I am a student at the University of Illinois.  I am enrolled in the Curriculum Technology Education Reform master's program in the College of Education.  During this program, I was required to create and manage a network-based project. My project is called The Global Gazette. 

Briefly, it is a newsletter written by students around the world and edited by my Cumberland High School students.  The newsletter will be published quarterly with a special pilot issue which was published on July 30, 2001.  The project is open to students from sixth grade to seniors in high school.  However, for the July issue, there were no junior high participants. The purpose of this project is to build composition and editing skills, to write for "real" audiences, to integrate technology into their education, and to connect students with others around the world.

I  was pleased with the participation in this  project.  Like others, I was worried that I would not receive enough articles due to the time frame our class was given to complete the project.  After advertising my project with I*EARN, I e-mailed my family and friends, asking them to help.  Several of them could not contribute; however, one of my nephews sent a sports article with pictures.

So, after I panicked a bit, I thought of other actions I could take to get participants.  That's when I thought of different programs I have heard about in the past.  Two program came to mind: Upward Bound and Laws of Life.

Upward Bound is a summer school program for high school students.  It helps students gain high school and college credit.  Eastern Illinois University runs an Upward Bound program for Illinois and area students.  So, I contacted the English teacher, Mary Downs, and asked her to join the project.  She thought it was a great idea and was eager to join.  She and her students were instrumental to the success of this project.

To begin the project, she took her students into the computer lab and accessed my project web site. She then had them look at the homepage links.  On the menu, there are several helpful links such as "Submit an Article" (how to...), "Ideas for Articles", "Publication Guidelines", and "Article Deadlines". 

After they chose a category and wrote a rough draft, they went to the "Submit an Article" link to submit it.  However, a problem arose at this point.  As we all know, many institutions block Internet users from e-mailing things from their servers.  Therefore, Mrs. Downs had to teach some of her students how to obtain an email account using hotmail.com., so I could reply to them.  Doing this actually turned into a positive lesson for her class.

After they submitted the articles, Mrs. Downs said the students were very excited, checking the project web site every day to see if their articles were published. Upon hearing this, I sent a thank you note to the participants and told them they would be published in the July issue. 

The fact that they checked every day proves my theory that students will be more motivated to write when participating in this project because they are writing for "real" audiences.  I feel the teacher was excited to see her students engaged in the learning as well.

Although Mary Downs and the Upward Bound program were incredibly instrumental to the success of this project, another contributor played a key role as well.  Sarah Lucas coordinates a network-based project called Laws of Life.  I learned of this project while searching I*EARN for network-based projects.  This project asks students from all over the world to write essays on different topics like courtesy, love, and generosity, just to name a few.

Because these essays had such touching messages, I felt they would be a great addition to the newsletter.  So, I e-mailed Ms. Lucas to explain my project and ask permission to use some of the essays from the Laws of Life project.  In this email, I explained that I would give credit to her as well as the writer and provide a link to her project's web site.  She quickly replied, giving her consent.  She also said she would email the authors of the essays to let them know that they would be featured in my project.  I, then, e-mailed a reply, stating that, from now on, I would assume I could use future essays unless I heard differently from her.

I feel adding these essays will connect students around the world - those who read the newsletter with those who write and edit it.  This could lead to a higher tolerance for other cultures.  This supports part of the purpose of this project.

After receiving the articles, I gathered three of my students and had them edit the articles.  This was the stage that took the longest.  Basically, I presented it as a regular proofreading assignment.  Since I had 39 articles, only three students, and  a short amount of time, each student proofread five articles, and I did the rest.

During this stage, I was faced with things of which I hadn't thought.  For instance, Initially I wanted the students to combine technology with traditional methods when editing.  However, I had overlooked the fact that in order for my students to use the computer for editing, they would have to have access to my email account.  While I allowed this for the three volunteers for the pilot issue, I soon realized that I could not do that for a class of 20-30 students.  So, I will modify that for the next time I run my project. 

Next time, I may try to copy and paste the articles from my email account to a blank Word document, copy it to a diskette, and then have my students edit it on the computer.  After that, they could print it and turn it in as an assignment.  After I grade that, they can copy the corrected article into the correct section of The Global Gazette.  This will be an added lesson for my students.  They will be learning to format the articles to fit the space provided for them. 

Also, my students said they felt more motivated to complete the proofreading because there were "real" results. Those articles were really being published.  This made it more important to do it right.  They internalized the assignment and took pride in their work.

The value of this project to students is obvious.  As mentioned previously, the students will build composition and editing skills.  Equally important, the students will be more motivated to write because there are "real" results.  To explain, the writers and editors are perfecting material that will actually be published.  Therefore, they spend more time on the assignment and take pride in the results.  This can only lead to improved composition skills. Other values to students involve integrating technology into their education while connecting them with other students around the world. 

I recommend this project not only to English teachers but also to all subject areas.  With the relatively recent emphasis on writing skills, many districts have required all departments to have at least one writing assignment in their lesson plans.  This project could cover that requirement for every subject area. 

Because I have included enough different sections in The Global Gazette, any teacher could find some way to contribute to it. For example, the auto class could write an article on the techniques of making repairs on different parts of the automobile.  Likewise, the math class could write an essay, explaining the steps of different formulas. 

Obviously, this could be adapted to any subject area.  The best part is that my English classes edit the articles.  That way, the contributing teachers get the advantage of assigning the article without having to grade it!

As anyone else, I learned a number of things throughout this assignment.  First and foremost, if you want a project to succeed, you must constantly pursue participants.  I had trouble at first, but when I tapped into some of my local resources, the project took off. 

A second valuable lesson I learned was not to assume anything when it comes to the knowledge of your students and/or contributors.  You must explain exactly what you want from them. In doing this, the number of e-mails you receive asking questions will be held to a minimum. 

Another lesson involves e-mail access.  In order to participate in network-based projects, students most often will need an email account.  To make this project run smoothly, one must first assist those students who don't have an e-mail account.  An idea to help that situation might be to have the students obtain an e-mail account at the beginning of the school year.  That way, joining network-based projects will be easier.

Finally, I feel very fortunate that I received so many articles (39) in such a short amount of time.  However, because that many came in, it took a tremendous amount of time and effort to put it all together by the publication date.  For example, for the July issue, the majority of the articles came in on July 20, 2001.  That allowed just eight days to read, edit, and format 39 articles.  Therefore, I spent countless hours, including several sleepless nights, preparing the newsletter for the publication date.  I do, however, feel that a lot of the time spent this time was because it was the first running of the project; therefore, a lot of time was spent in designing the pages and working out the bugs. Thankfully, I received feedback from the contributors to help me with that part.  Although it was extremely time consuming for me, it was well worth it. 

While the project ran smoothly this time, I have come across some things I will add for the next time I run this project.  I think it would be good to add a "Useful Links" section.  However, I need to investigate this idea so that I don't mistakenly link and questionable sites to the newsletter.  I also plan to add a junior high newsletter as soon as I get participants at that level.  If I receive the same response from junior high writers as I did from high school writers, I will probably ask another teacher to maintain the junior high site.

Also, I am sure I will continually modify the editing portion of this project. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

After this first attempt at running this project, I am encouraged.  My theories have been proven already.  For example, the purpose of this project is not only to improve composition, editing, and formatting skills but also to improve the students' motivation to write.   After hearing from the participants and their teachers as well as other contributors, I am assured that the project does promote all skills mentioned earlier.  It has proven to be a worthwhile project for all concerned.
 
(To The Global Gazette)

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