Interschool collaboration with NetMeeting

Several content areas are included, choose your strand and follow the a, b or c sections.

Teacher Prep!!!! You must first contact a classroom someplace outside of your school. You should also install (optional) the digital camera and check the functioning of your microphone.

Equipment: An internet connected windows computer (at least 133mhz Pentium). Microsoft NetMeeting version 2.1 or higher
A dedicated ILS server (contact cobitz@ncat.edu for the address)
a) graphing software
b) graphing software
c) word processing software

Activities: Allow the students one class period to acquaint themselves with with the students in the other school. Divide the class into teams of two or three students. Each team should thus be paired with a similarly sized team in the other school.

a) each team should measure the angle of the sun to the earth using published procedures from earth science texts. They should record the time they make the readings. While conferencing, the students should add their data to a shared spreadsheet application. After the students develop a chart showing the angle of the sun over the course of a day, the teacher should mention the concepts of Greenwich mean time and time zones. Have the students adjust their readings and view the modified graph.

b) each team should track the weather and temperature for two weeks. They should then enter their data into a spreadsheet and produce a series of charts showing the precipitation, temperature and cloud cover for the period. This works particularly well if more than two schools collaborate.

c) students should write a story about their town. Then collaborate through NetMeeting to share their stories with the students in the other school. The students will critique each other's work. Finally, each student should write about the other town. Then they should again share their stories.

Assessment:

a) students should write a paper explaining their findings and the meaning of time zones.

b) students should write a paper explaining their findings and the variances in weather via distances.

c) student writings will be scored for content and style.