Flat stanley goes cyber: easy web projects motivate kids to use new technologies to read, write, and go global.What it means to be literate continuously changes as new technologies rapidly appear, creating new opportunities and new challenges for teachers. The central question for each of us is "How do we help children learn the new literacies continuously emerging in this time of rapid change?" Literacy is no longer an end point to be achieved and tested, but rather a process of continuously learning how to become literate. Many of these new literacies will converge con·verge v. con·verged, con·verg·ing, con·verg·es v.intr. 1. a. To tend toward or approach an intersecting point: lines that converge. b. with the Internet. Given those changes, we must begin to change the focus of reading and writing instruction to include the new literacies of Internet technologies. Web-site projects engage students in classrooms at different locations in collaborative work to solve a common problem or to explore a common topic. As a result, they help children acquire skills in collaborative problem-solving, information, and communication activities they will use in the future. Web-site projects are a wonderful starring point for teachers just beginning their Internet journey, because they are precisely defined with clear directions for participation and a complete set of instructional resources. One example of a Web-site project for young learners is the Flat Stanley Project. Flat Stanley Project Several Flat Stanley projects exist on the Internet. Dale Hubert, a third-grade teacher in Ontario, Canada, maintains one of the best examples (flat stanley,enoreo.on.ca/). Flat Stanley projects are based on the book Flat Stanley, by Jeff Brown
v. flat·tened, flat·ten·ing, flat·tens v.tr. 1. To make flat or flatter. 2. To knock down; lay low: The boxer was flattened with one punch. by a falling bulletin board. He quickly discovers a special advantage to being flat when his parents mail him to California in an envelope. This leads to all kinds of wonderful adventures. In Internet-based Flat Stanley projects, small groups make a Flat Stanley on paper and write several e-mail entries about his experiences. Then, with a collaborating class, they arrange to send or receive their Flat Stanley by e-mail. The recipient class adds several e-mail journal entries describing Stanley's experiences with them and returns Flat Stanley to the sender. Sometimes, a class will plan a route for Flat Stanley with several classes in a chain hosting Stanley before sending him on his way. After visiting a host of locations, Flat Stanley returns home. Many classrooms send Flat Stanley e-mail entries to all participating classrooms. A new e-mail entry arrives each morning describing Stanley's adventures. This project may be conducted at the youngest grade levels, with journal entries composed together by the class. Journal entries that arrive from a participating classroom may be shared within the context of a morning message or a message-of-the-day activity. At older grade levels, members of a class may choose to work in groups. Students will often put up bulletin boards containing maps and messages they have received on their various projects. If you are interested in reading about the experiences of teachers who have conducted a Flat Stanley project in their classroom, visit "Success Stories" at flatstanley.enoreo.on.ca/success_stories.html. You will get many great ideas for your classroom. More complete directions are available at flatstanley.enoreo.on.ca/how.html. If you are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. classrooms that might be interested in receiving a Flat Stanley, visit "Participants" at flatstanley.enoreo.on.ca/list_map.htm. More Great Global Projects Exploration and learning for students with Website projects does not end with Flat Stanley. In fact, there are a multitude of rich, thoughtful projects on the Internet that focus on the sciences, poetry, reading, global issues, and more. Here are some wonderful choices: Travel Buddies See buddy list. Mix together a stuffed animal
A stuffed animal is toy animal stuffed with straw, beans, cotton or other similar materials. Some stuffed animals are very old – home made cloth dolls stuffed with straw go back to at least the , e-mail, new friends from around the world, and a great work of literature and you have a travel buddy project. Your class sends a stuffed animal (often one representing a character in a favorite book you have read) to other classes around the world. A source for contacting other teachers who are interested in participating, and for querying teachers experienced with the project, may be found in Australia at Travel Buddies (rire.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teacher net/projects/travel-buddies/index.html). Another great resource is developed by oz-TeacherNet and is located at the following Web site: rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/. Journey North Journey North (www.learner.org/jnorth/) is a resource for the study of seasonal change. More than 250,000 students from all 50 U.S. states A U.S. state is any one of the fifty subnational entities of the United States, although four states use the official title "commonwealth". The separate state governments and the federal government share sovereignty, in that an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and and seven Canadian provinces Noun 1. Canadian province - Canada is divided into 12 provinces for administrative purposes province, state - the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation; "his state is in the deep south" participated during the spring of 2000. Many wonderful projects are possible at this single site, including various tracking projects. Students track the arrival of the first robins, redwinged blackbirds, hawks Hawks , Howard Winchester 1896-1977. American filmmaker whose works include His Girl Friday (1940) and The Big Sleep (1946). , eagles, or other migratory migratory /mi·gra·to·ry/ (mi´grah-tor?e) 1. roving or wandering. 2. of, pertaining to, or characterized by migration; undergoing periodic migration. migratory emanating from or pertaining to migration. species and then contribute this information to a common database. The database at Journey North displays the information on migrations for everyone to use. To get ready for the first sighting of an animal, students study migration patterns and learn other information about the species from the site. Journey North even contains links to the calls of migrating birds so students can hear the species they are looking for. All of the resources you need are located at the Journey North Web site. Examples from this past year may be seen at www.learner.org/jnorth/spring2002/species/. Links to the current year's projects may be found at www.learner.org/jnorth/. There are also Journey North Classroom Lessons (www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/Lessons.html), and a Teacher Tips area (www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/tips/). This project allows a community of observers to correspond together over the Internet, sharing their discoveries and reports. My Hero Project This project site (myhero.com/home.asp) celebrates heroes and heroines. It includes such people as U.S. Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks Noun 1. Rosa Parks - United States civil rights leader who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery (Alabama) and so triggered the national Civil Rights movement (born in 1913) Parks and zoologist Alan Rabinowitz Dr. Alan Rabinowitz (b. 1953) is an American zoologist born in New York City, U.S., and is currently the director of the Global Carnivore Program and of Science and Exploration at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City. , who started the first jaguar preserve in Belize to protect this endangered species endangered species, any plant or animal species whose ability to survive and reproduce has been jeopardized by human activities. In 1999 the U.S. government, in accordance with the U.S. . Your students can read about the many heroes and heroines nominated nom·i·nate tr.v. nom·i·nat·ed, nom·i·nat·ing, nom·i·nates 1. To propose by name as a candidate, especially for election. 2. To designate or appoint to an office, responsibility, or honor. by their peers from around the world as they come to understand what it means to make a difference. Then, your students can write a story about their own hero or heroine and post their description at this site. Book Raps Do you use literature discussion groups or literature circles in your classroom? Here's an Internet project that will let you conduct literature circles with classrooms around the world. Visit Book Raps (rite.ed.qut. edu.au/oz-teachernet/projects/book rap/), a great site run by Cherrol McGhee, a teacher at the Hillview State Primary School, in Queensland, Australia. Here you can visit the schedule of upcoming books that will be discussed via e-mail (www.pa.ash. org.au/rite/projects/bookrap/forml/displayrec2.asp) or you may sign up to coordinate an e-mail discussion of a book your class will read. It's the perfect way to broaden the conversations on books you and your class are reading throughout the year. The Future's New Literacies Web site projects open a window to the world as you engage in exciting, collaborative learning Collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches in education that involve joint intellectual effort by students or students and teachers. Collaborative learning refers to methodologies and environments in which learners engage in a common task in which each activities with classrooms in different countries and different cultures. As you and your students communicate daily with others in our global village, your students make new friends and share new insights about the world around them. At the same time, they develop new definitions of authentic reading and writing experiences. RELATED ARTICLE: Poetry in Cyberspace Coined by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," it is a futuristic computer network that people use by plugging their minds into it! The term now refers to the Internet or to the online or digital world in general. See Internet and virtual reality. Contrast with meatspace. Fifth and sixth graders developed this project site (www.mecca.org/~graham/day/poetrypost/) at Grahamwood Elementary School elementary school: see school. , in Memphis, Tennessee For the ancient Egyptian capital, see . Memphis is a city in the southwest corner of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. Memphis rises above the Mississippi River on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff just below the mouth of the Wolf River. . Here, your students may read poems submitted by children from around the world. Use the poems to introduce your poetry unit and then submit your students' work for posting. Already, students from Canada, Israel, Australia, and other countries have had their poems posted. This article was adapted from The Reading Teacher's March 2001 issue, Exploring Literacy on the Internet." Donald Leu Leu leucine. Leu abbr. leucine Leu leucine. , Jr. is a professor at the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education, He can be reached at djleu@uconn.edu |
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