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The setting has already been made clear in the introduction. We will now take a closer look onto the project and try to set up some guidelines concerning the timing but also the content. We will define clear aims and the possible steps to reach them.
In the first part of this paper, the theoretical background, we have mainly focused on the role of education on the internet and the opportunities it offers for autonomous learners. The project, however, is aimed at making a first contact with the internet possible for the target group and, moreover, at advising pupils how to deal with information from the internet. Most of the pupils nowadays have been to the internet at least once and have a certain idea of it. The most visited homepages, however, are entertaining ones related to games, to chatrooms (on-line discussions) and to music, especially dealing with the new internet-standard for music, Mp3. If homepages of that kind promise more than they contain that may be annoying for the user but it does not constitute a big problem because nothing hinges on whether the wanted data can be found or not. It is all for entertainment and there are hundreds of similar pages available.
In our project, pupils should learn to look at the internet in a more professional, in a more systematic way. Like already described in 3.2 "The autonomous learner and the internet", students should experience themselves how to best look for information and how to find out of what value this information is for them. The topic of the project which limits it contentwise, is the presentation of schools on the internet. While other groups of the school-project "Global Classroom" look at different aspects of school relations and education in other countries, we should be concerned with the way schools present themselves on the internet and afterwards lay the foundations of our own homepage. Speaking of language competence, this is broadened by analysing British homepages and by formulating English texts for their own one.
In the centre of day one is getting in contact with the internet and looking at various existing homepages. Criteria according to which we can assess webpages should be found and an impression of the opportunities and the limits of the internet should be gained. In the centre of day two stands the creative aspect. Now, pupils are asked to inform themselves about how to set up a homepage and try to do their own one.
In the beginning, when the knowledge of the participating pupils concerning the internet has to be levelled, the project has to be controlled by the teacher in a far greater extend than later on when the students are in the creation process. It is, of course, easier to describe those parts of the project which are in charge of the teacher than those which are more autonomous. The imagination of the reader, however, should contribute to getting a more lively picture of the project and its results.
4.1 The basics
Day one, 9.00 to ~11.00
To familiarise the students with the internet, we do not yet let them form workgroups but talk to all of them in the beginning. They all have a computer with internet access at their disposal. At first, the teacher shortly informs the pupils about the history and the character of the internet. Suggestions for this introduction can be found in the theoretical part of this paper. It should be rather practical orientated and should cover the basic techniques of navigation in the net.
Then all the students are given the address https://www.yahoo.com, an easy search engine. Now they are asked to think of any topic which is of interest for them and to see how many homepages and how much information they can find on the internet. The pupils have enough time to visit a number of homepages to be able to come up with a list of the five best sites according to their view. Some students may shortly present what they have found out and may talk about the way they got to the information.
Experienced students will find relevant data quite easy whereas beginners will definitely have some problems which they should articulate in the course of the discussion. The teacher or other pupils can help and clear basic problems quite easily. It is also possible to show how to use a search engine most effectively on the basis of an example. It is neither possible to give a more detailed description nor an exact time-span for this part of the project since here, students should be made "fit" for the internet so that they can carry out easy tasks on their own. Pupils learn quite easy at that age, especially when it comes to new media, a topic which is of interest for most of the young people. It depends on the knowledge and the experience of the pupils how long this part lasts. Timelines, therefore, can only be a rough structure in a project.
4.2 The topic
Day one, ~11.00 to ~12.00
When everyone is familiar with the basic structure of the internet, the topic is introduced to the students. Their surfing is no longer dedicated to find information on a self-chosen subject but on a specific project-related one.
Tasksheet 1 is handed out to the students and they are asked to fulfil its tasks. Again, experienced students will do easier than beginners. You cannot expect them to understand and to be able to navigate in the internet within an hour. Therefore pupils are asked to help each other and also the teacher should wander around the computer lab giving hints and answering questions.
When they have finished, it is time for a break after three hours in front of a computer screen. Naturally, little breaks during the working process are possible and desirable. Nevertheless, a longer break is absolutely necessary for the pupils to let go of the topic.
Day one, ~12.30 to ~13.30
After the break, tasksheet 2 is handed out to the students.
Firstly, they can find a number of suggested links to the categories of homepages they were asked to find before. The given webpages are good-quality ones and reliable. They should be used by the students as an aid throughout the project. Yet, the pupils are of course invited to use any additional aid they can find on the net. In case of doubt whether the found webpages are of good quality or not, the teacher can help.
Secondly, there are a number of questions on tasksheet 2. These questions should function as first guidelines for the pupils of what they could pay attention to when looking at homepages. They are a good preparation for setting up criteria to assess webpages, which is the day's aim. The students are now asked to find five webpages of Austrian schools and five ones of British schools which they like or dislike. They should be able to briefly present some pages to the class and say why they like them or not. For this argumentation, the questions on tasksheet 2 can be very helpful.
Day one, ~13.30 to ~14.30
Now it is time to discuss some well-made and also some not so well-made webpages in class. Before it is the students' turn, the teacher briefly presents a few examples.
A very nice homepage of an Austrian school is the one of the BG/BRG Kirchengasse in Graz (https://www.kirchengasse.asn-graz.ac.at). Here we can see that not only traditional elite schools like the Theresianum produce good sites, but also other grammar schools like this. The homepage comes up quite fast but nevertheless offers a very well made index-page from which all the sections can be reached easily. A button on the upper-left corner, which can be found on every page, makes it easy to get back to this index-page immediately. The design of the whole homepage is unobtrusive and clear and it leads through the whole webpage like a red thread. It very well reflects the structure of the page and in a way also the school's attitude - clarity. As the date shows, the page is updated regularly, a feature which is very important in the internet. Pretending, we were prospective parents who want to inform themselves about the school, let us now proceed to the types of school offered at the BG/BRG Kirchengasse. What we find on https://www.kirchengasse.asn-graz.ac.at/schulformen.html is not overloaded with unnecessary pictures but gives very briefly all the needed information. Also the school's guiding principle is presented in that way on https://www.kirchengasse.asn-graz.ac.at/leitbild.html. Very useful links are the map showing how to best get to the school (https://www.kirchengasse.asn-graz.ac.at/lage.html) or the school's webbased mailservice offering free email to students and staff which can be checked all over the world (https://www.kirchengasse.asn-graz.ac.at/mailman/mailman.cgi). This is a fantastic site offering a lot of information and service in a pleasing design.
Quite the contrary applies to the homepage of the ORG der Schwestern vom Göttlichen Erlöser Eisenstadt (https://www.bnet.co.at/theres/index.htm). The problem here is that there is obviously nobody who is responsible for it. The production of a homepage was the aim of a project in 1996 and since then only once in 1997 it has been updated and changed. If a homepage is designed, especially if it is the product of a project, it must be assured that there is a group of people who take care of updating it regularly. Otherwise, the nature of the internet, namely topicality, is ridiculed. It is a shame since this school seems to be quite modern and future-orientated. To dedicate a project to the internet and to producing a homepage in 1996 is rather remarkable. Offering outdated information, however, is not the only problem of this school's webpage. Let us take a closer look on the index-page. Here, we neither find a clear menu reflecting the structure of the page and leading us through, nor any link to the school's email-address. The design is boring, the elements are badly arranged and it is no pleasure surfing this site. Pretending again to be prospective parents, we proceed to the page of one of the school-types, the Höhere Lehranstalt für wirtschaftliche Berufe (https://www.bnet.co.at/theres/schulehl.htm). The information is presented in a clear and brief way but it is again the boring design which makes the user skip important parts. The same applies to the page of the school's achievements (https://www.bnet.co.at/theres/erfolge.htm). Outdated information is poorly presented - nobody in this school takes advantage of the internet's topicality and the opportunities for presentation it offers. Not everybody can design a homepage in a professional way and that is also not the priority aim of a school's webpage. But keeping it up to date is absolutely necessary.
Turning to British schools now, let us first take a look at the webpage of the Westminster School (https://www.westminster.org.uk/intranet/default.asp). What is quite remarkable here is that every user is firstly asked to identify himself so that only relevant information is presented to him. We identify ourselves as a "visitor" to get a nice overview picture of the school. On the page coming up now, https://www.westminster.org.uk/intranet/index.asp, we find a nice and clear menu giving us the opportunity to proceed to any part of the homepage within seconds. A click on "information" gets us to the school information section, https://www.westminster.org.uk/intranet/index.asp. Here, we can choose from a variety of offers. We can either inform ourselves about the school's prospectus and history (https://www.westminster.org.uk/intranet/about/prospectus/index.htm) or get a visual impression by looking at a collection of nice photographs of the school (https://www.westminster.org.uk/intranet/about/photos/index.htm). A useful index (https://www.westminster.org.uk/intranet/atoz.asp) and the opportunity to search the school's intranet (https://www.westminster.org.uk/intranet/query/query.asp) are without a doubt necessary in view of all the information provided and round off this well-made and impressive homepage. We must not forget, though, that elite schools like this one, which depend on the pupils' school fees and use the internet as one means of recruiting new pupils, pay professional companies for designing and updating their site. Therefore, such a page can by no means be compared to an Austrian one where the school system is completely different and schools are not so dependent on selling themselves. Yet, to believe that all homepages of British schools are like that would be wrong, as the next example will show us.
A British example of a not so well-made homepage can be found at https://www.beck.lpool.sch.uk, the Archbishop Beck High School in Liverpool. In principle, the deficits are not so different from the ones that the homepage of the Theresianum Eisenstadt had. The menu which should make up the centre of the page to guide the visitor is here at the bottom of the site. No clear structure is recognisable and the design is not very inviting. Proceeding, let us now take a look at the prospectus (https://www.beck.lpool.sch.uk/prosp.htm) which constitutes an important part especially in the presentation of British schools. Again, we find a lot of valuable information but it is not split into smaller parts, logically ordered. Instead, it is piled up on a long page. Apart from the fact that nobody who wants to inform himself briefly about this school would read the whole page, it is all set up so boringly that most of the users will soon be disappointed and leave the site. Also the photo-gallery (https://www.beck.lpool.sch.uk/pictures.hmt), normally an attractive feature of every homepage, is not a pleasure to look at. The idea of publishing a map helping the visitor to get to the school is in principle a good one. On this homepage, however, the graphics are of such a bad quality that they are not much of a help (https://www.beck.lpool.sch.uk/find.htm). What remains is the textual description, not the most attractive way.
Now it is the students' turn to present a number of examples. In the presentation and discussion the teacher should see to it that special attention is paid to the following criteria: content, design, user-friendliness and last not least, topicality. These are the most important of a number of criteria according to which we can assess homepages. Discussing the students' examples on the basis of these will help the pupils afterwards when they are asked to find criteria.
After that, it is again time for a break before the last aim of that day.
Day one, ~15.00 to ~16.00
Now the students are asked to form groups consisting of pupils of different levels. The beginners should be able to profit from the experience of the elder pupils and the experienced ones, on the other hand, should be given the opportunity to get to know the beginners' point of view. In discussions which should look rather promising, the groups are now asked to work out as many criteria as they can according to which we can assess homepages. After so much input all over the day they should be full of impressions which they now have to formulate in a systematic way.
Day one, ~16.00 to 17.00
The last task of day one is a short discussion about the criteria set up by the students before. Apart from the four main criteria already mentioned above, namely content, design, user-friendliness and topicality, possible additional criteria could be: conveyed attitudes and values, definition of the target group, definition of aims, clarity in spite of complex content, existence of contradictions, existence of non-kept promises, degree of interactivity.
All these criteria can be shown on the basis of the two good and the two not so good examples of school homepages presented before.
4.3 The creation
Day two, 9.00 to ~11.00
Firstly, the pupils are by chance, e.g. by drawing a lot, divided into several groups of four to five people each. Each pupil is given tasksheet 3 and is asked to think about the questions on the handout in the group to find out how a homepage of their own school could look like. The given links on the tasksheet are supposed to inspire the students and to make them aware of typical mistakes in homepage-designing.
Day two, ~11.00 to ~12.00
Each group is now asked to shortly present what they came up with and in the following discussion a consensus about the homepage's basic structure should be achieved. The teacher is urgently needed to keep control over this discussion to arrange the pupils' ideas in a way that they can be realised.
After the discussion, it is again time for a lunch-break.
Day two, ~12.30 to ~13.00
According to the arrangement worked out before and the pupils' interests, different workgroups are now set up which are asked to work on their topic. Possible issues could be: the school's history, a day in the school, the curriculum, clubs and extra-curricular activities, a photo gallery, etc.
Day two, ~13.00 to ~16.00
The workgroups now have the opportunity to autonomously work on their topics. The aim is to come up with a clear structure of their part of the homepage and eventually ready-formulated texts or ready-made visual elements. It does not matter if experienced students already work out their ideas on the computer and not so experienced ones prefer to sketch them on paper. The actual production of the homepage has to be done by pupils of the informatics-group anyway. What counts is the editorial research work and creativity and the ideas, which accumulate quite fast in a group. The teacher is always there to give a helping hand.
Breaks can be took when the students need them. The more autonomous the project gets, the more freedom does the timetable receive anyhow.
Day two, ~16.00 to 17.00
The project now comes to an end and it is time for all the participants to review what has been done and to present the results the different workgroups have come up with. The material will be collected and further on arranged and used to produce a website. This is best done by students attending the informatics-course. Whether any pupils of this project take part in the homepage-group or if they possibly do not need professional help at all, all depends on the participants and their effort.
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