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Greetings from the Laurel School District in Laurel, Delaware, USA. I want to personally thank all of you for participating in the Through Our Eyes project. This is the second year that I have moderated this project, and it has grown in size from 14 participating schools to 34. I hope that you enjoy participating and that your classes benefit from the experience. I began this project last year when I was assigned to teach a 9th grade English class. Since the students were old enough to be helpful, I gave them the job of editors, and they did the desktop publishing of the final hardcopy magazine. Of course they also completed a descriptive essay. The project was successful, but since it was my first time conducting a collaborative project on the Internet, I felt that there were things that could be improved. This year I am on half time sabbatical leave and am getting a masters degree in Instructional Technology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Since I do not have any classes of my own this school year, I visit an eighth grade English class in Laurel Middle School once a week and involve them in the activities. My graduate project at the university is the Through Our Eyes project; specifically I am examining ways to improve it. Research on the use of the Internet for collaboration shows that students are much more motivated to write and are more careful and thoughtful writers when they are writing for an Internet audience. I know that this is true for my students. Research on the best ways to moderate collaborative projects on the Internet, however, is scant. With your help, perhaps we can create some guidelines for other teachers, as they create projects that tie in with their curricula. I hope that you have found these web pages helpful. They are my attempt to keep the group informed, to motivate participants to complete all parts of the project, and to increase the size of our audience. I welcome your comments about this project. Please send any comments to my e-mail address - rroyer@shore.intercom.net.
Regina Royer Laurel School District Laurel, Delaware, USA
