The Whalesong Project

 

Atkinson, E. Atkinson, J. The Global Classroom Project. Two Year Evaluation Study 1995-1996 (96.03)

The two year Global Classroom Telecommunications Project which commenced in 1995 was available to all schools in the State of Victoria, Australia, through a selection process.

It was developed as a joint initiative of the Directorate of School Education (now the Department of Education) and the Whalesong Foundation.

The Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation formed by a group of Victorian teachers dedicated to the concept of cooperative teaching and learning on a global scale, making use of the Internet. Whalesong (an imaginative title based on theories of whales around the world being able to communicate with each other by 'songs' transmitted through the oceans over great distances) was established in 1994 and became a member of the International Education and Resource Network (I*EARN).

The Constitution of I*EARN, also a non-profit organisation, and with headquarters in New York, describes its mission thus: The vision and purpose of the International Education and Resource Network is to enable young people to undertake projects designed to make a meaningful contribution to the health and welfare of the planet and its people.

The I*EARN philosophy emphasises world-wide collaborative learning through active engagement of young people in purposeful projects designed to achieve observable social and/or environmental outcomes and utilising the widest possible range of interactive technologies. I*EARN focuses on working through primary and secondary schools as well as a range of youth-service organisations.

Over 1500 schools in more than 30 countries are now I*EARN participants.

In 1994 the Whalesong Foundation, with the cooperation of Broadford Secondary College, set up the I*EARN Australia Centre at that school. The report of the Victorian Government Working Party on the Use of Technology as an Education and Communications Facility in Schools, handed down in 1994, was the trigger for an approach by Whalesong to the Directorate of School Education.

The Working Party Report took the position that the key to more successful implementation of Information Technology in Schools lay in directing attention to 'the human dimension'. It proposed that the issue "be addressed through structured professional development programs based on information technology and an understanding of such matters as learning, change and the factors that affect school culture."

Convinced that the Working Party specifications could be ideally met through the adoption of the I*EARN model, the Whalesong Foundation developed a proposal for a two year state-wide telecommunications project. In November 1994, the Victorian Directorate of School Education agreed to support the proposal and the pilot Global Classroom Telecommunications Project was born. Each year an agreement was negotiated between the two parties.

The stated goals of the Project were to:

• enhance student learning utilising telecommunications technology

• assist Victorian teachers in the assessment and application of telecommunications technologies in schools
• expose Victorian teachers and students to the I*EARN collaborative theme-based project model
• support and develop student generated projects which make a meaningful contribution to the health and welfare of the planet and its peoples
• determine the impact of the use of telecommunications technology "in context" on teaching methodologies, student learning and school curriculum design.

The Project was conceived in four phases, initially involving schools already having relevant experience, expertise and/or resources for effective participation and then utilising an evolving network of both centralised and locally-based professional development and support to progressively engage more schools, teachers and students in the Project.

It was planned that 100 schools would be involved in 1995 (Phases 1 and 2) and a further 200 schools (i.e. 300 in all) by Phase 4, in the latter half of 1996.

In Phases 1 and 2 the Whalesong co-directors, Bill Coppinger and Andrew Hocking, provided both training and support to all the schools involved. Selected students and/or parents, as well as teachers, sometimes took part in the training sessions, which were conducted at Broadford Secondary College for schools in reasonable proximity, in Melbourne or, in other cases, in the trainee school itself.

In Phases 3 and 4 (beginning Terms 2 and 3, 1996, respectively) training was provided by I*EARN mentors (chosen from those teachers who were already successfully involved in the Project, and who had completed the Internet Training Program offered by the Department of Education in February 1996 in conjunction with the Computing in Education Group of Victoria (CEGV)). Where that was not possible, teachers could attend training sessions offered by other Department of Education Internet trainers. Fifteen I*EARN mentors (among them the trainers and the Whalesong co-directors) were designated to provide support in 1996.

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