Project Narrative and Information About Our Site

This project ran in our school during September 1999- April 2000. 127 students were involved, 7-15 years of age.

Project Overview

Problems We Had To Overcome: There were a lot of technical problems during the project work. We asked some people from our community to help us to scan the drawings and pictures, to test the midi files or to use adequate software for images such as PhotoShop. Thanks to Est Computer Company and LUFO Center we were able to design our web project page. Also, Valahus Company provided us a double computer dictionary Romanian- English.

Our Project Sound Bite: Children involved in the project created bridges between past and present in which each of them reflects his inner connections with the world, and events coming from outside. In this way they learnt to build a future in which we can live safely and communicate regardless of our differences.

Project Elements

The students interviewed relatives or other adults in our community about how they take part in some traditions in our region. They ask questions about the specific ways in preserving them. Then students by the help of the teachers described the folk customs, traditions or festivals celebrated by their parents, grandparents, or relatives. In the next step of the project the students illustrated the web page of the project with drawings, photos, computer graphics and midi music files representing Romanian authentic music. In this way children learnt to use adequate soft to publish their work on the web.

The quantity and difficulty of evaluating and processing information in this "age of information" makes people value traditional and oral knowledge more. We hope to show how the new technologies and Internet can be used as a tool through which this authentic, first hand oral information can be shared internationally and easily publicised.

The cross-curricular theme involved oral representation and stimulus as well as documents studied in History, Geography, Languages, Literature, Arts and Music.

The project included regional research, interviews, photographs, reports, linguistic adaptation of the documents, selection of literary texts, historical and cultural studies, traditional reports, artistic studies, creative writing, HTML programming, dealing with electronic pictures, organisation of displays and exhibitions.

Hardware

PC Computers
Clasic cameras
Scanner

Software

Adobe Photoshop
Netscape Communicator
Sound Impression
Valahus Romanian- English Dictionary
WordPad

The technologies and tools helped us to edit the texts, to create the midi files and to include the pictures. The texts and links were easier incorporated using Netscape Composer, the favourite HTML editor of the students. The interviews were summarized in Romanian and then they were translated into English. The results of the interviews were compared with some articles from the custom books in our library. We realized that students discovered new specific ways to celebrate the festivals and traditions by their interviews.

We consider that the most valuable tool was our work, because the project combines authentic language learning with the humanitarian concept of cultural understanding. This way is a unique learning process, which encourages strong links between the virtual and real classrooms. The project encouraged us to find creative ways of our expressing as uniqueness as individuals in a classroom, as a classroom in a school and a school within a cultural community. We were stimulated to express our respect, affection and love to our family, teachers and friends. We were also encouraged to actively contribute to project rather than passively the net. The focus was to develop quality works culminating in virtual site.

Our community represented by parents, teachers, friends and others has been our main support during the project stages. Most of them didn't never visit a web page or they didn't know how looks it as a electronic publication.

We organized a meeting in our school with all of them, where we presented our work, opening the web page from our computer, before it will be posted on the web. They all were very impressed by the new technology, pictures, artwork and songs. We were very impressed especially by our grandparents, they were really happy to see our work on the computer.

The technology of information is a very powerful tool of teaching. We learnt that our goals in life are to be open for new ideas, coming from the school, families or friends. But more important is to find strategies to support them. The power of the Internet is in its human connective potential. By connecting us as global citizens and local community members, we learn better. We believe in this philosophy and believe children and community can make a difference in the world.

Through this project we had the opportunity to prepare for adult life through meaningful collaborative interaction with any member of our community. We are sure that the learning will be enhanced and retained when it is gained through experiential interaction with real people, learning together on a reciprocal basis. The Information Technology is the new way for teaching in the new millennium, according to the teaching and educational reform in the world.

This project is the result of our work during 8 months, September 1999- April 2000. 127 students and 10 teachers were directly involved, but we would like to recognize the many people whose contributions have helped to make this project: teachers, parents, grandparents, friends and other community members. We all thank you!

Special Thanks to: Irina Chirita, Constanţa Nedelcu, Dan Roşioru, Dorin Antonache, Fănel Lipan, George Hrubaru, Georgeta Dan, Ion Bobia, Monica Antonache, Monica Chiriţă, Rafael Badia, Stela Sebe, Tiberiu Dima, and Zoica Dumitru.