East Hills Elementary 1994-95 Action Plan

East Hills Action Plan

PROJECT SUMMARY:
	A team of East Hills International Studies Academy 
Teachers of various subjects and grade levels proposes to 
develop and implement curriculum projects that use network 
resources to extend current classroom activities. One goal is 
to enrich the international focus of the school's curriculum.  
The second goal is to use the technology to further involve 
students in academic tasks, with special emphasis on under-
achieving students.

CURRICULUM PROJECTS & THEIR IMPLEMENTATION:
1. Students and teachers will do research on the network to 
enhance classroom units in the areas of language arts, 
geography/history, library sciences and visual arts.  
	a. Second graders will use information banks to view 
works of art along with their study of the lives and styles 
of a variety of well-known artists/illustrators. Ms. Bedo and 
Ms. O'Neill will use computers in room 308 and the library 
during reading, language arts, and library periods with 
students who do not go to EGP, but are in Bedo's accelerated 
reading group.  After/during receiving background information   
students will use Mosaic and Gopher to search for examples of 
the work of famous artists/illustrators .  Using these 
examples students will compare styles, subject matter, 
cultural and historic context.  Students will list important 
facts about each artist and write a summary of what they 
learned. In addition, each child will "get into" a favorite 
work of art and write an imaginative story.

	b.  Third graders will use the Heartwood Program as a 
basis for network exploration.  After reading Heartwood 
stories teams of children in Mrs. Fast's language arts 
classes will develop questions to compare current lifestyles 
with those depicted in the stories.  The student teams will 
send their questions via electronic mail (?) and newsgroups 
to contacts in the countries depicted in the stories.  
Initially one group of students will be taught how to access 
the network for this project.  Each child in this group will 
teach another child. We will continue in this manner until 
every child can access the network.

	c.  As preparation for learning an authentic folktale 
from a French-speaking African country, fourth and fifth 
graders will use email(?), gopher, newsgroups, and Mosaic to 
search for information about the country of the folktale's 
origin. In reading and French classes Ms. Beavers, Ms. 
Mullooly, Ms. O'Neill will identify research teams of fourth 
and fifth graders.  These teams will use email and newsgroups 
to identify contacts in each country and to pose questions 
seeking specific information that will enable students to 
develop "travel brochures." 

2. Using electronic mail and/or newsgroups third, fourth, and 
fifth graders will go beyond current math/science measuring 
activities by collecting, comparing, and disseminating data 
describing students in schools around the world.
In Ms. Bey's science class during their third grade measuring 
unit students will collect and record data about their 
individual heights, weights, arm lengths, hand spans, bicep 
circumference, foot length, arm span, forearm length, smile, 
neck circumference, and waist. Students will calculate class 
averages for these measurements.  Students will frame a 
request for similar data from classes around the world.  In 
math and science class the children will graph the data to 
make comparisons. 
	In Ms. Fineman's science classes fourth and fifth 
graders will measure their own heights and weights. Students 
will record this data in a spreadsheet and calculate class 
averages.  The data will be posted to Kidsphere along with a 
request for similar data from classes around the world.  In 
math and science class students will compare the data 
collected from the Internet with their own.
	All the data collected and student findings will be made 
available on the network via Mosaic, Kidsphere, or some other 
vehicle to be determined.  The model for this project is the 
solstice data project done twice on Kidsphere during the past 
few years.

EVALUATION:
1. 25% of the students in each project class will use 
Internet resources to complete tasks. 
2.  Students will use Internet resources to interact with 
people in French-speaking countries to enhance their multi-
disciplinary research projects.
3.  Students will keep a portfolio of:
	a. a log that records and reflects on their experiences 
using the Internet.
	b. records of any data or information collected.
	c.  a project plan that states their objective and 
outlines (checklist) their plan for achieving it.  

SUPPORT PLAN:
	During first report period we will need assistance with 
learning to use the new machines and network.  We will also 
need help in finding appropriate Internet resources to start 
our projects with students.  We plan to meet as a project 
team each Monday at 8:15 - 9:00 AM.  We would like a CKP 
person to come to that meeting and to help individual 
teachers in the building for as much additional time as 
possible, on Monday and one other day later in the week.
	We need technical advice about the feasibility and 
desirability of setting up student accounts.
	We would like to have students from Westinghouse and/or 
Schenley H.S. come to help our students navigate the 
Internet.  
	Once the students are on-line, we will need SPEEDY 
answers for any difficulties which arise.  
	For Open House (Oct. 18) we suggest a computerized or 
video presentation about CK:P, to be devised by the CK:P 
staff, for our school's parents.
	We need any and all documentation available for login, 
"surfing", downloading, posting, searching, and exiting 
Internet applications.   We need the same for networked 
computers and the DOS/Windows environment.