Some practical suggestions for teachers and students collaborating internationally on the WWW

• Get to know more about the people you are collaborating with. Use e-mails for introductions and getting to know each other
• Learn some phrases in the languages of your partner schools
• Locate the countries and regions on the map: http://www.nationalgeographic.com is one of the websites that you can use for this purpose
• Learn a little about the culture of your collaboration partners
• Get to know a little about politics and current news in each other's countries
• Find out which religion(s) are prevailing in different countries in the project
• Are you in the same time zone? You may use http://www.worldtimezone.com to find out
• Schedule the frequency of communication
• Plan the type of communication software: take into consideration each other's technical recourses 
• Consider establishing peer editing and feedback processes in the classroom: for the students to reflect on the communication and be critical friends to one another
• Consider establishing international editorial board of students: to jointly plan, edit and prepare contents to be published on the web site
• Celebrate differences, similarities and interconnectedness between cultures
• Enjoy!

 

 

A few issues to consider together with students when publishing on the web

 

• School ICT safety-policy regarding publishing photos of students;
• Consent by photographed people to publish their photo on the web;
• Proper citation of sources of information used for the contents you plan to publish;
• Copyright issues with regard to using contents (information, photographs, pictures) from other websites. In most cases it is enough to ask for permission.

 

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The purpose of these considerations should be educational rather than inhibiting/controling