Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities

Lesson Idea Name: Let’s Get Global: A Semester Long Project

Content Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level(s): 8th
Content Standard Addressed:
ELAGSE8W3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique,
relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences
d. Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action
and convey experiences and events.

Technology Standard Addressed:

ISTE Standard 7a, b, c: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by
collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Selected Online Project/Collaboration Site/Publishing Opportunity: iEarn

URL(s) to support the lesson: https://iearn.org/cc/space-2/group-477/about

Describe how you would incorporate an Online Project/Collaboration Site/Publishing Opportunity in your
classroom:
The online project/collaboration aspect of the “Cultural Package Exchange”, found on the iEarn website, will
take on many forms in my classroom. To begin with, this project would be at minimum a semester long
project encompassing aspects of routine writing, culture local examination, research, and teamwork for (and
from) students. I would introduce the project as a method to showcase/share student’s community with
another country from around the world. Student would need to assume that the other country knows nothing
about the average community in the United States (especially the community where the school is located).
Students will be placed into groups that will be in charge of showcasing some aspect of the community (local
foods, local clothing, activities/fun things to do in the community, community/state history, about the school,
what students do for fun/hobbies, or any other relevant topic that speaks to people in the community). For
each group, students will be tasked with researching, writing, interviewing community members, and
collaborating with their group about how they will showcase their part of the project. Students will submit
individual work to be graded by the teacher to ensure they meet standards set forth by the state in terms of
writing, research, reading, and literacy. The class will vote on the best pieces, artifacts, writing, and
information to but into a box and mail to the students at a sister school in another country. Ideally, the sister
school would be doing the same project and sending our class a box as well.

Further details need to be worked to ensure funding for the packages, safety of students, finding a sister
school (could be the same school each year once the connection is established), and other minor details
concerning exactly what is expected of students and how they will each contribute to the project. The iEarn
website seems to be full capable of establishing connections with other schools, but in order to understand
the full scope of the website’s capabilities, a small monetary fee is required annually. In the classroom, it is
imperative that a teacher balances standards, required student writing, research, reading, and administrative
oversight when taking on a project of this size.

In addition to all the research, writing, and artifact selection, the class should include a picture (with parental
consent) of the class, a small personal note from each student (with parental consent), and they should pay
attention to the size dimesons of the box that will transport the final version of the project and to another
country. In my classroom, I would introduce the project and the sister school in the fall semester and tell
students that we will be working on completing it in the first few months of spring. In a perfect world, each
class that I taught would be doing the same project with a different international school. Until I could
establish those connections, the best way to get all students involved may be to have each class focus on an
aspect of the project (a characteristic of the community). Each class could submit a final artifact, piece of
 Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities
writing, and their personal notes to the overall project at the end. When we receive our box from our sister
school, we would all take a chance to thoroughly look over the contents and begin formulating a piece of
writing that compares our two schools, cultures, and communities. Additionally, the class may choose to
share the experience on the school/county’s website, class website/blog, or other web-based publishing sites.
Further details will need to be planned out and integrated into the curriculum, each individual class, and with
the administration (and parents of students).
What technologies would be required to implement this proposed learning activity in a classroom?
- Internet connection
- Paid version or iEarn website
- Access to word processing software to write and edit pieces for the project
- A recording device to document community members for research purposes
- Computers for students to conduct research and write

Describe how the following features are addressed in this learning experience:

a. Collaboration with peers, near-peers, mentors outside their classroom and often beyond their
school:
This project will be attending to outside-the-classroom experiences in three ways. First, students are
going to be collaborating with their peers and doing group research to fulfill a requirement for the
project. Second, students will be engaging with members of the community as they research,
interview, and create a piece that talks about the area in which they live. Finally, students will be
sharing their project (in its final form) with a sister school from another country. Students will also be
receiving the same type of project from the same sister school to review, consider, and write about.
b. Student-centered learning and knowledge creation (creating original data and or producing original
products as a result of engaging in a project):
All students will be creating original content that could potentially be put into the class box and sent to
another country. This should motivate them to produce high quality work. Students will also be
working collaboratively with their peers to collect data, make decisions about what is most important,
and create original pieces that will end up in the class’s final box.
c. Higher-order thinking:
Throughout the project students will be tasked to use higher order thinking skills. They will work
together, and individually, to evaluate what the most important details about their community are,
what facts seem most important when describing their community, and what others need to know
about the community to best understand what life is like there. Also, students will be tasked with
creating every aspect of the project. They will have full creative control of colors, pictures, artifacts,
details they feel are important, how they portray their community, and more. By lending them full
creative power, students will not feel limited by a pre-determined template. Finally, Students will be
applying skills that they have already been studying to the collaborative project. Things like, correct
grammar, concise non-wordy sentences, organization of writing, research skills, technology use,
working collaboratively, and more. Students will be applying these skills in a real-world manner and
can begin to see the usefulness of skills they already possess.
d. Students publishing their original work to others who will use/care about their product:
In this project, students could potentially have the chance to publish their work on the school, county,
or class website for others to see the connections that they have established with another school. Also,
students will be publishing their personal work to the overall class project, and a select few pieces will
be seen by a school in another country.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Level(s):
☒ Remembering ☒ Understanding ☒ Applying ☒ Analyzing ☒ Evaluating ☒ Creating

Levels of Technology Integration (LoTi Level):

 Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities
☐ Level 1: Awareness ☐ Level 2: Exploration ☐ Level 3: Infusion ☐ Level 4: Integration
☒ Level 5: Expansion ☐ Level 6: Refinement

Universal Design for Learning (UDL):

Universal design for learning is attended to in just about every portion of this project. Projects like these
almost guarantee, that no matter how a student learns or despite their abilities or disabilities, they will have a
chance to use their personal assets to enhance their own learning experience.

Multiple means of engagement is attended to in several ways. The main ways include optimization of
personal choice, fostering a community of collaboration, and an optimization of value and authenticity.
Students will be engaging with the overall project and have free choice of how they wish to create their
contribution to the project. They may choose to make a video, write a short piece, or help develop the artifact
that will be included in the final box. Students will be in a state of high collaboration as they work together to
develop their contribution to the overall project. Finally, developing and showcasing a project about their
community, school, and personal lives fosters an air of authenticity and value in the project as a whole.

Multiple means of representation is attended to in terms of activation of background knowledge and a

highlighting of big ideas and relationships. Students will be creating a project about their community.
Background knowledge that each student and community member holds will be activated as they work
together to tell their story. Background knowledge can lead to a further inquiry into historical facts and
information about the community in which they live in. This, in turn, could lead to a greater amount of
beyond-surface detail being included in their final product. Also, as students begin to research their
community (things to do there, the history, local food, etc.) they may begin to uncover relationship that they
never knew were there. Relationships among community members, places in the community, and students
themselves may become more evident as the project progresses.

Multiple means of action and expression is attended to through the optimization of assistive technology,
guided and appropriate goal setting, and support for planning and strategy development. Assistive
technologies are not a limiting factor in this group project. Each student who may benefit from the use of
assistive technology will have an opportunity to contribute to the overall project unhindered by their need for
AT. Some pieces of assistive technology (text to speech programs, speech to text programs, larger print,
pencil grips, etc.) may increase all group member performance. Students will be made aware of the end goal
of the project from the very beginning. The teacher will plan a tentative guide for pacing and allow students
to develop their own strategies for completing the steps in the process. The teacher will check in and monitor
student progress to ensure no one is falling behind.
Lesson idea implementation and Internet Safety Policies:
Compliance with district Internet safety protocols is attended to in many ways. Three main ways to ensure
Internet safety and garner support for such a project include the following: be transparent about the details
of the project with parents and administration, seek parental support for their students to participate in such
a project before the beginning of the project, and establish the credibility of the site being used to form the
basis of the project. Transparency about every detail (what kind of information about students will be shared,
what information do students need to put in, will there be instant web-based communicating occurring, and
other details) should be presented to administration in the form of a written proposal before attempting to
begin a project of this magnitude. Parental support and transparency with community members (about the
use of information provided, how their child is going to interact with people online, will they be interacting
directly with someone online, what information the parent wants displayed about their child, and more)
should also occur before the project can begin and before any interview with any community member or
business. Establishing the credibility, international government connection, and philanthropic initiatives of
the website, its projects, the program as a whole, and amount of global participation should also occur to
potentially garner support from parents and to establish safety.
Reflective Practice:
 Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities
This project is designed to occur during the second half of a school year for eighth grade students who will be
going to high school the following year. The project is designed to supplement instruction that is already
occurring in the classroom by giving students a chance to see how the skills they have learned this far in their
school career can be used in a real-world, inquiry-based setting. Further extension of this project may occur
after a number of trial runs. Instead of each class preparing part of the overall project, if enough connections
are established, each class could take on the whole project. Along the way, students could be asked to
practice reflecting on the progress that are making and how they think each step in the creation process is
going. These reflections could be used as formative assessments by the teacher to monitor student progress
and morale.