HOW TO ORGANISE INTERNET - BASED EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS AT SCHOOL?

Janika Ruusmaa

Internet-based educational projects for Estonian schools has been organized since 1993. The group of activists – university students and teachers have got the idea and their first experiences participating in worldwide simulation projects via e-mail. Now they have organized 10 projects during 7 years and this kind of learning is very popular among Estonian high school students because it is different, it is interesting, it is voluntary for them and it is fun.

But project work via internet is not only a fun. During 7 years there have been projects supporting different curriculum subjects (social studies, environmental studies, literature, biology, history etc). The common purpose of these projects is educational: to integrate curriculum subjects, to teach teamwork and cooperative learning at school with the aid of information technology and communication.

What is needed for organize a good educational project via internet?

    1. Teacher who is interested in making difference in his subject teaching, who has an idea and a good wish to realize his idea. (In the better case there is a group of teachers.)
    2. Partners – 2 or 20, it doesn’t matter.
    3. Computer(s) and internet connection at school.
    4. A plenty of time.

How to start and develop a project like this?

    1. Preparation – to develop the idea for the program, scenario and stages; to design the schedule and prepare the additional materials.
    2. Development – sending the messages on the right time to the right target group; to follow up the project development, to assist if it is needed; to sum the project and give the feedback.
    3. Debriefing and evaluation.

According to this scheme we can organize a very simple project supporting literature and process writing at primary school. The purpose of the project is to write a fairy-tail in cooperation with partner school.

There could be five stages:

  1. Preparing period - finding the partners and negotiating in schedule.
  2. Writing the prelude of the fairy-tail (on the computer). 1. week
  3. Sending the preludes to the partners (by e-mail). 2. week
  4. Finishing the stories and sending them back. 3.- 4. week
  5. Discussion and evaluation.5.- 6. week

I can encourage that cooperative project work at school is not insuperable. If you have facilities to cooperate with partner schools and ideas to create something new, you can just trust yourself and try to carry it out. Good luck for making a difference at school!