Learn Internet projects by doing

What, where, when?

Learn Internet Projects by Doing (LIP) is an teacher-in-service training course for Finnish language teachers, organized by State Teacher-In-Service Training Center OPEKO Finland. OPEKO organizes a lot of teacher-in-service training courses in foreign languages.
The LIP training model was developed together with COMPACT, the Comenius 3 network. The 4th LIP course, LIP 4 Enterprise, is the first one having a thematic area of discussion. The course takes place in Tampere, Finland, in 2004.

Seminars in Tampere:
1. seminar 11th - 12th October 2004
2. seminar 29th - 30th November 2004
3. seminar 31th January - 1st February 2005

How to tell me that you are interested?

Language teachers in Finland fill in the application form in the Internet. Foreign partners who would like to attend to the LIP course via the Internet please contact the course leader.

Applying

Applications should be sent as soon as possible. The first 20 teachers will be taken in. Foreign partners can announce themselves at any time.

Does the course cost?

The course is paid by the Educational Board. It is free for course participants and for their project partners.

What is the target of the course?

The LIP course is an eLearning course where teachers engage in methods of networked collaboration and of international partner projects, to improve their own teaching and to make it more and more communicative. The authenticity of communication adds motivation. One learns a lot beside the foreign language: pupils learn cross-cultural understanding, better skills of information and communication technology (ICT) and of distant learning.

How does one work in the seminars?

In the first seminar the participants are instructed to use the eJournal, the most adequate tool for partner projects in the Internet. At the same time they start their partner projects. Participants learn to know about project making in the Internet and about working in the net with their pupils. They also get their course tasks for online work between the seminars. The second seminar includes checking of the projects, and giving more advice how to continue. Completing the project and its evaluation are also treated in the second seminar. The participants discuss the project method and learn more about it. They also evaluate how the LIP course was run and what it meant for their own work.

What does one do in the Internet?

Partner projects are carried out in asynchronous (and possibly synchronous) collaboration. The Finnish colleagues work in teams in eJournals, and they have one or more foreign partners in each journal. Partners should organize their lessons so that there will be time for pupils to write and publish their articles in the eJournal. In the beginning, you instruct your pupils to work in an independent way in the eJournal. Online sessions in the computer lab are needed for giving the instructions.
After pupils know how to work in the eJournal it is advisable to work in an asynchronous way. Drafts of texts can be written and corrected on paper. After that pupils turn their texts and images digital off-line. Only some online time is needed for their publishing in the Internet. Knowing how to publish articles pupils can work whenever they wish and wherever they wish doing their project tasks. Then one computer with the Internet access is enough, and no computer labs are needed.

When do you carry out your project?

Partner projects are started in the first seminar, and the projects are carried out during the course and after that. Between the seminars the LIP course participants use eJournal message tool - both intern messages and e-mail - to communicate to each other. The LIP course is tutored by the course leader who is available for the participants and for their partners.

Who are the partners?

The participants carry out their own partner project together with one or more colleagues. Foreign partners do not take part in the seminars, but only in the collaboration in the Internet.

How are the partnerships created?

Participants look for project partners on their own or together with the course leader. It is advisable to use the partner exchange of the European Schools Project to find a partner.

What information should the participants give to the course leader?

In order to find suitable partners, the course leader absolutely needs the following information:
1) in which foreign language the project is made
2) knowledge about the pupils/students engaged in the project
- how many persons are there in the participating group
- how old are the learners
- for how many years have they learned this foreign language
- how long should the project last, - has the participant got a partner yet
3) the e-mail address which is used constantly during the project
In addition, it would be important to know if the teacher has any experience of partner projects so far. All wishes and proposals of participants and of their partners are welcome, of course.

When do projects start in the practice?

Collaboration is started and planned before and during the first seminar. Projects should be started from the first seminar on.

Who are contact persons?

Contact persons in organizational matters are Tea Rasi (tea.rasi@opeko.fi)tel. +358-3-2543624 and Liisa Löfman (liisa.lofman@opeko.fi ) tel. +358-3-254 3619, and in content matters Ilpo Halonen (ilpo@ilpohalonen.com ) tel. +358503460015 .

What should the participants know before the course?

The most common ways to use computers in schools
Text editing
Browsing in the Internet
Basic properties of e-mail

If you have experience about partner projects before

Teachers who have made partner projects before can attend to this course, and they should be ready to occasionally assist others during the course. The course is useful for them also supposing they do not yet know the eJournal, the new innovative Internet tool which is used in this course. Foreign colleagues who commit to be project partners are mostly experienced persons in project making, and one can learn many new things also from them.

Where can I find more information?

The first course Learn Internet Projects by Doing (LIP) was performed in cooperation od the National Teacher-in-Service Training Center OPEKO, the European Schools Project (ESP) and COMPACT, the Comenius 3 -network. It took place in Tampere from November 2002 to March 2003. Participants were 21 Finnish language teachers. LIP projects were made in 13 different countries. Hundreds of pupil articles were written and published in 10 eJournals where the participants worked in teams. There is more information about the results of this course in http://lip.eduprojects.net .

What kind of projects in the Internet?

Ideally, projects are tailored up to the need of partners. If the learner groups are beginners or not advanced in a foreign language, projects can follow the format of The Image/Das Bild/L`Image , developed by the European Schools Project. Relatively similar learner groups of the same foreign language collaborate in the Internet to advance their language skills, their cultural knowledge and their technological know-how. In case of more advanced learners other project models are adopted in collaboration. Other possible formats are e.g. IWE, (Tandem), WebQuests, Threaded Discussions, MUD/MOO/MUSH, Active Worlds and Webzine (e-magazine).
Partners may decide to enter some project platform of an international virtual community who organizes partner projects such as European Schoolnet, MyEurope, European Schools Project, IEARN , Kidlink and Dafnord (German language). All of these virtual communities also have partner exchange sites where to find more partners for collaboration. If you wish to check the sites in the web, you will find them easily by using a search engine.

What kind of tasks is the foreign partner responsible for?

Projects will start 6th-7th October 2003, and if partners agree, they can continue practically for the whole school-year to perform the project. Partners should be able to foresee how much working time it takes to carry out the project they have agreed on, so that there is enough time for project activities, such as informing the own educational institution about the project, discussing the project with the partners, discussing the project in the learner group, making the project materials with the learner group, publishing the articles in the eJournal, commenting on the articles of others, discussing the outcomes in the learner group, asking for help and getting instructions from the course leader etc.

Can I do my very personal project?

Of course. Individual Internet projects can be designed, up to the skills level of the participant, in cooperation with the course leader and the project partner.

How are the projects present in the Internet?

The participants are advised to work in the eJournal, the innovative and user-friendly virtual environment e.g. for partner projects. It enables both making and editing of project results and also publishing them in the Internet. Other ways of publishing material in the web can also be taken into use.

What advantage do the foreign partners have from the course?

The foreign colleagues are teachers who are interested in eLearning. Cooperation in the framework of this course offers them more than just standard projects. They learn some more about supervising eLearning and about e-moderating networked collaboration. They get all advice and instructions given to the participants. The foreign partners also get instructions about the technique of the eJournal, and they can even take part in publishing project results if they have time and motivation to learn it by remote access.

How about foreign languages which are rare in Finnish schools?

We try to find ways to offer this course to all language teachers in this country, not depending on their teaching language .

What kind of results are expected?

The evaluation of the course is based on the fact that participants should be encouraged to be networked and organized with their domestic and foreign colleagues, so as to collaborate with them. Completing the course, all participants should be more competent in their Internet skills than before. And they should be better motivated to carry out partner projects in the Internet also in future.

Where to sign up?

Foreign partners send their messages to the address lip@ilpohalonen.com . If there was a national coordinator of some virtual community who sent information about this course to you, it would be O.K. to send your mail also to him or her. This does not cause any extra work as you can send the same information as a copy to your national colleague.

What information is needed?

The foreign partners will get the facts about the Finnish participants in WWW as soon as possible. After that partner contacts can be organized. There will be a variety of language teachers in the Finnish group, mostly teachers of English, German, Swedish, French or Russian. The Finnish participants will tell me in what language they want to perform their project, at what level of language skills their learners are, how old the learners are and what is the size of the learner group. After getting to know this foreign partners can choose who they wish to collaborate with.

Can foreign partners get an official certificate about participation?

Yes, the certificate will prove that they have performed the collaborative project together with their Finnish partners in the Internet.