Purpose

This project was designed with the teacher new to online projects in mind. I wanted to create a project that focused on a relevant real world issue and met the following criteria:

• flexibility
• ease of use
• cross curricular
• allowed for the appropriate integration of technology with the existing curriculum
• not time-consuming
• appropriate for all grade and academic levels
• easy to administer
• could be used to deliver the technology curriculum

"Friends" is a simple project that can easily be expanded to meet the needs of the intermediate and high school student. Conflict resolution and getting along with others is a key topic in the schools at this time. Students want to belong and be liked. This project offers a way to discuss relationships with others in a nonthreatening way and is suitable for the classroom or the computer lab. Students can either draw or use computer clipart to create a picture and choose words of advice on how to get along with others. Students like to see their work posted on the World Wide Web and this project allows that to happen.

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Participants

The participants in this online project were:

• Ten 1st and 2nd graders from the Sunday School class that I teach at New Castle Bible Church in Mackinaw, Illinois. I explained the project to their parents and received permission to conduct this activity with their children. I acted as the participating teacher and this was my class.
• Mrs. Grant's children - Pekin, Illinois
• Mrs. Watson's Homeschool - Laramie, Wyoming

At this time three classroom teachers are registered for fall. All have been sent a welcome E-mail and a progress report. A database of participants has been started and my E-mail is set to filter registrations. I will be conducting this project in my building this fall and will also put out another call for collaboration in August.

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Procedures

This project allows each participant to select their own activities that they will use to introduce and conduct the project. I had the unique opportunity to act as both a teacher participant and as the project coordinator. I have provided a summary of the procedures I carried out both as a teacher and as a project coordinator.

Teacher
The following procedures were conducted in three sessions. Sessions one and two lasted 30 minutes each while session three lasted 15 minutes.

Session 1
1. Introduced the project.
2. Read and discussed the book, "The Lovable Ladybug: Learning about accepting others", by Becky Freeman.
3. Led the children in a discussion about friends and getting along with others. Together we brainstormed what you should do to be a good friend and what you should do when someone isn't nice to you.
4. Paper was passed out and the children were told create a picture and choose words of advice to write on how to get along with others.

Session 2
1. Reviewed the project.
2. Each student shared their picture and read what they had written under the picture.
3. Students had a choice of selecting clipart or using the picture they drew to place on the web page. All of the students selected a piece of clipart that they felt went with their advice, none wanted their drawings used.

Session 3
1. A printout of a web page that included the student pictures and advice was shared with them to look at for any final changes before posting. Microsoft Publisher was used to create the web page. It was then opened in Dreamweaver and edited before posting.
2. The students looked at the web page offline.

Adaptations
In the timeframe allowed it was not possible for the children to learn to perform a variety of computer tasks in the areas of desktop publishing and web page development. The intention was that the students would use either Microsoft Publisher or Microsoft PowerPoint to create a postcard including a picture and words of advice on how to get along with others. Using either of these applications students would be able to use clipart or insert scanned images of the pictures they had drawn. I did not have access to a computer lab so I had to modify how this part of the project was done by printing out clipart from Microsoft Publisher and having the children then select from the printout what would be used on the web page. After the web page was created it was printed and shared with the children to look at for any final changes before posting. The web page was also presented to the students offline.

Project Coordinator
After designing and finetuning my project proposal I started creating the web site for "Friends: Children's Advice In Pictures and Words". I then started soliciting participants by registering my project with the Global Schoolhouse and with The Internet Schoolhouse. I started receiving inquiries from potential participants and promptly answered encouraging them to join the summer session. Three teachers did turn in submissions for the fall but no one registered for the summer. I then contacted teachers that I knew were teaching summer school. They were in their last few days and did not have time but were interested in participating in the fall. I finally secured two teacher participants, one from Wyoming who homeschools, and a teacher who agreed to do the project her own children. Next I contacted the parents of the students in the Sunday School class that I teach, explained the project to them, and asked if their children could participate. Each parent that I contacted agreed so I now had ten student participants. While all of this was going on I continued to work on the Project Site and realized from E-mails received from fall participants that I needed to create a sample page and link it from the project proposal. I E-mailed the teachers who registered for fall and sent them a welcome message, timeline, and project clarification with a sample page as an example. I also encouraged them to share this project with others in their district. I then worked on creating the web page for my students and linked it to the project site. I had no problems saving the participating teachers web pages and opening them in Dreamweaver, where I added a title and indicated where they were from before linking them to the project site.

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Curriculum

This project integrated well with the traditional curriculum areas of art, language arts, and social studies. Students first drew a picture using crayons incorporating the art curriculum. Writing and reading their words of advice are covered in the language arts curriculum. Conflict resolution and getting along with others is part of the social studies curriculum. Character education is a curriculum area that is also covered.

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Evaluation

I found it valuable to do a run through of the activities involved in this project with a small group of primary children and two teacher participants. The children were interested in the topic and all of them contributed to the discussion; looking back it would have been beneficial to allow more time for class discussion because the children had so much to say. I was pleased with the student drawings and advice because they didn't copy off of each other, they all had their own ideas of what they wanted to say. The students were not as pleased with their drawings as I was and chose to use clipart instead of their drawings on the web page. This was a valuable activity for the students because it integrated language arts, social studies, and art while focusing on a real world topic of interest to them. The student drawings will be posted in the hallway for others to see.

Negatives
The short timeframe and lack of a computer lab were negatives for this activity. Had there been more time I would have been able to work one on one with each child and used just one computer. I would have liked to have had more participating teachers so that I could have more of a feel for how it will be to manage this project.

Positives
The children enjoyed this activity and learned to think critically and plan about what they wanted to convey through a picture and words. Even though they did not get the opportunity to use a computer they did learn through observation of the web site offline. This was an easy and enjoyable project to do. I learned that this a topic that children want to talk about more than I realized. The children learned from the discussion various forms of conflict resolution and ways to be a friend. They also learned how to condense a string of sentences into a short phrase that would fit with their picture. The students were excited that what they had done would actually be on the World Wide Web, it made them feel quite important and special. No one in this group had ever had any of their work posted on the Internet. The participating teachers indicated that their children enjoyed doing this activity and that they liked being able to integrate technology. Both participating teachers made their web pages with no problems.

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Conclusion

Improvements and Recommendations
Even with the limitations mentioned above this project was instructionally valid and I will do it again with a group of students in the fall. Ideally, it would be implemented as a collaborative project between a classroom teacher and the technology teacher. The introductory lesson on getting along with others and the postcards would be created in the classroom. The postcards would then be used as a storyboard for a project in Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Publisher with the technology teacher. In a building with networked computers the technology component of the project could be saved to the network and worked on in the classroom or the computer lab. This could also be a cross grade level project with older students creating the web page.

I need to create a list of resources to make available for the the fall participants. My next Email to the fall participants will have a link to a resource page. I will also ask them to send me any resources that they have found and add them to the list. I am looking forward to running this project again in the fall. It's exciting to see that I have an idea that others actually want to do.

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