Information Collection and Analysis
The most successful educational telecomputing activities frequently ask students to collect, compile, and compare different types of information. With the World Wide Web and its resources increasingly available in K-12 classrooms, this type of educational telecomputing has become quite popular. Please note, though, that these five activity structures--information exchanges, database creation, electronic publishing, telefieldtrips, and pooled data analysis--are essentially telecollaborative. Teleresearch is used only to support students' and teachers' learning.
Structure
7: Information Exchanges. Sharing information
that is intrinsically interesting to young people on an
international scale is an excellent way to engage students
in authentic cultural interchange. A great example of
curriculum-related information exchange is David Warlick's
yearly Global
Grocery List Project. Participating students
around the world find and share the prices for items on a
common, virtual shopping list. Classes then use the
resulting price lists to discover which items are more
expensive in which places. Once these patterns are
identified, the students can begin to research and discuss
the reasons for these differences in cost.
Information exchanges can involve many classes without overwhelming teachers with time-consuming managerial tasks. Projects such as these are particularly appropriate for telecomputing tools because participating students become creators, consumers, and critics of the information they share.
Structure 8: Database Creation. Some projects involve both collecting and organizing information into databases that project participants and others can use for study and analysis. Successful information-exchange activities can "grow" into database-creation activities.
One long-running database-creation projects is Kidlink's Multicultural Calendar. Since 1994, students from many different countries have contributed database information about holidays that are celebrated where they live. These records are searchable by month, holiday, country, user-supplied keywords, and author. Entries for September, for example, include Father's Day in Australia, Teacher's Day in Argentina, Independence Day in Mexico, and harvest festivals in South Korea and Israel. This rich and well-organized collection of student-produced information has many possible uses in the classroom.
Structure 9: Electronic Publishing. Information-collection results can be analyzed in other ways. One of the most popular is through electronic publishing, which includes electronic periodicals (e-zines), report repositories, and online galleries. High-speed Internet access and the proliferation of HTML-authoring tools have made electronic publishing projects possible for the primary grades and beyond. The appeal of an international audience for students' work is powerful, and many examples of electronic publishing projects can be seen online.
One
of the best known examples is MidLink
Magazine, a quarterly e-zine created by and for
students ages 10 through 15. Each issue organizes pupils'
graphic creations, poems, essays, and short stories around
several themes. For example, in February and March 1997,
contributors encouraged readers to think about dreams for
peace in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. Other sections in
the publication included an egg hunt, a haiku exchange with
students in Japan, and a virtual quilt project that invited
visitors to "curl up by the fire . . . and drink a cup of
hot chocolate with your cyber-friends." The quilt was
virtually created with student-contributed squares and
stories that represented their countries, states, and
territories.
