Content and process in the digital age - Colloquium - project-based learning

My first telecommunications experience took place in the very early 1980s, when my students took part in an interactive book talk with another school 200 miles away. Using Atari 800 machines connected to phone lines by 300-baud modems, students from both schools engaged in a discussion while the other teacher and I feverishly typed in the name of the student speaking and everything he or she said. We based our book talks on stories from the Junior Great Books series. The questions each group of students devised were based on the Great Books (www.greatbooks.com) discussion model--that is, questions that grew from the text, for which there were no obvious answers and about which we were curious.

Those Friday rooming sessions lasted for several years. Out of the first year came the realization that something very unusual was taking place: My students were conversing via modem and computer with students they wouldn't ordinarily meet. One of the students at the other school changed from a solitary, separate reader into a well-read, thoughtful leader in the discussion groups. For some reason, talking as part of a group to strangers through the computer let her share all the interesting ideas she had been formulating through her years of self-imposed isolation. She was truly changed by the experience; she became one of the students who mentored younger students in the telecommunications process, helping them pick out stories, create questions, and participate in our online sessions during subsequent years.

The Atari BASIC program we used for our discussions provided us with a split screen, so both groups could type and read what the other was typing simultaneously. It was an elegant program. The only problem was that we could not print or save what took place, so the exact words are gone--though the learning remains. And the learning reinforced the power of person-to-person communication and encouraged looking for other opportunities to talk with people anywhere in the world for the price of a local phone call.

The content of our talks was an exploration of literature and how it related to our lives--perhaps differently in our suburban situation from that of our rural colleagues. Most important was the sharing and the "knowing" my students insisted they felt for their distant, faceless peers. Indeed, when the students met each other in person, they easily merged and immediately began playing together. In contrast, adults from both schools hesitantly made small talk, not having had the experience of meeting their counterparts online.

What will the content of the online world be in 20 years? Whatever it is, my guess lies in the increased importance of communication among people all around the world. B. Keith Fulton, executive director of corporate relations at America Online, talks about the "relationship revolution" we are experiencing now. As more and more teachers perceive the power of online projects in which students work out and share answers to specific problems, the discoveries that are posted online through this process not only are documented in the sharing, but also are spread more widely than was possible just a few short years ago.

Project-based learning is a method more and more schools are considering. Learning, within a meaningful context, becomes deeper and transfers better to other situations when students are engaged in explorations of their own design. By creating questions to be answered and developing the process by which the answers will be reached, students take responsibility for their learning and participate in all aspects of creative problem solving. Access to online resources often takes the learning even farther. For example, students from different parts of the world can share their local information with one another and look for patterns, make comparisons, or develop hypotheses based on shared data and taking into account geographical differences. Cultural studies become much richer when students talk with members of other cultures directly, share ideas, and conduct research. A number of formalized online projects already in place help teachers and students focus their thinking on important questions. CyberFair, ThinkQuest, and I*EARN are three examples.

The CyberFair Contest (go to http://lightspan.com, click on Global Schoolhouse, and follow the path to the CyberFair Contest), created by Al Rogers and Yvonne Andres in 1996, uses the theme of "share and unite" to encourage students to connect with their communities. In this ingenious contest, K-12 classes and schools develop Web pages around immediate, local information to share with the world. Students talk with others in their communities to learn about where they live in more depth. They provide information that would be difficult for people anywhere else in the world to locate. The information is presented in Web pages, which are in turn evaluated--using a comprehensive online rubric--by other students. Students not only publish their own work but also receive feedback from their peers about the effectiveness of their thinking and presentation.