Research Division

PROJECT TITLE:

PEDAGOGICAL EVALUATION OF THE "Who-Am-I? PROGRAM"

Motivation

The Kidlink Who-Am-I ? online program's activities are means to achieve the following educational goals:

• language arts, writing (the writing process with step by step support),

• research (finding information, evaluating it, using it, use of books, electronic media, searching skills/strategies, evaluating results, documenting results),

• social studies (latitude and longitude/time zones, world cultures, current events),

• history,

• geography,

• economics (currencies around the world – description and history),

• mathematics (problem solving, applying topics to real world situations),

• science (scientific methods, exploring and experimenting, environment),

• the arts (music, drawing, painting), and

• current awareness,

• in adition to personal development, Internet networking skills, Information and Communications Technology skills and other skills needed in modern society.

The program will assist teachers in enhancing their existing curricula and will run separately in each language area.

The Need for a Program Evaluation.

Experience has shown that Kidlink driven activities lead to a wealth of educational results. Nevertheless, to the present date only few systematic research projects [1, 2] have been conducted about Kidlink’s approach to education. The "Who-Am-I?" program provides a unique opportunity for carrying out a thorough evaluation of Kidlink educational premisses.
Evaluation could be carried out per language covering the corresponding national educational system. The evaluation can take into consideration, for instance, all the claims made by Kidlink in their proposal to Ministries of Education. The following are examples of the claims to be evaluated (other examples have been mentioned in section 1 above):

• Kidlink helps teachers enhance their existing curricula;
• Kidlink allows teachers to work together with Kidlink specialists as active elements of the educational process;
• Kidlink helps youth with physical or psychological disadvantages or differences;
• Kidlink helps protect participating languages and cultures and may motivate collaboration between students in Europe by sharing cultural information thus building friendship across the continent;

Each one of the premisses above should be an object of the research during and after the execution of the "Who-Am-I?" program.

Research Organization and Costs

The research should be carried out through the participation of researchers from Kidlink Institute/Research together with researchers from a particular country. In each country’s case, the research project would be preceded by a feasibility study that would define the methodology, the team organization and the costs of the project.
The feasibility study would typically last two and a half months and would involve many face-to-face and virtual meetings and the preparation of a detailed research plan and budget. The typical total cost of the feasibility study is US$ 40,000.00. This includes work done by local researchers (about fifty percent of the feasibility study effort).
For more information, please contact Dr. Marisa Lucena of Kidlink Institute/Research.

References

[1] Marisa Lucena, Brazil, 1997. Doctoral Thesis on Kidlink: "A Model of an Open School on the Internet", Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

[2] Nini Ebeltoft, Norway, 1997. Thesis in Educational Science at the Institute of Educational Research, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo. Title: Everywhere and Nowhere: Social Interaction on a Global Network for Young People".

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