General Information Project Overview Curriculum Connection Resource Connections Evaluation

  General Information

  Project Overview

Students from the two Grade Seven classes will collect news items from within our school and post them bi-monthly on our stem-net Homepage. Newspaper type articles will be included (complete with photographs of the student(s) involved) that report on significant accomplishments of our students and teachers. Some examples would include:

• An article on our Grade Seven student who recently won the Junior Speak-off.
• Photos from our Christmas Concert.
• A photo of the Student of the Month along from each class along with a brief description of the accomplishment that lead to the student being so named.

This would give our school some exposure to other schools in the province and elsewhere and hopefully would lead to some Internet correspondence between our students and theirs. We are also hoping that when our students log on to STEM~Net and see the exposure that our "Students of the Month" are getting, they too will be motivated to strive for excellence.

  Curriculum Connections

Language Arts

This exercise uses the "Writing Process" as outlined in our objectives for Language Arts; i.e. prewriting, jot notes, first draft, editing and publishing. The project also would encourage students to use the Internet to get information. By accessing the Homepage to retrieve information on their own school, students will learn to use the Internet and develop an appreciation for technology.

Technology Education

According to "A Curriculum Framework for Technology Education", students in the intermediate level will:

• use communication tools to access, evaluate and select appropriate information and to create, modify and disseminate information.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Students will learn to write publishable articles using the writing stages.
2. Students and teachers will use communication technologies(computer and the Internet" to communicate with other students and teachers.
3. As per "A Curriculum Framework of Technology Education", students will:
   • Use communication tools to access, evaluate and select appropriate information and to create, modify and disseminate information.

  Resource Connections

This project could only be undertaken using the STEM~Net School Internet Connection. Other resources to be used in the project are:

• Wordprocessor - including Spellchecker and Grammatik.
• Scanner - This was purchased for the project.

  Evaluation

• The students directly involved in the project will learn the proper techniques of reporting and creating publishable writing.
• Students will become acquainted with the procedure for creating and maintaining a Homepage.
• Our general student body will become motivated to strive for excellence after seeing the publicity being given to the students of the month, and to others who have achieved highly.
• Our student population will become more comfortable with using the Internet.