Presentation Slides - Harvey Weir

Schoolnet RINGS

• A Class Project System
• Pilot Period - 1995-96 school year
• Developed and administered by STEM~Net

The SchoolNet RINGS Pre-Pilot

Survey: Participating teachers-Pre-pilot

• considerable support for the SchoolNet RINGS approach
• All teachers responding felt that students had learned the value of networking from their projects
• more than 80% felt that their projects had tied in well with their classes and added value
• More than 90% wish to continue or repeat their projects next year
• More than 80% indicated students had become comfortable with the interface and had learned how to use email effectively
• Many teachers requested full Internet access for their students.

The Name "SchoolNet RINGS"

• "SchoolNet" indicates that these projects are sponsored by the national SchoolNet initiative of Industry Canada.
• The term RINGS is both an acronym and a double-edged metaphor: -each participating class or group forms a local RING. All the participating groups or RINGS are then linked into a district-wide, province-wide, Canada-wide or internationally-based project, forming a "Project RING".
• For each project, one group or RING is invited by SchoolNet to be the project leader. This group then electronically "RINGS" or contacts the other groups that have expressed an interest in this type, grade-level and category of project and invites them to be a part of the specified project RING.
• RINGS is an acronym for "Reports and Investigations by Networked Groups of Students".

Features of RINGS

• support a teacher-selected or class-selected section or area of the curriculum
• be student- and learning-centered
• involve groups of students
• involve network-based collaboration
• involve investigations
• involve online reports (publication) of the investigations;

Project Organization and Leadership

Project coordination and leadership by ONE of the participating RINGS (the Lead RING), normally the one with the most experience in such activities, with support and assistance from the SchoolNet RINGS Project Officer;

The SchoolNet RINGS Project Officer groups potential RINGS by grade, curriculum, topic, and network resources level, invites the various RINGS to participate, and invite one of the RINGS to be the Lead RING

RING-based (team-based) activities, in which the problem or challenge being investigated is broken into sub-tasks or challenges and distributed among the participating RINGS or teams.

Features of RINGS Communications

• regular network-based consultations and discussions among the participating RINGS throughout the project;
• an "end-of-project" online (asynchronous, in most cases) conference in which final results are shared (based on the professional conference model), and a "joint" report is discussed;
• the preparation of the final "joint" report on the project, a responsibility of the Lead RING
• a "joint" publication of the final report in the online SchoolNet RINGS Journal.

Communications Software and Tools

"SchoolNet RINGS" is not tied to a particular piece of network software, hardware or tool, but will be adapted to the resources available to each project's participating RINGS. Thus, different projects will make use of one or more of the resources that are available to them, where the tools selected will be available to all the RINGS in any given project.

Scalability of "SchoolNet RINGS"

"SchoolNet RINGS" is completely scalable both numbers of participating RINGS, geographic coverage and time. "SchoolNet RINGS" is also scalable by subject area.

At one end of the size continuum, the number of RINGS in a project can be as few as one or can include as many as are appropriate for meeting the goals set for the project.

At one end of a geographic continuum, it can encompass a single class, school or district, and on the other end it may encompass the globe.

At one end of the time continuum, it can encompass a single week-long "focused" activity, and at the other end, a full school year. It is entirely possible that some projects might be extended with the same participants or RINGS over multiple years.

The Pilot Phase and Goals

A pilot phase is proposed for the period September 1995 to June 1996, covering the full school year. The pilot will cover all grades, with at least five available curriculum-relevant themes for each of the primary, elementary, intermediate and high-school areas.

The pilot is intended to:

• evaluate the overall educational, administrative, technical and funding feasibility of the SchoolNet RINGS system;
• determine the levels, types, availabilities and development requirements of software and online resources needed by RINGS;
• investigate the motivational and teaching/learning effectiveness of different types of projects in various subject and cross-subject areas, for the full range of grade levels; and
• develop a process for helping educators reach a vision of Canada-wide and world-wide classes in which the curriculum comes alive in a learning environment without walls.

Selection and Pilot Training

• A call for participation will be issued in early September 1995
• The call will include the curriculum-relevant themes for the various grade categories.
• Participants will be selected to ensure coverage of these grade levels and equitable representation of all provinces and territories.
• Where needed for global themes, classes from other countries will be invited to participate.

Teacher Support

It is assumed that participating teachers have access to the Internet and already have skills in using email and one or more of news, gopher and web utilities.

A SchoolNet RINGS Handbook will be available online (and in hard-copy form) when the call for participation is issued.