Below are some tips to help you make the most of your online collaborative project work:

• Try to create a globally aware classroom/school environment. The collaborative, community nature of iEARN may provide a very different online experience to those young people who are used to "anonymous" correspondences on the web. Having systems for students to better understand the interconnectedness of the world will make their online collaboration with global peers much richer. E-mail messages come to life through maps, and a basic understanding about the background and culture of their online peers.

• Create a system for peer-editing in your class. Preparation and transmission should be seen as two different tasks. Preparing the message, researching and creating material to be transmitted, is a very important part of the whole process. Students will be writing with real purpose for a very real audience. The presence of this audience provides an incentive for students to produce the most effective communication possible. Consider creating a feedback process where students have the opportunity to comment on each others work, peer edit, and then revise accordingly.

• Communicate. Even if you can't contribute for weeks, send a note to say so. That way, your partners know that you are still interested in participating.

• Ensure language is cross-cultural. How much of what is being sent needs explanation or description for an audience from a different culture? Slang or colloquial language needs to be used carefully. Translating student writing into a context that is most universally understandable can open interesting discussions in your classroom.

Rubric for Responding to iEARN Project Forum Postings
By Kristi Rennebohm Franz
July 2004

Thoughtful responses to the postings of global peers can generate ongoing dialogue about important project topics, issues and actions. The following rubric can be helpful in preparing and posting responses:

1. Thank and compliment the author of the posting for contributing to the iEARN project dialogue

2. Comment on the content presented in the posting – topic(s) addressed, important insights, ideas, reflections, experiences, perspectives, concerns, needs addressed in posting, etc. - and the contributions the posting makes to the project, including how the posting builds understanding of important project topics

3. Make connections of commonalities and diversities between the content of the posting and your own experiences, ideas, insights, perspectives, reflections, etc.

4. Contribute reflections, ideas, perspectives on how the posting and the dialogue being generated in the forum leads to actions in the project that make positive differences in local to global communities

5. Ask thoughtful questions of inquiry to extend the dialogue with the author of the posting and all project participants, for example:

• ask questions for further clarification
• ask for more information, ideas to extend understandings
• invite continued conversation with acknowledgement of the contribution ongoing dialogue makes to the project purposes
• ask about positive actions that could be taken with ideas, reflections, experiences, concerns, shared in the posting
• offer support, collaboration and questions on how support can be provided for issues/actions addressed in the posting