by Hugh M. Lewis

In keeping with my other coursework, I offer herein what I have called a "multi-thematic" set of lesson plans for teaching technology, using the framework of "instructional technology lesson plan outline" and the scoring matrix for each of the lessons presented. At the outset I wish to emphasize that these lesson plans are not set in stone, but are intended to be flexible to accommodate a range of grade levels and different teaching/learning frameworks and styles. The lessons I present herein include the following:

1. Year-round construction of a class web site, including group and individual web-pages.

2. Taking a multi-stop virtual tour of the world.

3. Taking a multi-period virtual tour of history.

4. Cooperative Work Group Project--Building Science Data-bases & Reports

5. Building a global "pen-pal" e-mail and chat network.

6. A class printing-publishing project--an on-going school newspaper or flier.

Each of these lesson plans are designed to be carried forward over several successive days or lesson periods, and should be seen as on-going projects that the students engage in and build upon in a modular manner. These lesson plans are to be construed as graded in terms of demands of increasing skill levels and competency required to complete them successfully, and should be stepped through in a progressive sequence. These lesson plans are therefore also predicated upon the students' (and teacher's) prior successful completion of a coordinate set of introductory lessons to technology, including the following:

1. Basic knowledge and skills in operating a computer (both MacIntosh and IBM platforms)

2. Basic knowledge and skills in using the Internet (using both Netscape and Explorer)

3. Basic knowledge and skills in operating various kinds of computer software.

4. Basic keyboarding skills.

5. Basic knowledge, heuristics and skills of file-structure and navigation in different computing environments.

These basic forms of knowledge and skills should be taught in the lower primary levels (kindergarten through 4th grade, especially). They can be progressively built upon in a spiral curriculum in the lower to fourth grade levels. By fifth and sixth grade, students who have successfully completed this curriculum should be capable of developing more advanced technology competency and literacy skills. Clustering, differentiation and use of remedial tracking can be employed for students who lack the competency at the higher grade levels.

In the best of all worlds, sufficient computing time would be made available for each student within a cross platform framework (IBM clones and Macs). It can be argued how much time is sufficient time to allot for each student. Observationally, for the average student in Southern California, I would say not enough time is provided, and there is a growing disparity of resources and average competency levels between those who have it and use it and those who are consistently failing to get it. Borrowing from work in socio-linguistic, I use a term "average technology competency" to assess the level of achieved literacy in e-culture for a given group (a class, a school, a district, a multi-district region, a state, a nation, etc.) The aim is in designing curricula that effects an overall increase in assessed levels and rates of acquisition of average competency in technology.

Ideally, technology integration would include both incorporation of the use of computers in normal lesson plan strategies, and in the instruction of technology itself. In teaching technology as technology, I believe at least one or two hours per week should be provided for the class as a whole, buttressed by extra time granted on computers to complete individual or cooperative work group projects relating to technology. In addition to this, I believe that through the use of integrated desktop projection systems, which can at least supplement (and largely replace) the overhead projector, technology can be used as a central platform for the integration of all other curriculum areas in the classroom. The only caveat that I have for promotion of technology integration in the classroom is to warn against exclusive over-reliance on technology at the expense of development of non-virtual skills, experience and knowledge in children. No form of technology, whether a pocket calculator or a laptop computer up-linked via satellite, should replace fundamental "paper and pencil" learning activities of children, nor the use of alternative hands-on realia, manipulatives or real-time activities. Classroom management and organizational strategies can be designed to optimize the following spatial-temporal frameworks:

1. One computer to one child framework (computer is rationed out in a class per unit time per child; student centered learning)

2. One computer to one group (ratios of 1/2 or 1/3 is best; differentiated, clustered, skill/activity centered learning).

3. One computer/projection system to one class framework (teacher/subject centered learning).

Presumably, many American students today have home-access to computers, even if they have little access to other quality reading materials. On the other hand, it should not be assumed therefore that all students have equal or similar access to computers via the home, or this access is of a similar or even comparable quality across the board. Furthermore, even in an academic technology framework, all time spent on computers cannot be considered equal or equally efficient and rewarding. Evidence suggests low rates of return and efficiency in computing in many settings, compared to the current informational potential of computing. Computing, even in educational frameworks, can become time-consuming and wasteful without clear results.

Technology skills include more than simply learning to safely surf the Internet, to play games or run educational software. It includes the effective use of pocket calculators, hand-held communications devices, digital camera, videos and projection devices in various applications, use of a wide range of software, use of the Internet, and possibly, in the future, increasing use of robotic applications. Technology increasingly embraces a range of related processes demanding a wider range of different skills and backup knowledge. It is clear that before teachers can effectively instruct and integrate in technology, they themselves must effectively learn to use technology. Observation of children and anecdotal evidence suggests that young children, provided a constructive technology context, are capable of developing fine-tuned and relatively advanced electronic literacy skills that include key-boarding, basic programming, navigation and manipulation of the Internet. My daughter gained advanced keyboarding experience by fourth grade that I did not acquire until High School. Children appear to acquire this competency naturally and without the frustrations or inhibitions and attentional or acquisitional "inertia" that accompanies the use of computers by most adults. Overcoming this kind of generational threshold to technology integration and capitalizing on the potential of the information revolution in children may be accomplished by the following means:

1. Design of a standard textbook and multi-media software/tools and establishment of a series of graded standards for the teaching and integration of technology in standard academic curricula.

2. Special evening training seminars for teachers, students and their parents in the normal contexts of local schools.

3. Providing an "anti-structural" framework for technology integration that capitalizes on some aspects of child culture, play and especially emerging forms of child e-culture. In-class technology training sessions can be made truly interactive for the teacher as well as for the students, and role-reversal in cases of technology can be productively encouraged.

4. Set curriculum design to embrace technology integration and accommodate periods for technology training and formal instruction, especially, I believe, exploiting the growing number of web-resources that have sprung-up around this area of need and interest.

5. Increasing use of applied technology to school and classroom design, as for instance in the use of digital projection systems, digital communication & surveillance systems, digital alarm systems, etc., (i.e., making classrooms and schools really "smart.")

Furthermore, technology as an area of standard curriculum in schools that has inherently the potential for multi-thematic curriculum integration and design across all standard academic areas, including but not limited to math and arithmetic, science, language arts, visual arts, performing arts, history and social studies, character development and health and physical education. Given the state of the art in the computing world, there are particular learning areas where I believe the use of technology is especially suitable:

1. Language arts instruction, including foreign language learning.

2. Communication skills.

3. Logic and mathematics skills.

4. Graphic and performing arts and media.

5. Geographic literacy and social sciences.

Moving above and beyond the received standards for introducing minimal technology skill levels in the classroom, it is my intention to outline a brief and cursory thematic program for instructing both in technology and about technology, with the aim at improving both conventional and electronic literacy skills and average computer competency in my classroom.

a. Integrate the use of the Internet with educational/reference software and standard knowledge tools for guided research projects.

b. Teach students to use on a regular basis, computer based working programs (word processing, spreadsheet, database, publishing, report generating programs). Microsoft is perhaps the most available, but Aldous is the best alternative. There are many other software programs at different levels that students can be given access to.

c. Use of computers for graphics applications and manipulations, including digital photography and videography, scanning, using "plug and play" modules, visual graphics editing, use of a stylus and graphics pad, use of projection and multi-media production in the context of the class.

d. Use of computers for printing and publishing applications.

e. Provide students the framework to learn various forms of computer language and the basics of programming. Especially, I believe, HTML, Java script, hyper-script in Mac and visual basic in IBM compatibles.

It is my intention not only to use technology as a tool for teaching in a broad range of subject areas, but as a subject to be taught in and of itself. We need not just to consider teaching technology to some minimal skill level, but putting educational technology and children who use this at the cutting edge of the information revolution.

There are presuppositions built into these lesson plans that may or may not be true. Permission for students to use the internet in an unrestricted manner must be received by both the school administration and by parents, in writing, which means as well that lesson plans must be made clear in terms of their goals and methods to these interested parties. These lessons depend upon the average competency of the students being sufficient that they have mastered basic skills in using and navigating with a computer and in working with various kinds of software in different platforms. These lessons also depend upon a sufficient level of technological resources being available to the class as a whole to allow the work to proceed in an efficient and effective manner. I think students can be granted more liberty and lee-way in using computers and surfing the Internet, under supervision, than may otherwise be allowed, especially given concerns over liability and professional ethics, etc. The success of these lessons would therefore be contingent upon the prior fulfillment of these sets of factors.

Introduction: Every class deserves its own web-site, and every school district needs both an independent "server" system for hooking on the internet and for maintaining a district wide intranet that facilitates communication between all members and students of the district. The object of this lesson is to provide the on-line context for students to build their own web-system and to thereby gain practice in most skills relating to the World Wide Web. All other lessons will depend upon and build upon this first initial lesson, and subsequent lessons will extend the skills and knowledge of this lesson and allow students to extend their web-pages and web-system in a number of different ways.

Subject Area: To learn the basics of the Internet, the structure and organization of the World Wide Web, and how to design, develop, manage and maintain an on-going web system using HTML and related language facilities.

Lesson Topic(s): How to build from scratch a class web site, including HTML code and structure, use of various software for web-page design, FTP and file-uploading to a server, the organization and handling of various kinds of documents and files relating to the web-site.

Level: recommended grades 5 through 8, if remedial work in fundamental computing skills is accomplished.

Specific Goals:

1. Teach students how to read and write source files of Web-pages, and the structure of such documents ("head, body elements, style sheets, etc.")

2. Teach students basic HTML language and literacy.

3. Teach students how to create using a scanner and a graphic arts program visual images that can be displayed on the Internet and how to embed these in a web-page.

4. Teach students how to create hyperlinks between documents.

5. Teach students how to up-load documents to a file-server or web-host using FTP.

6. To have students design and publish a series of web-pages relating to the class as a whole, to student work-groups, and individual student web-pages.

Featured Technology: Use of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft Frontpage, Aldous Pagemill, or other web design program. An FTP program, preferably Preferably, to begin, work with Microsoft word. Availability of a scanner, a digital camera.

Prerequisite Skills: Use of a word processor like Word; fundamental computer literacy/technology skills as listed above.

Other Materials: Availability of photographs, art materials,

Teacher to Teacher: Teacher should have acquired a basic knowledge of HTML scripting, document structure and file structure of server, enough to guide the students in the procedural steps below.

Procedure: I recommend a basic three-step procedure to walk students through the initial phases of creating their own web-system, probably to be conducted over at least three successive days:

I. Creating and modifying a Web-page.

a. Have each student work in Micro-soft word to create a page they would like to publish. Have them write a title, an introductory paragraph, a main body. Have them insert a photograph or other graphic image that they scan. Allow them to use an icon-editor to insert a visual icon into their pages.

b. Show the students how to convert the page to a web-page.

c. Open up the source document of the web page by right clicking and then selecting "view source."

d. Show students the code where their title, introduction, body and graphics are located. Have them change their title in the source code and then view the changes in their web-page. Continue allowing them to change their documents via their source code. Have them scan another graphic image, and rewrite the path to the new graphic image in the source code.

II. Creating and checking Hyper-links in multiple web-pages.

a. Once all the students or groups of students have created their own pages on file, have the students give a name to each file, make a list of these names. Explain, as part of an anticipatory set, what networks are and how files are networked. Have students join hands in groups, and then inter-link the groups to demonstrate a network.

b. Using the explore menu option upon right-clicking start, show students where their pages are stored on the computer and how to access this location using the full path name.

c. Show students how to create a hyperlink using Word or other program "control-K" function. Show students how to manipulate and revise the hyperlink in the source code.

d. Have the students create hyperlinks to each of the other students pages.

e. Allow students to surf the web and to find interesting pages to create more hyperlinks to.

III. Uploading web pages to a server location.

a. Explain to students how servers host webpages available on the world wide web.

b. Teach students the basics of using an FTP program.

c. Show them how to rename their main page as "index.htm" and how to create a special file at the hosting address.

b. Have the students edit their hyperlinks and give to their hyperlinks a new file path using the hosting file structure.

e. Have the students upload their pages, one at a time.

f. Have the students surf the Internet to find their own published pages.

IV. Have students work together to create a common class web-page, that will become the main web-page for the web-site. Have them brainstorm ideas. Ideally, use a desktop projector as the basis for this class-wide activity. Do this main page in the same way that the pages were done in the previous three days.

a. Demonstrate how to put in background graphics.

b. Demonstrate how to insert sounds and embed other elements into the web-page.

c. Allow students time to plan and work on their group web-pages, and create introduce changes to their individual web-pages.

a. Have students form cooperative work groups, each group to design their own web-pages to add to the web-pages they have already created.

b. Students then should be allowed to branch out and explore other web-designing software, like Frontpage.

c. Students in subsequent lessons can be taught how to introduce and manipulate more and more elements relating to HTML scripting and web-page design.

Evaluation:

Evaluation will be on-going self-evaluation by the students themselves, student group meetings, and critical evaluation by the teacher in relation to pre-published and published pages. Teacher's evaluation should include presence or absence of the basic features of a web-site, including the title, a banner, a graphic image, and the body of text, and whether the hyperlinks are faulty or not. Presentation and formatting in the case of published pages should take precedence over content of the web-page. Content should including editing for revision and for appropriateness of subject matter to the page that is published.

Students will be able to continuously assess the on-line product of their own and one another's labor, and to consistently revise and edit their work for improvement.

Introduction: To use the world wide web as a research tool that focuses upon geographical, cultural and social structural information.

Subject Area: Social studies, Geography, Math, Technology relating to the Internet.

Lesson Topic(s): Making up a planned itinerary for virtual world wide web tours.

Level: Same as Lesson 1 above.

Specific Goals: The general goal of this lesson is to teach students how to conduct guided research using the Internet as a primary informational tool. The specific goals of this lesson include the following:

1. To teach students how to conduct safe and guided searches on the Internet for specific information.

2. To teach students critical skills and criteria for selecting and evaluating sites for their informational content.

3. To teach students geographic, cultural, historical and social literacy via visitation and hyper-linking to sites from different locations in the world

4. To teach students how to plan a thematic travel itinerary, including scheduling, planning a budget, site-seeing and informational.

Featured Technology: Access to the World-wide web, an web-browser, a web-editor.

Prerequisite Skills: Completion of previous lessons, and basic skills in computing as listed above.

Other Materials: Supplementary multi-media software--electronic atlases, electronic encyclopedias. Real world atlas and at least one set of hard-copy encyclopedias. Supplementary software can include published game programs like "The Oregon Trail," "The Amazon Trail," Sim Island, Carmen Diego, "African Safari," etc.

Teacher to Teacher: This project can be taken in a number of different directions. A "travel game" can be easily created for the students to play, being given a list of things to take, a limited amount of money, etc. Alternatively, students can do a "scavenger hunt" using their set itineraries. They can collect a list of odd items from the locations they visit, and allow other student to find these items by following their hyperlink directions and searching various web-pages.

Procedure: As with all these other projects, this is a multi-period project, that can carry on from a week to anytime near a year.

a. Students should first use a globe, a world map and access to one or more world Atlas's to plan a trip around the world, starting from where they are locally in their city. They should plan a first stop over in a major US city in another state.

b. Then they should plan at least seven subsequent destinations in different regions, continents, countries and locations, that take them around the world traveling either east, west, south or north. If they choose relatively obscure locations or cities, then they must plan a bus or other travel mode from a major city that can be accessed by air.

c. They must make a list of all locations they visit on the map, in order of their visit.

d. They must determine the distances between all locations that they have mapped, and determine the best means of travel.

a. Using their lists and other data, they must then use a search Engine on the Internet to gather information about each country and location. Information should include currency, geographical, social, political facts.

b. They should then find sites that are published from those specific locations, and develop "link lists" that connect directly to those sites. At each major location:

1. They must plan a particular place to stay, given precise directions to the location.

2. A daily schedule of a set of places to visit or things interesting to do at the location.

3. Currency and cost information.

4. Factual data on whatever history or other information that can be found about that place that they believe is relevant to their travel plans.

 

c. Students should learn what the local currency is, and how to convert their dollars to that currency. They should make up an estimate of how much the trip should cost them per day during their stay. They should gather basic factual data about the country and the place that they visit at each stop, covering the following areas:

1. population of the country/city

2. chief industry or economic products.

3. type of government

4. interesting facts about the place

a. Students will then be asked to design a multi-page web-site with the links of their special tour, and to provide specific information relating to each location of their tour. Each page will be devoted to one place on their tour. They will be given as much time they need to complete this phase of the project.

a. Students will give a print out list of their itineraries to other students in the class, on a randomized basis

b. The other students will then be given time to take the tour and follow the guidelines their tour agents provide.

Evaluation: Upon completion of individual projects, students will trade their projects by passing numbers in a hat, and other students will take their vacations using the itineraries that the students have published via the internet. These "tour itineraries" will be made a permanent part of the class web-system, and can be added to on subsequent occasions. The teacher will take the various tours at different times to double check and evaluate each students itinerary. Evaluation criteria will be primarily in terms of basic goals originally intended. It is expected that students should be able at least to give fairly specific locations with relevant web-sites and factual information relating to each. The degree of specificity and relevance of this information may be a function of the grade level at which the student is operating.

Introduction: This lesson is very similar to lesson two above, except that instead of doing an itinerary to different locations in the world, the students are taught to choose different periods and places in history that they are interested in, and to do "time travel" from one period to the next.

Subject Area: History, Social Studies, Geography, Technology

Lesson Topic(s): Use the World Wide Web to create a "time travel" itinerary to different periods and places in history, possibly to witness important historical events or to "interview" important persons in history.

Level: Similar to previous lessons, grades 5 through 8 at least.

Specific Goals: Generally, to extend the goals of the previous lessons to cover a broader area of knowledge via the world wide web, covering historical, legendary and cultural subjects, as well as other interesting but miscellaneous information they may gather.

Specific goals include:

1. Teaching students to make selective and more refined searches over the internet to go after specific forms of information.

2. To teach students to use multiple selection criteria in searching, and to do systematic sub-searches for finding relevant data.

3. To teach students to use the "find" function to search for key-words in web-pages that they visit.

4. To teach students how to save web-pages or information from web-pages to files created especially for this purpose, and to put links to these documents in their own web-pages.

5. To teach students how to book mark pages and sections in pages, and to use bookmarks in the organization of their own pages.

Featured Technology: A web browser, a web-design program.

Prerequisite Skills: Similar to previous lessons, successful completion of previous lessons.

Other Materials: Historical Atlases, time-lines, virtual atlases and almanacs, virtual encyclopedias.

Teacher to Teacher: The steps involved in this lesson should be seen as slightly more intricate than those of the previous lesson. Students need to connect events and people in time as well as places in space.

Procedure: Students will follow a very similar set of procedures as in the previous lesson plan, except that they will be first asked to write a time-line for their historical sequence of periods to visit. Instead of gathering currency information, they will gather information about particular events and/or people in History, whom they will visit via the internet. Otherwise, the procedures to be followed are stated in Lesson Two above in outline form.

Evaluation: Evaluation will include follow-up lessons and allowing an exchange of their "time travel" itineraries, allowing other students to follow the itineraries they devise. Evaluation can include a final report that the student develops in relation to their "time travel experiences" as well as teacher assessment of the individual pages published by the students. Students can be provided an outline format for the construction and presentation of their final reports, depending upon the thematic subject matter that they present.

Introduction: Depending on the specific grade level, and the particular science subjects and standards for that level, students can be organized into cooperative work groups arranged on sub-topics or themes relating to the general science subjects. For instance, if the area is in botany or zoology, students can pick out specific kinds of animals or plants, or classes of flora and fauna to study. Alternatively, for instance, if it is the geophysical sciences, then they can choose certain basic themes, like earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, erosion, the water cycle.

Subject Area: Any of the science subjects, either generally or specifically

Lesson Topic(s): How to systematically collect and organize scientific data, and to create a basic data-base program for the organization of this data.

Level: Similar to previous grade levels.

Specific Goals: The specific goals of this lesson plan are the following:

1. To teach students to organize information they may collect, either by real references or virtually, into record structures with relevant criteria.

2. To teach students to learn to collect and organize specific kinds of information.

3. To teach students how this information can be used to generate graphs and charts and for analysis.

4. To teach students how to collate information to form the bases for a report.

5. To teach students how to present a report as part of a study-team.

6. To extend students skills and experience with web-system design by building on-line data-bases and publishing on-line reports connected to the class web-system and their study-team web-pages.

Featured Technology: A data-base program and/or a spreadsheet program. A report-generating program like Power point.

Prerequisite Skills: Basic technology skills.

Other Materials: Encyclopedias and books relating to science: Science web-sites: preferably hands-on examples of the kinds of things that the students will be engaged in studying and classifying. Additional observational instruments, if necessary.

Teacher to Teacher: In this lesson, students will extend their knowledge that they have so far developed relating to computing by using spread-sheet and data-base software to make and update records relating to scientific categories that they have agreed upon. It is important during this lesson that the students be guided and provided with examples at each stage to follow in making their selections, and to be given reasonable sources for collecting their information from. This lesson can provide a frame work for students conducting real research, such as surveys of the school ground, gathering and analyzing trash, or insects, or rocks or plant-types, etc.

Procedure:

a. Brainstorm a general scientific subject area with the class as a whole and write down on the blackboard or an overhead a list of the "topics" that the students come up with.

b. Have the students form their cooperative work groups, and then allow them to choose among themselves what their topic area will be. Have them discuss with the teacher the topic area that they are interested in before making their final determination.

c. Then have them make up a tentative list of the components of their subject area that includes the relevant "facts" that they want to gather regarding their subjects.

a. Have the students conduct a preliminary search in hard-bound texts and using reference software during which they can gather factual data.

b. Then have the students revise their lists according to what they have found in their preliminary research.

a. Have the students design a basic record structure for the inputting of data, whether this is in the form of a spreadsheet or a data-based program, derived from the lists that they have created.

b. Have students test out their record structure with data they have already collected, or using examples. Then have the students brainstorm ways that they can use this data for generating graphical and statistical information using spreadsheets.

c. Have students reconvene in their cooperative work groups in order to build database structures for their collections of data and to learn various methods for organizing the data in a spreadsheet program. Each group must be attended to and monitored by the teacher.

a. Allow students to organize in their workgroups to conduct systematic searches, each student being assigned a different set of sub-topics.

b. Send students out onto the web, using keywords derived from their lists, to research and extend their databases.

c. Then allow the students to reconvene at a subsequent time to collate and collect their results and further modify their data-base.

a. As a final part, students as groups will write up a final report based upon the information they have collected. This report can include statistical and graph information from spreadsheet tables, graphic illustrations, tables of data, etc. It is important that the group organize itself in such a manner that each member of the group will have some component of the final presentation/report to be responsible for.

b. An extension of this will be for the students to publish their information and their reports as web-pages to their web-system.

Evaluation:

Students will present their final reports as groups to the rest of the class, and evaluation will proceed on a number of criteria relating to the development of their projects, their cooperation and participation in the project. The students reports should be available, with revision, on the Internet, providing the teacher the means to do a more detailed assessment of their work, and to introduce new elements and components and revisions in this on-going lesson in subsequent periods.

Introduction: The networking capacity of the Internet has hardly been realized so far, and it is important that in the future communication and information exchange, as between student and student, classroom and classroom, can be made a common part of the global information revolution.

Subject Area: Subject areas covered in this lesson plan include technology (e-mail, chat); language arts; communication; character development; geographical & cultural literacy; social development.

Lesson Topic(s): To refine students communication and letter-writing skills by embracing an active exchange network with other students in a foreign setting.

Level:

Specific Goals: Generally, the goals of this o teach students to use e-mail and chat facets of the Internet to set up and maintain correspondence with selected "pen pals" from other places, hopefully from other countries.

Specifically, the goals are the following:

1. To teach students to set up and organize and do e-mail transmissions, including attachments of documents.

2. To teach students appropriate and formal letter writing and correspondence skills

3. To teach students methods of communication and sharing.

4. To promote students social, cultural and geographical literacy of the world.

Featured Technology: The Internet, a Browser, E-mail, a Web-site with a chat field attached.

Prerequisite Skills: Similar to previous areas.

Other Materials: A "pen-pal" map, hopefully with photographs and name tags connecting different locations on the map with colored pins.

Teacher to Teacher: It is important in this lesson that the teacher is capable of monitoring all e-mail correspondence with the students, to be able to screen e-mail messages and to mediate any on-going correspondence with the class. It is up to the teacher to establish the necessary connections and bridges with other classrooms beforehand, and to initiate correspondence and obtain permission from parents, principal, and all others who will be involved in this.

Procedure: The teacher will have initiated contact with the target class (or classes) in other locations, via their teacher counterparts and administration. Teacher will have a list of the names of the foreign students, and as much information as she/he can obtain about these students before hand.

a. Teacher will assign a foreign student to correspond with to each student or student group in class.

b. Students will take part in a discussion modeling formal letter writing skills and will have already formally composed a series of letters.

c. Students will write a rough draft of their introduction letter, to be edited by both a peer and the teacher and subsequently revised by the original author.

a. Students will have their letters edited and reviewed by a peer and by the teacher, and will subsequently revise their letter.

b. Students will initiate correspondence via the e-mail with their counter-parts by transcribing their letters, spell checking them and sending them.

a. Students will gather their incoming mail, read them and print out a copy of their returned letter.

b. Students will then send an acknowledgement and a return greeting to their new pen-pal, and if allowed, scan an image of themselves to send along with the return e-mail as an attachment.

c. Students will then take home their correspondence and write out a more formal reply, to be reviewed and transcribed and sent in subsequent periods. It should be expected that students will be asked questions that they will need to answer in an appropriate manner.

Evaluation: Follow-up should include a discussion by the class as a whole of their experiences, and a sharing of the pen-pals and their information between all the class. New information as it is gathered should be put on the "pen pal" bulletin board. In subsequent correspondence, students should consider what kinds of questions they want to ask of their foreign pen-pals. It is possible to do a on-line video chat if the equipment can be mutually arranged between distant classrooms.

Suggested Follow-ups: Have pen-pals work cooperatively on a joint project together, one on each end of the line, so to speak, and allow them to publish their results on the Internet in the class web-system.

Introduction: The basis of this advanced lesson is to teach students how to do e-publishing and to use digital printing and publishing resources to format and produce a consistent and quality

Subject Area: Visual arts, Language Arts, communication, technology skills particularly in formatting, editing, organizing, printing and publishing of documents.

Lesson Topic(s):Plan and produce a group/class publication with individual contributions including graphic arts and text.

Level: Similar to previous lessons, successful completion of previous lessons.

Specific Goals: Generally, the goals of this lesson are to exploit the graphic and word-processing, editing and formatting possibilities in technology to learn to design, plan and execute a group-publication that has individual inputs.

Specific goals include:

1. Learning to use publishing software to format and edit their projects for style, spelling, etc.

2. Learning to format and prepare documents for printing, and actually doing a printing and assembly operation.

3. Learning to convert e-documents to a form publishable on the web, like Adobe Acrobat.

Featured Technology: Special publishing software can be utilized but would not be necessary. This can include Aldous software, like Acrobat, or alternative advanced Microsoft software. Students should have access to a printer, a good scanner, and preferably a high-capacity laser printer.

Prerequisite Skills: Word processing, basic computer literacy skills, graphic technology skills.

Other Materials: Access to magazines, newspapers, printed graphics, binding materials and tools. A digital camera preferably, or alternatively a regular snap-shot type of camera.

Teacher to Teacher: This is a project that can be begun as early as possible and extended throughout the year on a once a week or even every other week basis. Print publication of the documents produced can be parallel to on-line publication of the same documents using a publishing program like Adobe Acrobat.

Procedure:

a. Hold a class meeting after having a class anticipatory set introducing publishing and the project of creating a class publication for the year. Discuss with the class what kind of publication they would like to produce, the kinds of logistics that might be involved in each kind of publication, and then discuss the name and central themes that should be focused on in the publication and the materials, steps and tools necessary to complete the project. Allow the students to make a vote on what they want to work on.

b. Break the project into a set of components thematically arranged, and then assemble the class into their respective work groups, assigning each work group a different component of the entire project. Visit each work group then and make sure that each member will make a textual and graphic contribution to the final project.

a. Have students cut and paste images that they have previously collected and scanned into a visual database file and allow them time to plan and make collages and other graphics from their collections that they can also scan into the computer.

b. Using a graphics program, show them ways that they can retouch and manipulate their visual images, even "morphing" them in a strange way.

c. Assign students the project of individually writing up stories based upon the images that they have collected.

a. Collect the stories and have students together as a class, using a digital projector, to work on a common format for their finished publication, and learn to link together the different documents they have created within a publishing software program.

b. Allow the students the time to turn their documents into web-pages and upload these web-pages as part of their websystem.

c. Have members of different groups exchange their works on file, and have them critique and edit the information and suggest revision.

a. Based upon their previous work, and the revisions that they have done to their works, allow the students to reassemble and compile all their work into a finished framework.

b. Do a test run printing of the final document.

c. Have the students critique and revise the final proof of the document.

d. Have students continue to work on and revise their web-pages in parallel with their hard-copy document.

a. Students will do a final printing and collating of their finished publication, and will have determined a means for binding this publication. They will make a predetermined number of copies based upon their intended distribution to a wider audience (parents, other classes, etc.).

b. If the publication is a periodical, then the first draft should be a template for subsequent versions that the students will produce, which can be once a month or every other month, or possibly twice a year, etc.

Evaluation: Evaluation of this project will be at several levels, in terms of individual contributions to the final product, group participation, and the work of the class as a whole. Evaluation will also be made in terms of the web-pages and content that is published in relation the hard-copy document. It is up to the individual teacher to create their own criteria of evaluation of a students performance and growth in this series of technology activities. I see this technology framework as being essentially cooperative and non-competitive, and I think it might provide students less advanced in more formal and conventional academic areas to keep up with and do as well as their high achieving peers. I would refrain from grading students in technology in a manner comparable to how they are graded in more conventional subjects. Participation, learning and completion of projects should take priority over issues of style, sophistication or relevance of content matter. This is true of all the lesson plans presented herein.

In closing, I wish to emphasize that these lesson plans are merely suggestive and are by no means exhaustive of the possibilities of development of similar kinds of technology instruction at even more advanced levels that would accommodate, for instance, production of videographies, building of expert systems, creation of interactive language programs, etc. Of course, all of this is time and resource permitting in the best of all possible academic worlds.