Network game

Contribution to the learning process

• Establishment of relations between members of distantly located groups of learners.
• Encouragement of creativity.

As to the integration in the FyR-context see "Online cooperation in your river project".

Targets

• An active and easy beginning of online working.
• Getting mutually acquainted.

IT-Tool

Documents, URLs

• Book of the River > My Book (login) > Our Partnerships > Workspaces with other schools (select workspace) > Documents, URLs

This tool allows the participants loading of picture and text data files, Powerpoint presentations and any other kind of data files. These documents are accessable only to the groups, which share the common workspace for their cooperation.

Every group needs a digital camera.

(Instead of "Documents, URLs", you also could use the html Editor.)

Expenditure of time for preparation and realization

medium

Time needed

3 hrs

Target group

Two or more groups of learners who did not meet before (e.g. from different schools)

Requirements and preparation

Questions, method, duration and rules were agreed upon beforehand with all participants (within the groups participating or e.g. via E-mail).

On a web server the tutor presents 3-5 tasks, e.g.

• take a photo of your group showing a prominent role of water
• imagine you are reporters at the 7th Pan-Aquatic Olympic Games in 2020. Write a report containing the following terms: amazon, crocodile, vanilla ice cream, bathrobe, gold medal (in all 10-12 terms).

The questions should as well as possible be suited for the groups of learners (with respect to problems, difficulty and scope/volume/extent); the teachers (project leaders) who are involved, should discuss and decide it in advance..

Realization

The groups work in parallel at the same time. Each group works through all questions and publishes their results with the IT-Tool. Thus all participants can see all results and this way get acquainted with their new partners.

Experiences / results

A well-tried and stimulating web method for children, youngsters and even for adults.

Tips

The questions mentioned above are suited for small groups (3-6 participants). In case of larger groups (e.g. a whole class) other questions should be asked, or the larger groups should be divided into smaller ones; these work in parallel through all questions or distribute them among the groups.

In case of border-crossing participation of groups (and then work in the foreign language English) the tasks should be not to broad and extended.

Literature

Netz-Transfer/LAG Medienarbeit e.V.

Many concrete examples in German at: http://jugendserver.spinnenwerk.de/~netztransfer/netzstadtspiel/index.php