Culturally-appropriate Internet Training
for Alaskan Native Educators
http://lone-eagles.com/alaskan-educators.htm
This
paper includes the following short documents:
1. A
brief account of a three-day culturally-oriented Internet workshop
held May, 2002 for Yukon Koyukuk School District educators as an example of
a culturally appropriate training
strategy.
2. A report on a week of Internet
training for educators and students in Koyukuk
3. A proposal for an online course
to involve educators in community learning
through service learning
and project-based learning.
Assessing the Readiness to Learn About Internet
There are roughly 240+
Alaskan Native villages in very remote locations which share a suicide rate four times
higher than any other group in the U.S. The cultural spirit of
self-sufficiency has been damaged by three generations of welfare dependency and outside
influence. The current economics are dire and many traditional sources of income have
disappeared, yet the Internet does offer many potential solutions.
During
1998-2000, the first Internet satellite systems were installed in the 11 bush villages of
the Yukon-Koyukuk Regional Consortium (YKSD). Three one-day
Internet workshops were held in 11 bush villages over a two-year period.
The general
reaction by the educators intended to be the first to benefit from the Internet was
"here comes yet another opportunity for us to learn about technologies for which
we'll have no local technical support or ongoing training and for which we'll be expected
to educate ourselves on our own time." "Once this trainer leaves we'll go back
to doing what we've been doing." One major limitation was the educators had yet to be
taught enough computer basics to be comfortable using computers.
Free email
via hotmail.com was the biggest hit of the original workshops. Villagers often visit other
villages and the ability to check email from any computer on the Internet was far
preferred to the original system which limited everyone to local computers only. The
Internet has steadily become more and more culturally accepted.
As gradual
exposure to the Internet grew, often from seeing what their students were able to find and
to teach themselves - interest in the Internet and the potential for other applications
grew. Today, four years later since the first introduction to Internet - there is a new
readiness to revisit how rural villages might benefit from the Internet as more and more
examples of the innovations of others have become evident.
There was
originally very little effort to involve the community in learning about the Internet on
the school's system. Due to educators receiving only one day of Internet training per
year, most of the expensive infrastructure (up to $12000/month) went unutilized. The
vision to realize the power wasn't present. Most had little idea of what the Internet
offered. Leaders and community members had not attended the workshops intended to train
the educators.
Doors Opening for Village Ecommerce
The
Federal Communications Commission has recently ruled that E-rate-funded school-based
systems can be used for local Ecommerce, but few in the villages have the skills for
Ecommerce applications. School-based Internet systems could use new wireless systems to
bring high-speed Internet direct to village homes and the offices of community
organizations. In question is who will demonstrate the potential, provide leadership to
help make this happen, and deliver the necessary appropriate training?
A 2002 Culturally-Focused Internet Workshop
May 26-29th
2002 a three-day workshop
was held in Fairbanks, AK for six educators from three bush
villages from YKSD. The brief description of the curriculum below serves as a recommended
model.
Day One:
We started with identifying the three historical firsts the Internet brings to the
villages:
1. The ability to search and retrieve information globally in
seconds,
2. The ability to self-publish globally by creating and posting web pages,
3. The ability to collaborate conveniently locally or worldwide.
Since all
participating educators were Athabascan, we first learned to
search the Internet using the keyword "Athabascan." We then used multiple keywords adding
"beadwork, crafts, dancing, etc." When the educators found interesting images,
they learned how to save them and how to insert them in their first web pages along with
links to Athabascan resources. As they added background
colors, animations, learned to place and size the images, and added text descriptions
below the images -their excitement grew. Then everyone posted their web creations on the
Internet at http://geocities.yahoo.com - which offers free web hosting. Having spent three
hours at the computers, we broke for lunch.
When we
returned from lunch, we reviewed the advanced email applications and they were pleased to
learn how to:
1. Send images and files via email as well as
2. Create dedicated folders (e-mailboxes) for saving and organizing email,
3. Create 'groups' for sending email to many people at once,
4. Create signature files to add individual expression and contact information
to the bottom of all messages
automatically
5. Search and sort e-mailboxes to retrieve saved information easily.
Realizing it
had been a full day, web addresses were presented which contained rich collections of
Alaskan Native information and they explored these along with Alaskan project-based
learning entries for the International Thinkquest competition
and the International Cyberfair competition. Several of those
attending found images of their own relatives on the web, included a Quicktime
video interview of a local village elder. The day ended with the educators mentally
exhausted but excited about what they were able to do themselves.
Day Two:
The second
day we started with a presentation on how a digital art tablet can support local artistic
creativity, followed by the digital storytelling capabilities of the Sony Mavica CD-1000 digital camera. Everyone
got to play with the camera -creating images with up to 40 seconds of audio narration, as
well as 15 second MPEG mini-movies. Software was provided that allowed them to reorder
these talking slides and mini-movies in any order. It was demonstrated how any family
album with normal print color photographs could become a multimedia presentation within
minutes with a minimum of technical training - (by adding narrations to pictures of
pictures.) Everyone took digital photos of each other and added them to their web pages.
The Mentaska Lake village web page was shown where web
pages presented images of the honored elders, the tribal council, a
tour of the village, a village events calendar, and a local innovation where teachers post
students' homework daily for parents to check up on. Reports are that this is very popular
with the parents, but not so popular with the students. A model village library web page
hosting extensive resources was shown among many other exceptional web pages hosting
archives of Alaskan Native curriculum from multiple sources.
The teachers
created web-based quizzes at sites which automatically will email their students' quiz
results to the teachers. They edited webquest templates to see
how easy it would be to create their own project-based learning web activities, in
addition to having hundreds of existing webquests ready to use
at any time. Multiple lesson plan databases and curriculum archives were explored,
searchable by grade level and content area.
A
dogsled-building tutorial from Nelson Lagoon School was shown as just one example of web
curriculum created by other Alaskan educators during the online course they plan on taking
themselves soon http://lone-eagles.com/teachercreated.htm.
Rich listings of web-based curriculum authoring tools were explored http://lone-eagles.com/teacherstools.htm. They viewed web-based electronic student
portfolios from the Mt. Edgecumb Boarding School and other Alaskan Native web
innovations http://lone-eagles.com/alaskan.htm
including online Ecommerce models for Native crafts from http://www.toksookbayalaska.com and youth
entrepreneurship training resources http://lone-eagles.com/entrelinks.htm.
A simple
alphabetized list of topics linking to volunteer online mentors was shown as a
collaboration model their villages could easily replicate. Such a listing would allow all
villagers the opportunity to advertise and share their expertise using the convenience of
email as one way of sharing information. Maintaining a topical web page of related
resources would be another way to share expertise and mentoring services locally. The
educators continued to review existing cultural web applications and to gather images and
links to add to their own web pages.
Day Three:
On the third
day, we created our first Powerpoint multimedia presentations
inserting images and text on multiple slides using colorful background templates. An
introduction to creating customized video presentations using Imovie
included a short Imovie of the previous day's workshop created
by one of those attending. Efficiency tricks were reviewed for cut-and-paste,
drag-and-drop, how to create folders within folders and how to organize and move files of
all types.
When
everyone finished working on their web pages, digital photos, and workshop creations -
everyone's work was copied on CDROM's for them to take to the
villages. Note: The Internet is turned off in the summertime to save money and everyone's
free email accounts will expire.
Ongoing Online Learning To Support the Face-to-Face Workshops
The educators knew that their training was not over, but had just begun. The trainer was
scheduled for one week the coming Fall in each village, and
again for a week in January. During the Fall on-site workshop
everyone will begin a 3 semester credit online graduate class (suitable for
recertification) to continue the interaction among the group as they engage the online
lessons for ongoing learning throughout the Fall Semester. Learning-to-learn online is
fundamental to becoming a self-directed Internet learner and to prepare them for teaching
online, both for their local students and for teaching about their culture - worldwide.
Everyone at
the workshop was impressed by all the Athabascan information
already accessible on the Internet, and particularly on how they were able to create their
own Athabascan web pages, images, digital stories, Powerpoint presentations, digital art, and more during only three
days. When the workshop began one teacher was quick to state the fact that she didn't have
the time in the village to learn computers. But, after the workshop she stated she would
indeed like a computer with Internet in her home, after all.
The workshop
focused on hands-on learning for what they could do themselves to support their culture
and their teaching. The presentations served to show them what they could yet learn during
the coming on-site workshops. The question of what role can these educators and their
students play in supporting similar vision and skills development of their communities was
a subtle theme of the workshop.
Many
suggestions were given, such as pairing students with elders for creating cultural
multimedia projects and
digital storytelling. Many sources were given for participating in online project-based
learning activities with classrooms from other cultures. Web-based Athabascan
language projects have already been done in one village and the challenges related to
creating a pilot village project to see how many quality multimedia cultural initiatives
could get started with the available time and talent were discussed. Equipment wish lists
were collected from everyone, based on what they had seen presented.
Once the
educators understood that the trainer was coming back again and again, the idea of the
online class was far less threatening. They can anticipate the online support and
unfailing emotional encouragement of the instructor. The threat of failure had been
removed by the mastery learning format of the class and the opportunity to look forward to
follow-up face-to-face instruction. Humor is important as is continual encouragement to
counter the ever present fear of technology and the associated fear of feeling stupid in
the face of technology and in front of their peers.
Report for Internet Training in Koyukuk Sept. 9-13
The goal was
to expose students and teachers to as many Internet resources and multimedia authoring
skills as possible within the time available in a way that would motivate everyone to want
to learn more. Eight students and two teachers from Hughes joined the 22 Koyukuk students for the first three days. The
principals and teachers were able to review the workshop outline prior to the workshop and
create the schedule themselves to best suit their needs and interests. Since school was in
session, dedicated training time for the teachers was not available and emphasis was on
working directly with students.
DAY ONE
The first
morning we split the students into three groups and had two technology classrooms and one
academic classroom. We rotated for three one hour sessions. Frank’s classroom had
three stations where students received a hands-on introductions
to
1. Using a digital art tablet with over
100 different artists tools including an image hose where one
could literally spray existing or original images in over a dozen different spray patterns
patterns. Art with photographs is easily done and many
advanced digital art features were demonstrated.
2. Two different types of digital cameras
with a total of four cameras available including a CDROM camera which allows for 40 second
audio narrations of slides and in particular allowed high quality pictures of printed
photographs to be narrated by elders for digital historical storytelling.
3. A large screen laptop with a touch pad
was available for exploring and demonstrating the slideshow software for displaying
photos, and to demonstrate how fast and easy such storytelling can be.
4. A fourth station offered digital music
with two MIDI keyboards available with 100 voices, 100 background beat styles, 100 songs
with songbook for learning to read and play music, and an auto-accompaniment feature which
provides 3 part accompaniment with one finger chording to provide high motivation for the
most timid of budding musicians.
Joe’s classroom students learned photoshop basics using photos taken by themselves or by other
students. They learned to change the size, brightness, backgrounds, and quality of photos.
Students learned to cut and paste picture elements from one photo to another. Then they
learned to work with multiple images and windows to combine them into a collage of photos
with a colorful background which were then printed out in full photographic color quality
on special photo paper as a tangible final product.
In the
afternoon the main computer lab had two groups for 1 ½ hours each. Students first learned
to use search engines to search for specific images by topic, then created a new folder on
the desktop to store the image files they learned to save from vast public domain image
and animation archives on the Internet.
Students
then learned to create and edit web pages and insert images from the web, photos they took
themselves, text of any color, size, and font, and hyperlinks to both other web sites on
the web and other web pages they created themselves. Students learned to insert images as
backgrounds for their web pages and to create tables to organize images and text. Students
learned to manipulate the size and placement of images on their web pages. Students learned cut-and-paste as well as
drag-and-drop file manipulation skills as well as renaming
files. Students also learned to find animated images and to insert them. Finally, all
students learned how to create additional web pages to link directly to their first
“home page.”
The other
group worked on reading and writing activities.
DAY TWO
Again we
split into three groups. Students had the opportunity for more hands-on time with the
digital art tablet, digital cameras, digital music keyboards, as well as using a touch pad
and laptop to review photo slideshows (examples of digital storytelling) created by
students and staff during the previous day. Students were also given time to explore sites
offering Internet access to 2500 Internet radio stations as well as music sites allowing
legal downloading of popular music files
In the
afternoon, Frank’s classroom showed examples of village web sites with pages showing
photos of elders, tribal council members, a tour of the village, school staff, student
projects, a homework hotline with daily posting of students’ homework assignments for
parent access from the homes, a community calendar, and information on community service
projects. The students had learned the day before everything needed to create similar web
pages. An example of a topical listing for local mentors was shown as way to identify a
way for each person in the village to share their expertise on a specific topic and
ideally to maintain a web site of additional resources on their topic to share locally.
The point was made that youth are the technology leaders in the villages and have the
opportunity search out and post for local use the best and most relevant resources for
local use. Students were tasked with finding quality resources of local relevance and
creating draft resource web pages on shopping sites, snowmobile repair and other topics
likely to be of interest locally.
Joe’s
classroom showed how to take digital video clips,and
using Imovie software, to create original digital videos with
many special effects. Video editing vocabulary, four ways to export video for Internet use
or for VHS tape, and altering frames for special effects,
sounds, explosions, transitions, and titles were covered. All students created their first
Imovie.
Frank showed
internet radio and music sources and assisted students with varied stations for digital handson activities. That afternoon students learned Itunes and burned their first music CD’s.
A community
“cover-dish/ pot-luck” was held in the evening in honor of the visitors from
Hughes. A short presentation was given showcasing a digital slideshow tour of koyukuk created by Josie Dayton, the Koyukuk
Elementary teacher, as well as one showcasing crafts from Manley . An invitation was extended to the community
to bring their photo albums to the computer lab 7-9pm anytime Tuesday through Friday
evenings to create their own digital stories.
DAY THREE
Joe’s
classroom showed how to create animations using Flash software.
In the
afternoon, Joe’s classroom focused on using I-tunes software to collect music files
and to burn CDROM’s of music files.
Hughes
students were due to leave mid-morning so time was given for additional work on web pages
and other multimedia products. One hour was spent with Elder Annie Dayton creating a
digital history from photographs she brought to the school. Later Annie and Elder Eliza
Jones spent two hours creating another collection of narrated historical photographs for
another digital story.
Frank showed
MGI software for slideshows and students reviewed and inserted images for slideshows.
DAY FOUR
The morning
was spent with Joe learning to create Iphoto slideshows.
Students had access to over 1600 images taken during the week and had access to scroll
through and images for their creative projects. Dozens
of CD’s were burned to share the full collection of photos with everyone as well as
giving students the opportunity to learn to burn their own music CD’s. Students used
I-tunes to import audio tunes to Iphoto for background music
during their slide shows.
DAY FIVE
Frank spent
the afternoon with Eliza Jones and husband doing historical digital stories. Singalong with Elem. Morning with Annie Dayton and Eliza Jones doing
more historical narrated photos.
The
afternoon included strategizing with Joe Marley on local and district training goals and
creative projects. The evening included an hour long preview of Eliza’s historical
slideshow for the community projected on a very large sheet on the wall of the gym with
the bleachers moved to the middle of the gym. Additional time was spent thereafter with
Eliza reviewing additional photographs, setting forth a plan for updating and preserving
the school’s collection of historical photos.
Summary
While
students were initially a bit intimidated, they quickly warmed up to the technologies. The
cameras were in constant use, even by the youngest students.
4th grade students created web pages along side of the older kids and
did very well. I believe the Hughes students were intimidated by all the skills the Koyukuk students had and were hesitant to
follow directions and come up with finished projects when specifically asked to do so.
Overview of Multimedia Projects Created by Koyukuk and Hughes Students
Students
learned cut and paste, drag and drop, folder creation, and file management basics.
Students
learned search engine basics using multiple keywords, quotes for specific phrases, boolean operators AND/OR, and explored
top search engines, google.com, dogpile.com, and askjeeves.com.
Web pages
using images, backgrounds, tables, text of any size, color or font, and hyperlinks from
the Internet including linking to secondary pages
Photos,
manipulated photos for slideshows and collages
Created
digital art, and experimented with digital music keyboards in anticipation of the
school expanding in this important and motivating creative expression curriculum as a way
of teaching technology and multimedia production skills.
Created
original animations
Created digital movies with Iphoto, MGI slideshow software, and Mac Imovie.
Created
I-tune digital music collections and burned their first music CDs containing these
collections
Iphoto slideshows with audio backgrounds
Learned to
email photo attachments
Teacher and Staff Training
While time
with teachers and staff separate from students was not available, teachers and staff were
able to see how quickly the students were able to pick up these new capabilities and the
resulting motivation for the staff was encouraging. Staff learned from Joe (Michelle from
Hughes in particular) about networking basics, file sharing, LAN maintenance,
administrating the GCI network server, remote access for client computers, airport
wireless card maintenance and setting up an airport network. Other topics were
Operating
System basics, initializing software installation, types of software for administrative
and educational use.
Key classroom strategies – and District Wide Recommendations
The Hughes
school, staff and teachers have limited computer and Internet expertise in contrast to
that of Koyukuk due in major part to the leadership
and tenacity of Principal Joe Marley. This workshop event had the greatest impact on
Hughes attendees as most of what they learned was very new.
One of the
key differences between the two schools is that the older Koyukuk students have their own Imacs on their desks. Mr. Marley uses the motivation of students
having their own computers to exert subtle control over their learning. Students risk
losing their computers if they don’t keep up with homework and behave appropriately.
Privileges are earned instead of expected.
Every
morning Mr. Marley emails his students three questions from the daily news to which he
requires answers before the day begins. This reinforces students’ research and
communications skills on a daily basis creating habits of professional knowledge workers.
On 9/11 Mr.
Marley held a special session to focus on the tragedy with everyone attending. He showed a
number of web sites which had rich collections of resources, displayed image slideshows on
the web pages, and played music in the background. The point was made that the first
website shown, which contained an incredible number of interesting high quality resources,
was created and maintained by a single individual who simply cared enough about 9/11 and
related issues to create a global resource now used by tens of thousands of individuals. A
student expressed interest in created a similar topical website of his own.
Mr. Marley
routinely uses such exemplary Internet resources in his teaching, but relates that it only
took him ten minutes to find these resources immediately before class. Developing this
instant research capability in all YKSD teachers makes good sense. When his class covered South America as a topic, he displayed a live video
image of a ship going through locks in the Panama canal while students researched rich
resources web sites and discussed the unique features of South America. Mr. Marley in years past had a live
video camera pointing out the window at the school so via Internet others could see the
view at any time.
Mr.
Marley’s students computers are connected together in a LAN network which allows him
to view, and when necessary, take over control of the screen of
any computer for instructional, discipline and/or technical maintenance purposes. LAN
resources are routinely utilized.
When asked
about funding for computers Mr. Marley relates that since the price of high quality
computers has dropped to around $600 per computer, the price is very low compared to the
educational benefits and particularly related to the monthly cost of the Internet. Updated computers are absolutely necessary if
students are to benefit significantly from this expensive Internet access. To date, most
villages have not benefited from Internet access to the level originally intended, due
primarily to the lack of quality ongoing training and support. Computer use for Koyukuk kids is a daily and personal
empowering experience used for self-expression, communication, research and entertainment,
but for the Hughes kids is an occaisional non-personal
activity viewed as being of little relevance to their lives or education.
Since the
first three Internet training workshops were held in the YKSD
during 1998-2000 the computer technology had greatly increased in power, prices have
dropped and Internet systems are being dramatically upgraded. LKSD, for example, now has
two-way video conferencing via satellite and microwave systems for 28 villages allowing
for sharing Instructor with special knowledge, algebra teachers in particular. While these
original workshops showcased the potential, at the time the Internet was so new that fear
of technology was high. Two years of 21st
Century grants have raised the level of community computer literacy and interest in home
Internet access.
While a
number of YKSD teachers picked up significant new skills, many had not yet reached the
comfort level to integrate technology into their classrooms. Lack of local technical
support is a major contributing factor. However, it has now been four years since the
Internet was introduced and hotmail and Internet have begun to become a part of the local
culture. Today there exists a new readiness to revisit how the
Internet can empower K-12 learning as well as community learning and ultimately bring new
jobs via Ecommerce. Keeping youth in the village via telework
opportunities would be of significant benefit for these villages.
Today, it is widely being
recognized that the quality of training provided will determine whether expensive Internet
systems are well utilized or wasted. With the new FCC Erate
Waiver the opportunity exists to bring wireless Internet direct to the homes for both
educational and Ecommerce purposes. Again, this raises opportunities, not guarantees, for
community learning and new arenas for economic development and new jobs.
Fall Semester Goals for Koyukuk students
1. Art and
photo combination exercises and perhaps a community-judged competition,
2. Same for
a photo within a photo competition, create posters of winners,
3. Create a local ebay
facilitator/business perhaps as a youth entre. Project to
demonstrate the Internet does create viable local employment options.
4. Music
projects: Master MIDI BinB, calkwalk, digital recording, encourage local musicians to create
their own CD’s and music videos
5.
Community/Cultural Content Web pages - perhaps hold a competition for best community and/or cultural content, shopping,
snowgo, athabascan, andK12
resources.
6. Gather
instructional cultural sites with stories,
7. Create
longer audio stories (imovie),
8. Consider
a CD yearbook multimedia project
9. Update
the village web site as a model for YKSD http://koyukuk.yksd.schoolaccess.net
Educators Educating the Community
At issue, is
what is the role of local educators concerning helping create community Internet awareness
and use of the Internet for ongoing community learning, particularly regarding the new
Rural Ecommerce opportunities which are badly needed? Should educators be expected to
volunteer their limited free time to champion local community training programs? Fair
incentives of home-based Internet access and a personal computer should be provided to all
educators willing to engage in community training.
Due to a
recent ruling by the Federal Communications Commission wireless distribution of
school-based Internet to the village homes for Ecommerce and general learning has been
approved. Serious political and infrastructure barriers have been removed. But, here
begins the social engineering challenges for effective rural innovation diffusion. Toward
this end the following proposal was written in an effort to win funding for additional
equipment to help make these villages successful models to inspire other villages as to
what can truly be done. Several large scale Alaskan Internet infrastructure projects being
considered may face major failure unless there's a successful training model to follow.
The history of similar projects is typically major under-utilization of Internet
infrastructure and minimal local buy-in due to the lack of a proven replicable training
program.
Proposal For a New
Online Course for Educators
An online graduate level recertification course
for educators will be created to bring together the leadership potential of the
educational community: administrators, teachers, parents, and students, to identify how
education relates to success in the "knowledge age" with emphasis on social
entrepreneurship. "Social entrepreneurship" is literally the convergence of
education and economic development in the emerging service economy. The sheer numbers of
citizens of all ages involved in the educational community suggests strongly that they
play a significant role in leading this community education initiative.
The need exists to provide professional development opportunities to create and
share online standards-based curriculum designed to engage
students in community networking, service learning projects, Ecommerce entrepreneurship
activities, and web-based cultural expression.
The Village Bootstrap Academy project will integrate the following unique online
course "Building Learning Communities" for educators. It creates web-based
project-based learning units to be used as models of student activity engaging local
citizens in creating a community vision. These activities will include tangible steps
forward for designing local web-based content, and collaborative activities, around the
theme of "building a 21st century learning community."
. Included are the specific methodologies on how Internet resources and
collaborative capabilities can be applied to developing both local and global citizenship,
service learning projects, and youth Ecommerce entrepreneurhip.
"Building Learning
Communities;
Creating Social and Economic Value in the Knowledge
Age."
Course Description: Learn how to integrate the teaching of citizenship,
character education, web-authoring, and Internet skills to engage your students with their
local community to grow a vision for their joint future. Students will identify for
themselves and their community a vision for how people can learn to use the Internet to
develop social and economic value. Project-based learning models and extensive existing
web-based curriculum will provide your students with challenges in developing their
Internet self-directed learning skills. Students will use online tutorials to teach
themselves how to use digital art, photography, and music for digital story-telling and
multimedia presentations to communicate this vision. A student entrepreneurship challenge
will focus on those Ecommerce opportunities which can provide local jobs to provide
students with the option to avoid relocation upon graduation and to assure their
community's future.
This three credit (semester credits) course for
educators presents a hands-on review of Internet resources and curriculum templates
integrating K12 character and citizenship education with online collaboration and creating
web-based instructional content to grow local community Internet awareness. Growing
successful citizens, and sustainable communities, in the "knowledge age"
requires a K12 leadership role for developing both local, and global, citizenship by
teaching how to create both social and economic value.
Short-term, youth-driven, service learning
project models will be presented for creating local web-based content for their
communities showcasing local and regional Ecommerce and entrepreneurial Internet
innovations. These projects will help students become involved with their communities'
economic development and sustainability issues. Students will learn how to win funding for
their community projects from local businesses and organizations.
Educators will learn the easiest methods for
creation of web-based instructional content within the context of how to teach students
web-based content creation. This content includes essential knowledge worker skills such
as self-directed Internet learning and online collaboration. Students will learn how
helping others online can lead to instructional entrepreneurship services and businesses.
Success as knowledge workers in a global knowledge economy requires a K12 emphasis on
developing the social value of students and requires they become skilled at creating and
maintaining meaningful relationships both offline and online.
Whereas in the past the two concepts of the
public and private sectors might have appeared to be morally at odds, in the new service
economy "social entrepreneurship" is emerging as the synergy of the best of both
worlds. Ecommerce entrepreneurship basic concepts will be introduced with the overriding
theme of "Information condenses to knowledge, which condenses to wisdom, and
VALUE is created in the knowledge age." Introductory online units for use with
students will be included as a means of integrating technology standards with writing,
reading, and civic studies curriculum.
Online mini-courses designed for teachers to use
with their students will provide students with their first, brief, online learning
experiences. Students will then create similar brief mini-courses for other students, for
which they would then mentor their peers and evaluate the outcomes. Community-building
Internet applications have not kept pace with the technology. Under the theme of
"Building Learning Communities," students will learn first hand how online
collaboration can benefit their communities, while developing their knowledge worker
skills in online groupwork and instructional entrepreneurship.
The theme here is: "Everyone both learner and teacher, both
consumer and producer, all the time."