It has been quite an experience to assist our students with their first web research project. Students have had the opportunity to learn or improve their web browsing techniques and word processing skills. We all learned how to research using the Electric Library, something new at our school. Students were enthusiastic about learning the scanning and web page-building software. We just needed much more time! I hope that you read and use these pages with enjoyment.
They will continue to build their skills, gaining speed and being able to develop more aesthetic pages, as they continue the EarthWeb project in their other classes. As a teacher, I will miss being a part of that growth. I am eager to see their future pages and to evaluate the growth in their understanding of the technology and software applications.
One aspect of the project that I had not prepared myself for was the difficult task of editing. It was very different from "grading". It was difficult to decide how much correcting was a normal part of editing and not feel like I was taking away the students' ownership of their own papers. I hope that those who read these pages will do so with the understanding that they have been written by enthusiastic seventh grade students that are primarily novices at research and to the Internet. If you see glaring errors in the accuracy or the mechanics of their work and feel they should not be left uncorrected, please contact me at the address below.
Trish Smith
ts@socket.net