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Overview of the idea
This model for telecommunications activity involves students using the Internet to collate and access data which is not available in traditional ways. Students should identify a data need and pursue strategies to design a data collections process, inviting school across the country to participate in its implementation. Schools should document their model, its purposes and the rationales for their decisions. These collections and their documentation then becomes available for other teachers and students to use.

This model may be used as a project in its own right, but is more likely to be part of curriculum projects for other purposes. Collecting, interpreting and using data is an important process in most KLAs and lead to higher order curriculum goals.

Obtaining data and building renewable national archives is an important opportunity enabled by the technology. Adding local perspectives to official data sources, collecting first-hand accounts and recording social, cultural, consumer, economic and environmental perspectives is vital in helping students understand issues and contemporary life. Connectivity provides opportunity for students to initiate data collections that will provide different perspectives on Australian life. The collations of data provide students will opportunity to investigate issues from alternative first-hand sources and develop broader understanding. The opportunity to collect snapshots in time and collate data which describe trends in local and national issues is enabled by this project model. Creative students and teachers will develop fascinating collections of data for the educational community to use.

Such collections need to be easily developed, and made accessible. This model will rely heavily on the development of online tools to streamline these processes and a project coordinator to help teachers develop data collection projects.

The model has a number of defining attributes. It enables teachers and students to create online content about unusual perspectives, unique characteristics of Australian life, national scientific and environmental data and community opinions and ideas. The model enables data collections to be ongoing and for data collections to have varied uses as data collections grow and span time. This model applies to every curriculum area and topic and can be adopted as part of a learning experience or unit of work, thus modelling the integrating properties of learning technology.

The choice and nature of data themes to be collected is important. Projects using this model will have added value and longevity if they take account of the connected context in which school curricula are implemented. This project model has opportunity to enable students to undertake investigations with Internet-abled sources and communities. Further, it encourages teachers to choose problems which exist because of connectivity, as well as choose projects whose contexts are altered by connectivity.

The model for oz-collections contains many of the attributes of the Natcom models described in accompanying documents. It identifies the model components which are central to the activities of the stakeholder groups, teachers, students, project mangers and minor stakeholders.

An example of a oz-collections Project
In a theme about "Rural Australia", a teacher might pose students an open-ended problem about the impact of telecommunications networks for the revitalisation of country towns. In this problem students might identify a number of indicators of the issue and thus identify data which could be collected to support the indicators. Their teacher would approach the oz-collections coordinator and negotiate the use of tools within a data collections process. The students and teacher could develop a web page describing their project and defending their data collection ideas. Schools from country areas would be invited to participate in a data collection process, the results of which are available by a web site. The students then analyse the data and develop a number of positions about the revitalisation of country towns, which they share with participating schools. Participating schools then share ideas about the positions and add rich personal stories to the dialogue, helping the students modify or extend their positions. The initiating teacher might then encourage his/her students to predict what data might indicate in one, two and five years time. This is documented and shared. The project ends with an invitation for participating schools to revisit the issue and participate in data collection and discussion each year.

Participating teachers would register to participate via a registration tool and may become involved in an online professional development program. The initiating teacher would share the experiences of their classroom management and curriculum development with these teachers. A web site about the project would add to the online content available for other teachers to use a model.

Further examples
The Australian Council for Health, Physical Education (ACHPER) and have developed a curriculum project based on this model that suits these purposes. ACHPER project description.

Rationales
The online community provides unique opportunity to collect Australian data and provide access to it. Such collections might contain annual data or multiple perspectives of an event or point in time. There are opportunities to collect snapshots of the Australian community, store data which tells the story of changing Australian lifestyles, and use data to contribute to community understanding of Australian environmental and demographic issues. Connectivity enables students to be involved in significant data collection and to contribute to the recording of contemporary information. Further, online collections of data provide authentic sources of information for studies in all curriculum areas.

River-watch and stream-watch projects are recognised types of projects which have involved students in identifying data sources, monitoring data and collecting it. The project organisation provides a mechanism for students to share their data and the project also provides a real audience for the students' collections. Since such activities and the results are valued by teachers, extending these activities into online environments is a natural next step.

Advances in technology enable students to easily collect, store and manipulate sound, images and video as well as organise, set up and collect streamed data.

It is likely that students could use web cams and data sensing devices to record and organise data from say a wildlife corridor and share the data live to other schools and community interests. Such collection projects provide unique opportunities for community groups and schools to form partnerships and for projects to gain national attention for their efforts. The extensions in technology which enable unsophisticated technical environments to collect accurate data, also enable students to capture and organise combinations of data sets about a theme. For example, it is possible to capture images, short interviews, and statistical data about the crowds at football match and use the network between schools to organise simultaneous collections across the country and thus capture a moment in the history of Australian culture. Such information banks are rich sources of data in many curriculum investigations.

Collecting data for its own sake may be considered by many teachers to be an exercise without context and educational worth. Others would value opportunity to make use of ICT for data collection, analysis and publishing and claim it is a significant process within the context of their curriculum. Consequently, this model for online curriculum activity is likely to be included as part of online curriculum projects in Australia. It is useful to consider the model separately because it requires organisational processes and tools to involve Australian schools in data collection, publishing and application.

This context could shape how teachers develop open-ended problems for students to engage in and could model how to incorporate collection of first-hand data into investigation processes. Although the web has considerable volumes of information, it should be seen as an information source and not as a source of first-hand data. This project models how teachers might help students understand the differences between data, information, knowledge and wisdom and how collations of data automatically demonstrate attributes of information.

The project is also an important model for incorporating numeracy issues directly into the design of online experiences and curriculum units. Interpreting and creating data are vital elements of literacy curriculum. This project models the impact of telecommunications technology on new definitions of numeracy.

Telecommunications curriculum projects provide an authentic audience for students thinking, questions and hypotheses. Telecommunications provides students with access to audiences outside of the school and provides access to the opinions of others, a wide variety of sources of ideas and background information. In this model in particular, encourages students to develop expertise in collecting data and using it within a problem-solving context to predict solutions and trends and draw inferences.

Teachers, experts and students can work together to develop arguments and work cooperatively towards solutions. Publishing solutions is important as it provides an opportunity for students to develop tolerance to the positions and solutions of others while also providing an authentic audience and peer community.

Engaging in data-centred investigations and synthesising ideas through development and communication of ideas are core curriculum processes embedded in many KLAs. Most curriculum documents articulate the processes students might practice. This model enables teachers to insert different numeracy and statistical models to the problem solving process. The model also encourages constructivist approaches, problem solving, project work and student-centred learning approaches to be built into curriculum activities. It enables teachers to try different communication and discussion strategies and to explore different ways of integrating online activity into learning experiences. It also provides a chance for project designers to try different approaches to enticing teachers to participate with their classes. Further, the open-ended nature of the model, from which specific examples will be built and implemented, enables exploration of different technologies such as text, voice and video chat, bulletin boards, email lists and conferencing systems. The model's flexibility then enables different subject areas to make use of this model while implementing their particular curriculum models and subject matter.

This project model design provides a pedagogical model for teachers to experience within a supportive professional atmosphere. By participating in this project idea, teachers are undertaking on-the-job professional development and have an audience for their questions and reflections. The project is an exemplary model of curriculum practice. The project model incorporates a number of structures which are specifically aimed at teachers undertaking the curriculum development process and broadening their understanding of the impact of learning technology on subject matter, curriculum interpretations and pedagogical opportunities.

Project model components
In this description, the project structure is unravelled as structures for students, teachers and project managers. 

Student components

Teachers' components

Project manager's components