John Eklund Access Co-operative Multimedia Centre j.eklund@accesscmc.com
Clark N. Quinn Knowledge Universe Interactive Studio cnquinn@knowledgeu.com
Collaboration, Effectiveness, World Wide Web
The Australian Schools Web Challenge [HREF1] is a national annual event open to school students from Primary to upper Secondary level. It is organised by Access Co-operative Multimedia Centre [HREF2], which is a consortium of leading NSW educational institutions, multimedia developers and corporations. The Challenge asks students to form teams with a teacher as adviser to create a website about a designated topic, which in 1999 is 'Great Celebrations'. In this paper, we focus on outcomes of the 1998 challenge and report our methodology for an empirical study which aims to be the first well-documented examination of the benefits of using global projects in Australian Primary and Secondary classrooms. The schools web challenge is a motivating vehicle through which a variety of learning outcomes may be realised in both Primary and Secondary Australian Schools. It is based on project approaches to learning with technology with a focus on collaboration. As a large co-ordinated global project, it provides a platform to study the effectiveness of the integration of new technologies into classrooms to promote collaboration. This paper will introduce the project to the academic literature and outline both the theoretical basis for implementing global projects in general and for the schools web challenge in particular. We also provide an outline for the methodology of our research into learning through collaborative uses of technology.