December 1996 — Features

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A Telecommunications-Infused Community Action Project

Thomas March, San Diego State U., and Jessica Puma, Century HS, Santa Ana, CA

In building Web sites, students performed such technology tasks as writing HTML code, producing videoconferences, writing content for Web pages and designing their layout. They also maintained a multi-leveled communication flow with their nonprofits. Tasks not able to be completed by the core teams, such as advanced computer graphics, were sub-contracted to students at Watauga High School in Boone, N.C. 

One goal of the Prophets project was to test whether telecommunications technologies and a compelling learning situation could provide win-win partnerships between students and communities spanning California. A more fundamental goal was to model and foster in students some of humanity's most admirable traits: caring, having confidence in yourself and your ideas, and making a contribution to the world. A quick look at the results of an exit survey taken by the students who participated in Nonprofit Prophets suggests both of these goals were achieved.

Insights from the Classroom 

Managing a technology-infused project is often a daunting challenge for teachers. One main problem is too few computers and too many students. One solution is to form collaborative groups defined by technology tasks. Participation in Nonprofit Prophets required regular use of at least video teleconferencing and Web publishing with HTML. The former required a computer enhanced for videoconferencing and an ISDN phone line. For the latter, writing HTML could be effectively done off-line with a text editor as long as a Web browser was available to test the pages. 

Because she piloted the project with very limited access to the Internet and still wanted all students to be involved in a technology task, Century High teacher Jessica Puma invited students to become experts in one of five areas: producing videoconferences; writing HTML and corresponding through e-mail; taking photos; faxing; and communicating via traditional mail/telephone and running photocopies. Group selections were based on student interest and worked extremely well in all cases except one. 

The key to successful groups is to create situations where each group knows that without the work that only they could produce, the class as a whole will fail to reach its final goal. Working with actual nonprofit organizations created this kind of interdependence. 

The next major step involved training. An individual teacher could not hope to be the sole trainer and stay sane. Fortunately, the Nonprofit Prophets' home page has an array of links to Web pages grouped by a variety of technology tasks. Another good resource is a series of training sessions by videoconferencing.