1. Steven Caringella

2.  Thinkquest.org is a password-protected, student-safe online learning community.  https://www.thinkquest.org/en_us https://www.thinkquest.org/en_us

3.  Allows students to publish, blog, share documents, communicate, and collaborate.  Free access provided to schools by the Oracle Education Foundation.

4.  Teachers at accredited primary and secondary schools can apply.  Oracle Education Foundation requires site principal’s approval.

5.  If you are the first at your site to use Thinkquest.org, you become the site administrator.  You can then add other teachers at your site.

6.  Teachers who use Thinkquest.org with their students must monitor student content.  Teachers must teach students how to stay safe online.  Must have parental consent.

7.  Thinkquest.org is ideal for use in inquiry- based, cross-curricular student projects.  Environmental Concerns in the Community  What Makes Me Unique?  Intercambio Entre Russell y CMLP

8.  Thinkquest.org can be used to help students meet California content standards.  Thinkquest.org meets ISTE National Technology Standards.  http://cnets.iste.org/students/ http://cnets.iste.org/students/

9.  A learner-centered process that begins with questioning and investigating.  Children have a desire to discover and finds things out.  Exploring, asking questions, searching for new understandings.

10.  Students investigate a real-world problem, working collaboratively.  They use technology tools, gain skills and knowledge, and end with a learning product.

11.  Students used Thinkquest.org during research, for reflection, to communite and collaborate, and as an eportfolio.

12.  Multi-classroom: Students from three Northern California schools collaborated using Thinkquest.org.  Cross-curricular: One school focused on science and two schools focused on language arts.

13.  How do we become aware of environmental concerns and how can we make a difference?

14.  Students from all three schools wrote bios about themselves, then “met” each other online.  Throughout the project, students read, reviewed, and evaluated each others’ work.

15.  Almaden Fourth graders wrote letters and posters in response to the River Glen newsletters that they viewed and discussed.  http://ourenvironmentproject.org/a lmadenschool/FellowsStudentWor k2.htm http://ourenvironmentproject.org/a lmadenschool/FellowsStudentWor k2.htm

16.  Fifth and Seventh grade students included the Fourth graders’ water quality data in their research.

17.  Zanker Fifth graders created web resource lists during research that were shared by team members for the essays and the PSAs.

18.  Throughout the stages of the project, students reflected on their learning process by writing reflective blog entries.

19.  Throughout the project, students uploaded finished learning products, reflected on them, and received teacher and peer review and feedback.

20.  Multi-classroom collaborative project.  Participants included teachers and students from two middle schools and two elementary schools.  http://my- ecoach.com/project.php?id=10446 http://my- ecoach.com/project.php?id=10446

21.  Students explored their dominant learning styles, using the Multiple Intelligences theory, and apply this knowledge to how they approach learning.

22.  Cross-classroom partners were formed, and the project was organized in the Thinkquest.org project pages.

23.  Students used Thinkquest.org to post learning and reflections, and respond to their project partners at each stage of the project, including group audio podcasts as a culminating activty.

24.  Language and culture exchange between Thomas Russell Middle School students and high school students in Callao, Peru.  Thomas Russell students practiced their written Spanish skills with Peruvian partners.  They also learned about Peruvian culture.

25.  The Peruvian students from Leoncio Prado practiced their written English skills and learned about the culture of American youth.  The student partners corrected each other’s written work using the collaborative feature of the project pages.  In the future, live video chatting could be added using Skype.