In the end, will all the projects really be combined onto a CD?
The quantity of material this project will generate will be enormous! Our current technology uses the CD-ROM as the primary, inexpensive, large capacity storage device. However, in the future, technological advances may provide a better or less expensive way to provide large amounts of information to a wide audience. But alas, we are not fortunetellers and cannot see what technology will be like in 2002, so for now the use of CD-ROM technology is the best guess for the end product.
There will be three venues for the presentation of the projects. First, local website offering the projects in their classroom-generated Hyperstudio form. The local website will also contain projects and materials specific to the local area that will be absent from the State CD project.
The second venue is a Challenge Grant Internet Site. This site will offer many of the more general projects from the different areas.
The third venue is the set of Challenge Grant CDs about Idaho. For this presentation, the class and team projects will be massaged into a more powerful multimedia delivery program.
Will HyperStudio be the program used for the final product?
The projects completed in Hyperstudio will probably remain in their Hyperstudio form for presentation on the local website. The state website will support both Hyperstudio projects and more advanced multimedia projects.
For the set of Challenge Grant CDs about Idaho the answer is most likely, no. There are much more powerful multimedia development tools than Hyperstudio, such as Macromedia's Director. Unfortunately, the learning curve for Director puts it out of reach for most classroom teachers. For this reason, our current thinking is that the projects will be combined and converted into a higher-level multimedia program for presentation on the CDs.
Will my students' projects be on the CD?
This is a tough question to answer because several things come into play. First, we need to see what was developed before we can say if it will be used in the final project. Second, we need to assess the quantity of material about same or similar topics. And third, we will need to work with the time and memory limitations of final project development technology.
Many of the class-generated projects will be presented on the local website and the Challenge Grant website. The decision as to what makes it to the CDs will be handled at a much later time.
Will my students' names be on the CD with their projects?
Our current thinking about this is no. We will be using projects, pictures, parts and pieces of many (possibly thousands) of different projects. It would be unfair to change classes' project to fit our needs but yet credit it with the names of the students who made the original. Likewise, it would be problematic to divide out credit to all contributors who supplied material on the same topic.
We are working on other possible venues to list names of teachers and schools that participated in the Challenge Grant project. A possible citation could be "The project on The Big Waterfall was adapted from Mrs. Doe's 1999 eighth grade class at First National School in Somewherein, Idaho."
Should I worry about copyrights with our in-class projects?
Copyright laws, proper citations, and references are something that should be considered important regardless of the arena you are working within.
The projects you work on within your own class are under the copyright restrictions of both the material you are working with and that of your school. For our Challenge Grant project, however, there are strict federal copyright laws by which our project must abide by. Because of these laws, and because the Challenge Grant is a federally funded grant, we must closely follow all copyright laws with regard to any materials you provide us for the final Challenge Grant project and on the Internet sites.
Refer to section O of your summer training notebook which has templates for gathering complete reference information on both published and unpublished material.
What happens if several teachers are all working on the same thing? As an example, what if three different teachers are all doing a project on Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of television who was from Idaho?
To answer this question, it is important to separate out the different venues of presentation of the projects, the two websites, and the set of CD-ROMs. Most of the in-class and team projects will be offered on the local Internet site. Many projects will also be on the Challenge Grant website. More than likely, those materials making it onto the CDs will be a compilation of all the same-topic materials provided to us by the schools in Idaho.
In reality, we look at this as an advantage: the more the merrier. There will be strength in numbers if we can connect teachers who are working on similar topics. Sharing materials, resources, contact people, and even HyperStudio projects will add to the betterment of projects. Because we expect to see many projects that overlap subject matter, we are encouraging teachers to contact each other as soon as they are aware of similar project content. Check out the Project Guidance portion of the Challenge Grant Internet site to see what other teachers are working on.
Do I have to use the Challenge Grant Hyperstudio template cards for the stacks my students are building? If so, can I change the template or not use it at all for some of the cards?
We want you to use the templates. However, if you feel that the template will not work for you needs on a specific card, please email us to explain why.
The template contains several navigation tools and formatting that will keep the projects connected and consistent. There is also space set aside on the template cards for navigation to developed in the future.
