss topics as
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how the co-operation among schools in the Socrates project started, |
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how the work was organised, |
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the paperwork involved |
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etc. |
Key words
Internet in primary education, Teleproject, Teaching material
1. Description of the InterPriSE Project* and the materials developed
The purpose of the InterPriSE-project is to encourage primary-school teachers and pupils to work with Internet in a European setting. The project focuses on the design and testing of specific materials as examples of good practice.
Objective I: Developing a manual:
Organisations and schools from four different countries (Belgium, Denmark, Sweden en the Netherlands) draft a manual for primary-school teachers on how to use the Internet for projects involving pupils from at least two different countries working on a common theme and in a foreign language.
Using this manual the teacher can start up projects with pupils from other countries in a language foreign to all participants.
Objective II: Design of teaching materials:
To have groups of two (neighbouring) countries design and test specific teaching materials that can serve as examples of good practice. These materials will be based upon the manual as described above.
The underlying idea is to encourage the use of the Internet as a pedagogical tool in primary schools and to make it possible to set up joint European projects for primary-school pupils through the Internet.
On this moment the manual is ready. It is structured as follows.
Chapter 1 Before you start
Chapter One consist of practical information you need to know before you decide to start. It contains of the following subjects:
Chapter 1.1 Why Internet in education? This chapter describes the educational arguments for pupils learning to work with the Internet.
Chapter 1.2 Prerequisites. This chapter consists of a description of the prerequisites that is required for both the teacher and the pupil when setting up an Internet for primary schools project.
Chapter 1.3 Opportunities of the Internet. This is a significant chapter as well. Here you find a description of the available Internet tools, the uses of them in education and a description on how to use them.
Chapter 1.4 Technical Information In this chapter you find the a list of the hard- en software you need to be able to set up an teleproject.
Chapter 1.5 An overview of different types of projects. This chapter describes all different types of teleprojects that have been set up before.
Chapter 2 Setting up an Internet for primary schools project
This is an extensive and important chapter in the manual. It describes step by step which activities you have to carry out in order to set up an Internet for primary schools project.
step 1 Decide what you are going to do
step 2 Lay out a scheme of activities
step 3 Turn the scheme into a project plan
step 4 Search for a partner
step 5 Make agreements with the partner
step 6 Execute the project
step 7 Close the project and exchange results with the partner
step 8 Evaluate the project
Chapter 3 Products
Here you find a large amount of examples of class material that is used when executing an Internet for primary schools project.
In the presentation I will shortly describe the structure and content of the project as described here. For the manual is the key product of this project, I will describe that in more detail. For example I will give some more information about:
 | Pupils enjoy very much carrying out an Internet project |
| They learn the following things: |
| Communicating in the English language |
| Internationalisation: learning from a different culture and different habits |
| Subject matter with regard to the topic |
| Working with the computer |
| Using the Internet grades up the quality of the learning process |
| They are busy with application directed learning |
| They are actively dealing with relevant material |
| They learn together |
| The learning is better attuned to individual learning methods |
| Using the Internet changes the traditional learning roles in a class situation |
| Pupils sometimes act as teachers |
| Teachers sometimes play the role of pupils |
| The commitment of parents and the local community can be increased. |
| Group A.Person-to-person exchanges |
| Keypals or Penpals |
| Global classrooms |
| Electronic "appearances" |
| Electronic mentoring |
| Impersonations |
| Group B.Information Collections |
| Information exchanges |
| Electronic publishing |
| Database creation |
| Tele-Fieldtrips |
| Pooled data analysis (including surveys) |
| Group C. Collaborative Problem-Solving |
| Information searches |
| Electronic process writing |
| Parallel problem-solving (including contests) |
| Simulations |
| Social action projects |
Preparation
The preparation takes quite a lot of your time, because this part of the scheme is elaborate. It consists of the following steps:
- Decide what you are going to do.. Think roughly about an objective, the type of project and the set-up of the teleproject.
- Arrange the ideas in an outline of activities, that the pupils are going to carry out. In other words: an exploration of the activities that are to be executed.
- Turn the rough outline into a detailed project plan. Developing a project plan may seem time-consuming. However, it will eventually appear time-saving. You will already need the project plan, when for example, searching for a partner. The plan also offers great support in the execution phase of the project.
- Search for a partner.
- Come to agreements with the found partner and prepare the lessons and assignment.
Execution
After preparation, the Internetproject starts. In this manual this is described in one step.
6. Execute the project. Here is described how you exchange information.
Closing off
The Internetproject is finished. There are two things left to do:
7. Closing off, and exchanging of the results, also more widely.
8. Evaluation.
2. Description of the organisation of this Socrates Project
The second subject is our experiences in working in such a – Socrates – project. I will discuss topics such as
There will be time left to answer specific questions
A short description of the information given here:
The project started with a Dutch organisation (OWG) wanting to develop material. They contacted an organisation that knows the way in Brussels (RBO). They wrote a proposal and searched (and found) the other partners.
In the proposal you have to write down the way the project is organised, plans to disseminate the results, how you will monitor and evaluate the project. An important part of the proposal is the financial chapter. For this project we obtained 50% funding. The project was granted for several reasons. One of the main reasons was that in the Netherlands the OWG was involved. They have a widely spread distribution network to disseminate the results of the project (manual). For the Scandinavian countries we found a publisher as a projectpartner. They can distribute the manual in those countries.
We decided to develop an organisational structure in which one organisation is responsible for the content (OWG) and one other organisation is responsible for the organisation of the project and the communication with Brussels (RBO). In this case RBO has a lot of experience with the paperwork involved. For example the financial administration is quite a lot of work.
The proposal contained the organisational structure as mentioned before. To realise the work we decided to have three meetings each year in of one of the partners’ countries. The partner in that country has to take care of the accommodation. Between these periods we stayed in contact by E-mail.
One or two times a year the program co-ordinators have to meet in Brussels. In a 2-day conference all program co-ordinators meet with each other and discuss specific topics in which the Socrates organisation is interested (ways to disseminate, the pedagogical subject of the projects etc.)
*This project has been carried out with the assistance of the Commission of the European Communities within the framework of the SOCRATES programme (ODL).
Acronym |
InterPriSE |
Reference Number |
39994-CP-1-1997-1-NL-ODL-ODL |
Full-title |
INTERnet for Primary Schools in Europe |
Start |
September 1997 |
Duration |
2 year |
Literature
 | InterPriSE manual; A successful approach to Internet Projects (in press). |
The manual is based on the following literature (partly Dutch)
| Vensters@Internet, 1997, Lida Schoen en Paul Jansen, Academic Service Educatief te Schoonhoven & CPS & SLO |
| Internationalisering, electronische communicatie en het onderwijs, 1996, Peter Baak en Wim Didderen. St. Europees platform voor het Nederlandse Onderwijs te Alkmaar |
| Internet op school, Een cursus voor leerling en docent, 1997, Henk Hoedemaekers, Uitgeverij Sifra te Eeserveen |
| Internet in 20 stappen, 1996, Stefan Arts, Sybex Uitgeverij te Soest |
| Beginnen met Internet, 1995, Peter Kent, Academic Service Educatief te Schoonhoven |
| Het complete Internet handboek, 1994, Steve Bang (et al, vertaling uit het Engels), Academic Service Educatief te Schoonhoven |
| Internet, een nieuw didactisch medium, 1997, Frans Hertveld, Philip Vanneste, Bert Wylin, Standaard Uitgeverij - MIM te Antwerpen |
| Das Bild, E-mail bij moderne vreemde talen in de basisvorming, 1997, Dorien Nelisse, PRINT/VO reeks nummer 34, PRINT/VO te Amersfoort |
| Telematics in Dutch Education, Experiences from the classroom, 1992, Wim Veen, Fred Vogelenzang, Academisch Boeken Centrum ABC De Lier |
| Telematics in Education, The European case, 1994, Wim Veen, Betty Collis, Pieter de Vries, Fred Vogelenzang, Academisch Boeken Centrum ABC De Lier |
| Think Quest 1998 |
Judi Harris. Using Internet Know-how to plan how students will know, may 1993, ‘Mining the Internet column, The computer Teacher.
About the author
The author of the paper (also the author of the manual and the one who will do the presentation on MIRK) is an educationalist which works for different organisations (educational publishers, institutes for teachertrainings etc.). For the InterPriSE-project he works as a program co-ordinator, responsible for the content. He has worked on many projects before, all involving the use of computers in education (design of educational software, implementing educational software, designing training programmes for teachers using the computer, etc.)
He is qualified as a teacher for primary education, and has a university degree in the field of educational technology.
Personal address:
Werkendelslaan 23
1851 VA Heiloo
The Netherlands
Tel. + 31 72 5340330
Fax + 31 842 138440
E-mail: p.dekker@multiweb.nl
Organisation:
OWG-Bureau
Postbus 1206
6040 KE Roermond
Tel. +31 475 319148
Fax +31 475 333866
E-mail bureau@owg.nl
Internet: www.owg.nl