Definitions of a Project
Michelle Williams
ACCE

The use of the term project will become confusing for the Natcom team, colleagues in professional associations, DETYA and Education.au staff. This short paper seeks to clarify the various contexts in which the term will be used and seeks to describe how all stakeholders in Natcom might conceptualise the large scale telecommunications activity that will be planned and designed over the next few months by national KLA associations.

Definitions
The current activity amongst the national KLA associations which has the colloquial title Natcom 3 is a set of activities funded by DETYA, where each KLA will conceptualise and plan telecommunications activities for teachers to undertake with their students in classrooms. ACCE have been invited to coordinate the activity and undertake professional development of some KLA staff/executive amongst other activities. ACCE will sometimes use the term the Natcom project to refer to the large coordination and professional development program for which they are contracted.

Each association will be encouraged to plan a telecommunications curriculum project. Because there are several models for telecommunications projects, the Natcom 3 activity will define various models and articulate the structures and processes which are undertaken during design and implementation.

To develop a broad, important range of online activities for teachers to join in, the Natcom coordination team will use the term Umbrella project sometimes, as a synonym of telecommunications curriculum project. This will deliberately remind stakeholders that a single title (for a project) may involve a number of different activities or similar episodes of online activity that may be duplicated in various settings and timeframes.

For example the BookRaps project from oz-TeacherNet, is an umbrella project where different episode-coordinators elect to host a BookRap about a particular book. The same model of activity applies to each episode or different book. This allows multiple books for multiple purposes and ages to be the centre of email-based exchanges between students.
http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/projects/book-rap/br.html

Project Atmosphere Australia is an umbrella project, funded by a Telstra Learn-IT Grant, designed to host a variety of activities of different types throughout the year by many different teachers. Weather forecasting, sharing interpretations of myths and legends about weather and various literacy activities are just some of the activities teachers use with their students.
http://www.schools.ash.org.au/paa/paa.htm

It may be that in everyday discussion about our work in 1999, we use the term telecommunications project, when we really mean telecommunications curriculum project. . It should be understood that we are separating out curriculum activities from other telecommunications activity in school such as connecting schools, wiring networks and similar activity necessary to provide access to the Internet.

The term telecommunications curriculum project or umbrella project will be interpreted differently by the different stakeholders.

Systems (and web tourists), may see it as the title and short description that sits on web pages. This small artefact is seen as a 'project' and although it reflects a summary of a conceptualisation of a much bigger idea, it is a 'trivial' and impoverished view of the role of project designers, coordinators, volunteer mentors and episode managers, teachers and students.

Teachers in classrooms will see a project as the things they do in order to involve their classes. Teachers in the Travel Buddies Telecommunications Project refer to activities like: finding a partner, getting ready to work with your partner's class, mailing the buddy, sending email letters and so on. Their description does not always capture the work undertaken to support them in finding partners, knowing what to do, seeking help etc. Teachers assume a whole heap of infrastructure is in place and don't often understand how this happened or that a variety of people worked hard to build a project, even before they heard about it.

Project designers and those who implement umbrella projects will understand their 'project' very differently. They will see a project as conceptualising its purpose, as infrastructure development, as building communities of participating teachers, of describing the project for a variety of audiences in a variety of media and forums, of collecting expertise and ideas as the project is used by teachers and so on.

Probably umbrella project designers have the most sophisticated understanding of telecommunications curriculum project whether the activities are a single episode or project or an umbrella of activities and episodes.

The Natcom 3 activity will generate a suite of projects. It will be essential that although each association may have responsibility for the design and maintenance of an umbrella project, all associations will need to promote the suite of projects and project episodes to teachers. Project activities will cross boundaries between projects and teachers will want to know about taking advantage of different ideas, models and communities to enhance their implementation of the activity in their classroom. For many teachers their professional activity is within the bounds of several associations and so promoting telecommunications projects generally and especially the suites of projects KLA associations model, will be essential if this project is to have maximum benefit and make a difference. This is especially true when associations are cognisant that teachers they work with are often in leading roles in schools districts and regions. These teachers are in turn often involved in promoting curriculum ideas, use of learning technology, use of the Internet to many of their colleagues. Providing them with a broad picture from which to build their own stories to tell peers is crucial to maximising the potential of the Natcom 3 activities. Understanding the models from the suite of projects and drawing from the lessons learned by projects management groups of all the project models will be professional development for the Natcom participants. In coordinating this project, ACCE will be promoting the suite of projects and engendering a spirit of collaboration and mutual support amongst the Natcom participants.

Towards "the core beliefs about telecommunications curriculum projects in Natcom 3"
There are many descriptions of telecommunications projects able to be found on the web sites used by Australian teachers. These descriptions attempt to describe what teachers will do with classes and provide resources and background information. Most projects have a project coordinator who may be able to support teachers who wish to participate. Some projects provide teachers with opportunity to build a professional community of their peers, so they can share ideas about classroom activities, seek help, swap resource locations and make further contacts. Unfortunately many do not.

Some projects are designed to encourage anonymous participation by teachers and students. For example collections of web-based publishing may simply act as a gallery for student work. Such projects do not reflect that they are cognisant of the global context that surrounds the communities of people who are using the Internet as part of their lives. The "Communities" definition of the Internet (1) as a core idea in Natcom 1 and Natcom 2, and the tone of the NOIE report on the Information and Communications networks (2) provide some direction for Natcom 3 participants. These ideas encourage associations to build activities for students to do online with others as a way of beginning to appreciate the online activity in global online commerce, as well as working patterns and lifestyles of new and changing communities. Ideas about development of different kinds of learning communities offer exciting prospects to explore in Natcom 3.

Although telecommunications projects are often seen as activities that happen in classrooms, they can be important professional development experiences for teachers. If teachers have access to supportive communities while learning how to participate and while participating, telecommunications project activities are significant just-in-time learning experiences for the teachers. Further to this, if the projects model exemplary curriculum interpretation, pedagogical approaches or best-practice classroom organisational strategies, the projects will change how teachers teach and often what they teach. This kind of thinking enables professional associations to articulate the rationales for designing and implementing telecommunications project, and umbrella projects.

It is important that national professional associations build a project that makes a difference. It is likely associations will want to model excellent curriculum interpretation (cognisant of global agendas, changing technological processes and cultural values, online communities shaping new social and cultural practices, new ways of working etc), model exemplary pedagogical approaches and demonstrate by example that professional development now has many forms and agendas. Teachers will look to associations who collect expertise, to develop a leading edge umbrella project which push the boundaries of curriculum (perhaps rewriting it) and pedagogy as well as exploiting the technological tools. By developing umbrella projects associations will be able to take advantage of the expertise throughout their professional community and disperse the efforts, use management of events as professional development activity and ensure ongoing renewal within the project.

These telecommunications (umbrella) projects must be better than those usually developed by the volunteer teachers and communities, who often work in isolation with limited resources. They must influence how systems and teachers plan projects in the future and develop a new standard for online activity in classrooms and professional development forums.

Beginning of a model for understanding umbrella projects
This section details general activities that associations might engage in if they implement a telecommunications curriculum project or umbrella project. The model defines the extent of activity that 'project' encompasses for project mangers and helps audiences of our work understand the budgetary and resource implications of these important models.

A project has a number of views and processes, which are difficult to represent in a linear sequence or structure. Like most project management models, cyclic and evolving cycles occur during both project design and implementation. Further, implementation is not simply a process of following the planned steps. Implementation of telecommunications (umbrella) projects is a developmental cycle of activities designed to improve the project design and structure as it is implemented. If the project is designed to collect expertise, encourage sharing, and provide teachers with opportunities to shape what the project becomes as their experience grows, it will naturally be a developmental process. Needless to say, the human resources in managing telecommunications projects are a significant factor in ensuring projects have life and value for the teachers who use them with their students.

Project conceptualisation
This is about knowing what a project will achieve, what pedagogy and teaching strategies it promotes, what learning styles it encompasses, how it might be managed, its broad structural design. Usually projects need to be defined here as a distinct one-off episode, or a umbrella of episodes. A good title is useful.

Project design
This is a broad design for the project hinting at infrastructure or perhaps hinting at what teachers might do. It is about finding a common language to classify the project and how it might be implemented from a project management point of view or how a teacher might understand what they would do.

Technical infrastructure

This indicates the kind of tools a project management group will use to build communities, attract partners, promote the project, collect resources and expertise, organise events, nurture episode coordinators etc. It is not so much about the technologies participating-teachers need, but rather the tools the organisational group will use to manage and nurture the project and its participants. For example, a registration process may appear to a teacher to be a simple form; whereas for the project designer a number of technical details and processes are instigated when a teacher registers for a project.

Non-technical infrastructure
This is about defining the constructs of the project that will make it work from a project manager's perspective. It may be that the managers use metaphors for the tools they use beneath the project - for example: a help desk, a partners' registry, a 'dear doctor' concept, online café etc. This is about tools to manage the project and the tools teachers use to participate.

Promotional activity
This encompasses the tools and activities which raise awareness of the project, promote its worth to the various stakeholders, promote activity that happens, collect expertise, best practice etc. This might involve paper-based materials, talks, conference presentations, online and face-to-face workshops. It would include a web which describes the project activity and organises its communities and their use of the project tools.

Participants seeking partners, mentors, primary sources, online expertise, online guests etc
This emphasises that the Natcom umbrella projects are likely to be about connecting people with people and building professional and learning communities. Such an approach involves tools and activities.

Professional development or training activity
Regardless of the purpose of a project and whether professional development is integral to the project design and activity, it is likely teachers will need to learn how to implement the projects in their classrooms. Projects without this often do not live up to the expectations of the designers of the project because they do not have a forum to articulate the rationales and intention of the telecommunications curriculum project design.

Development and use of online professional community
The use of online communities to collect teachers has hidden, less-obvious rationales. Teachers who participate in these projects will have an opportunity to mimic how professionals are now making use of their connectivity to work collaboratively. Within the teaching environments and workplace cultures of most teachers, there is little opportunity to understand and practice the modern working styles that many professionals now take for granted. These projects may well be the first and only opportunity to learn about working remotely with others. If projects engage teachers with other non-teaching professional, this experience will be much richer. It is expected that teachers working habits will then make the adoption and design on online learning communities much more likely and successful.

This model of project development is not static. From a participating teacher's perspective, it emphasises the difference between the processes of knowing about a project from doing it and takes account that shifting teachers from knowing about it to doing it is a process which ought to be ingrained in the project conceptualisation and design. Further, the model details potential tasks and milestones which national professional associations may engage in during the design and implementation of what they call a project. It describes an umbrella of activities as those teachers see, those the managers have to engage in, in order to achieve their goals and make a difference and how stakeholders might understand the complexity of activity which is a telecommunications project.

The diagram here, represents the dynamic processes that are essential in a telecommunications project design and management. It illustrates the collection of expertise within the various communities the project might nurture and how the process of managing a project is not linear. It is a dynamic process in itself, one which needs planning and resourcing.

The model and its diagrammatic representation hints at a number of communities that could be nurtured with a project.

A learning community with students interacting with each other and expertise from industry or disciplines.

 

A professional community of teachers working together while they work with their students.

A community of episode managers who need professional development about their role and tasks as well as support. They will become a powerful source of expertise for the overall project managers to draw on as the project matures.

 

The project design teams and project managers from the KLA associations will become a very significant circle of expertise and develop significant knowledge about project design, use of Internet tools, curriculum ideas and so on. Developing a suite of projects collaboratively will be a significant process to achieve this goal.

A model for developing umbrella telecommunications projects

Notes

1. Some readings and references to the core idea that the Internet contains communities of people and is a place to build learning communities for teachers and students can be found in the Materials used in the Natcom 1 project.
   http://www.ash.org.au/teachers/natcom/
2. The National office for the Information economy have released a report titled "A Strategic Framework for the information Economy. It can be found at
   http://www.noie.gov.au:80/index2.htm