There are almost 300 members of this group and relatively few posts, none of which seem to be about viable projects. Reading about technology is a start but the real test is to actually use it. I would like to suggest several practical projects for your classes and I and want to provide resources and support to help you carry them out. I work with the Enabling Support Foundation, a non-profit organization with dual missions to support persons with disabilities and to make things clear from the beginning ESF does not charge for its services. You can visit us at the main site at
www.enabling.org and the K-12 resource site at
www.educationalsynthesis.org.
I want to talk about two resources that are available at no charge that can be used in a variety of ways. One is rather specific to World War II and is located at
www.timewitnesses.org. It consists of a treasury of first person accounts of the war from people in Europe and the Pacfic who actually experienced the war in their daily lives. Obviously, this can be used to teach the human side of history and give a perspective that is not available in textbooks. It can also be used as a source of autobiographical information that could serve as models in a creative writing course.
The second is actually a series of related resources that are appropriate for course in ancient civilizations, art, and literature. They consist of an online course in ancient civilizations, a website exploring the art and culture of these ancient civilizations, and 200 urls pointing to the mythology of 20 different cultures throughout the world. These resources can be used to explore history culture and literature. One interesting example is to compare Inuit, Lakota, Maori, Polynesian, and Australian aboriginal myths. From a genetic and geographical perspective you might suspect a similarity between Inuit and Lakota and between Maori and Polynesian. But are they similar to one another? Are the aboriginal stories totally different. Are there common themes?
How can ESF help? We can provide support in the form of expertise, web hosting, forums, and mailing list services. We can coordinate among various classes that are working on similar projects and provide online classrooms and chatrooms.
During the next few days I expect other members of ESF will post other project topics. There are never any strings attached. We are providing these services because that is what we do.