Teacher Profile - Australia iEARN Classroom Experiences I have heard many people speak of the internet and the ways they use it with their students: some warn of the perils, others tell of wonderful information that can be found. But none have inspired me in the same manner as my iEARN experiences.

My first experiences with iEARN involved my students writing articles for a magazine produced by the students at Cold Spring Harbor High School in New York. The magazine is called "The Contemporary" and is particularly suited to teenagers. Topics for discussion are posted for each edition and students are invited to submit articles. In the past, these have included discussions about anorexia nervosa and bulimia, the Asian economy, whether war is ever justified, and summer vacations.

Many of the students from my school also had their poetry and stories published in the first edition of "Lewin."

Lewin is an Aboriginal word meaning messenger. The anthology is produced by a team of teachers and students from several Victorian government schools. A similar project, "A Vision," is facilitated by teachers in the northern hemisphere. This is an ideal situation, as students are able to send their work to either project according to the time of year. While one hemisphere takes its summer vacation, the other is busy in the middle of their academic year. Many of the email projects I have worked on with a single partner have faltered because of the demands of the school year. Through no fault of the teachers, and despite the best intentions, the daily demands of a busy school schedule can destroy the most well-intentioned email partnership.

This is one of the strengths of the iEARN network and the value of the electronic conferences that are used. Many partners commit to a project, which is conducted on one of several conferences. This enables partners to participate as frequently as every day or as infrequently as once when a unit of work is completed. All participants are able to read the submissions, which may be stored for 12 months or longer. New contributors can follow the previous discussion to understand who is involved and whether the work will be of interest to them. It enables newcomers to avoid the problems of re-hashing material and questions that have already been addressed.

The electronic conference enables teachers to fit the projects into their curriculum according to their time frame and the needs of their students. Projects can be used for a single period, one topic, the focus for a month or a semester. The work can be tailored for a small group, a whole class, a co-curricula activity or as extension material for able students. Appropriate projects can be found for students of junior primary to senior secondary age. The projects are mostly interdisciplinary so that they are not subject dependent. Many of the teachers in other countries use the projects as subject material for English as a second or foreign language. Some are conducted in languages other than English and some are multi-language.

My own enthusiasm and interest continued to grow especially after my students and I proposed a new project, "Kindred."

After brainstorming, we decided that it would be interesting to extend the family tree project that the students had completed in History to a world scale. We invited students to research an event of significance in the lives of one of their ancestors. We encouraged them to conduct interviews with their grandparents with the aim of linking the life experiences to significant events in world history.

When new projects are proposed in iEARN, one of the questions that must be answered is "How will this project make a contribution to others and the planet?" The "Kindred" team believes that participation in this project makes students more aware of their place in the world and how their lives and the lives of their relatives are influenced by world events. In the words of Nina Griasnova, a teacher of English in St Petersburg, Russia: I think your idea is really great to show young people how much in common they have and make them to feel proud of their ancestors, whom they even maybe hadn't known about before they started their research, and furthermore this work helps them to understand better the history of the country and how the families were influenced by the historical events. And, I'm sure my grandparents benefited from this work, as they are convinced now of the fact that their grandchildren are interested in the family's background and will be able to tell their children about it."

Nina's colleague Helen Davidova gave a different perspective. "We are so excited working in the project because we ourselves learned so much about our students, as if the project touched the hidden strings of their souls which turned out to be so kind and interested." The "Kindred" team began with the aim of doing more than simply publishing a book. They wanted to ensure that all students who submitted work would be answered in as short a time as humanly possible, given the restrictions imposed by examinations, holidays, and the like.

The "Kindred" team wanted to establish a web page on which all stories would be published, in the event that we could not afford to publish them all in a book. It was decided that to meet the aims of the project, patrons would be sought to cover the cost of printing the book and providing a copy to each contributor.

iEARN projects affect participants in unexpected ways. Students who become totally captivated by their involvement are not unusual. I have found my students both enthusiastic and willing to continue with their iEARN work after school, at weekends, and during school vacations. If only all that we taught could arouse such enthusiasm and devotion!at no cost. By selling the book, the aim is to raise money for diabetes research.

-Judy Barr is a teacher at St. Paul's Anglican Grammar School in Warragul, Victoria AUSTRALIA, and is the facilitator of the Kindred Project. (Originally printed in Tree of Life Online, by Freya Job)

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