FIELDTRIPS> Project Announcement

["Global SchoolNet Fdn (FrEdMail)" <lmnet-l@ACME.FRED.ORG>]

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ANNOUNCING FIELDTRIPS-L: A New Internet Listserv
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Fieldtrips-L is NOT a typical discussion list. Rather, it is designed
to help teachers easily exchange information about their field trips
and excursions to local resources.

Fieldtrips-L fills two purposes:

  1. When you take your students on a field trip, your students will
     have an interested audience who will love to read the reports
     and summaries of your visit. You'll be amazed at how well
     motivated your students are to observe and learn when they can
     report to an interested audience of their peers.

  2. Your students will learn about interesting sites around the
     world which they will probably never be able to visit. You'll
     acquire new information and resources that you've never had
     available before... from local "experts."

TO SUBSCRIBE
------------
  To participate, all you have to do is to subscribe to the
  fieldtrips-L list. Send a message to:
                              majordomo@acme.fred.org
  with the single line
                              subscribe fieldtrips-L
  in the body of the message.

THE PROCESS
-----------
  When we acknowledge your subscription, we'll send you complete
  details about how this simple but powerful project works. In
  general, here's how it will work: (Note: if you wish, all you need
  to do is complete step #5)

   1. Four weeks before your field trip, post a brief announcement to
      this fieldtrips-L list letting other subscribers know about
      your visit.

   2. With just a little luck, you'll have a few responses from
      teachers who are interested in your visit. From these responses
      you can select a few "partner" classes who are interested in
      sharing your trip in detail.

   3. Your students will go on the field trip armed with questions
      from your partner classes. They will be highly motivated to be
      responsible and effective observers and reporters.

   4. Following the trip, your students will be eager to share their
      answers and experiences with your partner classes.

   5. At the conclusion, have your class write a 2- or 3-page group
      summary of your visit and post it to this list. Then the rest
      of us can read your summary and also vicariously enjoy your
      visit.

This list project addresses two important secrets of a good Internet
communications project:

   1. Enable your students to become "experts" in something that
      interests them.

   2. Let them share their knowledge and expertise with other
      interested classes. With a real audience, your students will be
      motivated to seriously observe, study, evaluate, and report on
      the places and things they see and hear on a class field trip
      or excursion.

LOCAL EXPERTS
-------------
  Your students have the opportunity to be the eyes and ears for
  students around the world as you visit your unique local resources.
  People in other places would love to learn about your museums,
  historical sites, geological and archaeological sites, natural
  wonders, libraries, national and state parks, nature preserves,
  zoos and aquariums, archives, scientific labs and archives,
  universities and colleges, and businesses and industries.

  This project encourages your students to look at their own local
  resources with new eyes and share their visits, observations, and
  discoveries with students and classes all over the world.

  On the other hand, this project also lets your students vicariously
  visit many sites they can't really visit. They will love receiving
  and reading informative and interesting first-hand information
  about subjects and distant places they are studying.  It will
  increase their motivation and interest in extending their learning.
  They will want to read everything that comes back, and they will
  ask more questions and look more critically at the information
  received in comparison to other sources of information they have
  been studying.

REPORTING TO AN AUDIENCE
------------------------
  One thing research on writing emphasizes is that when students have
  a sympathetic, interested audience and something to say, they will
  become eager writers.  Moreover, they will take greater interest in
  "sounding" erudite and "smart" to their audience... especially if
  their audience is their peers (See "The Effect of Distant Audiences
  on Student Writing", _AERA_ Journal, Summer, 1989.)

  When your students go on your excursion armed with specific
  questions and requests for information addressed to your class from
  distant places, they will have significant incentive to gather
  relevant information, to process it, and write reports back to
  their questioners.  Compared to excursion reports written for you
  or their classmates, you will find their reports to be more fluent,
  better organized, more substantive, and more informative.
  Furthermore, they will be more willing to write, proofread, revise,
  and edit their work.  They will be more careful about their
  spelling, punctuation, grammar, and vocabularies.  Finally, they
  will enjoy it more when they know their audience is not only
  interested in what they have to say, but are in fact counting on
  their accurate and factual reporting.

<arogers@bonita.cerf.fred.org> ---------------- 32.39.28N, 117.01.45W
Al Rogers, Executive Director             Global SchoolNet Foundation
PO Box 243, Bonita, CA 91908                             619-475-4852
            Linking Teachers and Students Around the World