Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description Internet Resources

• Grade Level: Elementary School, Middle School

• Subject Area: Art

Brief Description

    Students use a variety of resources to search for images of and information about the exchange country's environments and housing.
Objectives

    Students will:

• Use a variety of sources for information about housing and environments in the foreign exchange area.
• Evaluate the primary sources of information in terms of accuracy and usefulness.

Materials and Resources

    In developing our lessons and activities, we made some assumptions about the hardware and software that would be available in the classroom for teachers who visit the LETSNet Website. We assume that teachers using our Internet-based lessons or activities have a computer with the necessary hardware components (mouse, keyboard, and monitor) as well as a World Wide Web browser. In the section below, we specify any "special" hardware or software requirements for a lesson or activity (in addition to those described above) and the level of Internet access required to do the activity.

1. Special hardware requirements: None.
2. Special software requirements: None.
3. Internet access: A medium-speed or higher connection.
4. Human Resources:
   • Knowledgeable "community members" who may have personal connections to the foreign exchange country. These community members could live in the local school area and visit the school in person. Students and faculty at colleges or universities might also be "virtual community" members and correspond electronically.
   • Students in the foreign exchange school.
5. Library Resources: Familiar references such as encylopedias or more specialized books about the country.

Activity Description

    

• Introduce the lesson by outlining to students the plans for the next few class sessions. Review with students that in Lesson One, they established a connection with a classroom or school in a foreign country and created paintings of what they imagined housing to be like in that community. Let students know that they will use a variety of sources to find information about and images of the exchange country, that they will draw their own homes or examples of housing in their area and then exchange their drawings with students in the foreign country.

• Ask students to write questions about environments, natural resources and housing that will guide their searches for information.

• Have students search the Internet (see Internet Resources below) for information on the foreign exchange school's community and country, looking for images of housing and information about weather and the local environment.

• Have students search more familiar information resources such as encyclopedias or more specialized books about the foreign exchange country.

• Enlist the help of knowledgeable community members who have personal connections or experiences with the foreign exchange country. Ask these community members to visit the class to share their experiences and answer questions.

• You might also be able to communicate with international students or faculty in a nearby or distant college or university who are from the foreign exchange area. These "experts" may be willing to answer questions or help with translations. Many of these connections can be facilitated through the exchange programs listed in Lesson One or through discussion lists such as WWWedu (see Internet Resources below).

• Have students exchange questions and answers with the students in the foreign exchange classroom or school.

• Discuss and evaluate the information that students found from the different sources. The following is a list of possible discussion questions:
  • Describe the images and information that you found for housing in the foreign exchange country.
  • Do you think that they are representative of the housing in that country or examples of the most unusual?
  • How does what you found compare with what you expected from your imagined paintings in Lesson One?
  • Which sources of information do you think were the most accurate?
  • Did you discover some information that surprised you?

Internet Resources

Searching

• Alta Vista
  [http://www.altavista.digital.com/]
• Infoseek
  [http://www.infoseek.com/]
• Webcrawler Searching
  [http://webcrawler.com/]
• Yahoo!
  [http://www.yahoo.com/]

Connections

• GlobalSchoolNet Foundation
  [http://www.gsn.org]
  GlobalSchoolNet Foundation provides services and "training wheels" for educators on the Internet

• Global Schoolhouse Project
  [http://www.gsh.org]
  Utilizing the Internet and the most advanced technology of the day, the Global Schoolhouse provides its participants with opportunities for life-long learning. The Global Schoolhouse is a virtual meeting place where people of all ages and backgrounds can collaborate, interact, develop, publish, and discover resources.

• Internet Projects Registry
  [http://www.gsn.org/gsn/proj/index.html]
  A central place to find partners and projects on the Internet, organized by the month they begin.

• CU-SeeMe Schools Directory
  [http://www.gsn.org/gsn/cu/index.html]
  A listing of K12 schools around the world who have the ability to participate in CU-SeeMe videoconferencing and an archive of events schools can participate in.

• WWWEDU: The World Wide Web in Education List
  [http://edweb.cnidr.org:90/wwwedu.html]
  The Internet's largest forum on the use of the World Wide Web in education. WWWEDU is a moderated discussion list with over 1600 members from 35 countries.

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