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Why do this?
As connectivity in Australian Schools improves, the pressure on teachers to use the Internet in their classroom increases. The following two sample e-mails epitomise the issue.

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 01:53:35 +0800
From: xxxxshs@ozemail.com.ai
Subject: OTN: (no subject)
To:oz-teachers@owl.qut.edu.au

Hi there.
We've just obtained Internet access and would like to receive some email in our class

Maria

and

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 07:39:47+1000
From: Russell
Subject: QC: Email assignments

Hi all,
I am currently embarking on an email and chatroom assignment with my junior secondary class. I was wondering if anyone had any good email assignments that I could use for this unit?

Russell

Teachers are uncertain about what to do with their connectivity. These kind of messages are too frequently sent to online communities of peers and although these messages represent significant first steps, they are frighteningly indicative of the low level of teacher knowledge about educational potential of the Internet.

Teachers have little knowledge about the educational potential of the Internet. They are unlikely to have had enough personal online experience to be able to defend using the Internet on educational grounds at any level and are uncertain about who to reach out to, to talk about more useful approaches to Internet use. They are unlikely to have networks in place that help them find partners for collaborative activities and are not confident about how to manage online activities in curriculum units. All in all, there is a danger that Australian teachers will continue to undertake trivial activities online in a very isolationist way, unless more models for online activity become available and are promoted at grass-roots levels of professional communities.

Connected educators generally are also concerned that teachers who have Internet access and who gain some experience, are choosing to undertake anonymous research based activities with their classes as the principle activity. This is a narrow and low-level educational use of this exciting new technology and does not reflect the general use of the Internet within the information economy emerging in Australia and the use of connectivity in Australian homes. Evidence of these trends underpin the rationales for the work of the Eight Key Learning Area professional associations who have formed a network called Natcom.

Natcom associations have built some models for online activities which will help teachers elevate the standard of online activity happening in schools. In this work, Natcom associations wish to draw attention to the importance of supporting major stakeholders who can and should build substantial telecommunications curriculum projects which model good practice and which will provide professional knowledge about using telecommunications in Australian curriculum.

Natcom associations have built curriculum project models that address the need

• for professional development about extending learning technology ideas into use of telecommunications and online networks of learners
• to model good examples of classroom and professional practice for teachers not yet convinced of the rationales for using the Internet
• to nurture the educational leaders and risk takers who will help lead communities of teachers and develop the new ideas which benefit everyone
• to help non computer-using teachers become involved
• to develop content about teaching in Australian classrooms within Australian curriculum rather than only develop content aimed at the subject matter of courses.
• to develop significant online curriculum projects for teachers to centre curriculum activities, professional development and development of Australian online content
• to develop projects where teachers contribute to activity and become engaged in professional communities as a life-long learning participatory attitude
• to give teachers activities to do online so they have working knowledge of online communities and services
• to shift practice away from simple "look it up" activities in schools
• to shift practice away from simple and "email pals" activities
• to help shape the services systems allow state schools to access

Summary of models
The following models have been developed.

Australian Cultural Forum model

to enable students to engage in cultural and social debates with peers and prominent Australians as an audience for their critical thinking and informed discussion

Australian Digital Portfolios model

to provide a strategy and mechanism for students to share their creative expertise and to build a critical community around the work of Australian students in new media

Creative Investigations model

to help students design investigations and inventions and share investigation designs and approaches to solutions

Aussie Netquests model

to help students work with information and sources of expertise as a way of building conceptual understanding and knowledge of problem solving within domains of expertise

Oz-collections model

to help students collect and analyse contemporary data and contribute to collected Australian content

A Literacy walk

to help teachers identify opportunities to help students develop literacy skills and to provide teachers with practical ideas for building literacy skills within curriculum activities

Numeracy companion

to help teachers identify the numeracy orientations that impact on problem solving and data analysis activities

Australian Teachers Thinktank model

to provide a forum for Australian teachers to access the rationales and practices of Australia's information economy future and to provide teachers with access to ideas which will shape the next generation of telecommunications activity.

Online professional content model

to provide professional groups with a model to organise and collect professional content that teachers need to work with changing curriculum demands and new pedagogies.

Discussion of the collection of models
These models represent a selection of activities that Natcom associations believe should be pursued within telecommunications curriculum project construction in the immediate future. The models will meet the issues identified above, but also are practical and achievable by Australian teachers at their current level of expertise with current levels of access, while also promoting experimentation and innovative professional growth. The models represent a selection of potential activities and are not meant to be interpreted as the only approaches which could be pursued in the future. The KLA associations have selected approaches which they believe will accelerate the learning technology knowledge of teachers and produce classroom activities which represent exemplary practice for teachers in their communities. The models developed by associations also represent strategies for professional development that associations believe will be more effective than existing programs and approaches.

What is unique about these models is that KLA associations have balanced the needs of their professional community with a desire to promote creative, innovative, and forward-thinking curriculum approaches within the contexts of new information and communications technologies. The needs of the profession drive the design, rather than perhaps, the technology or the subject matter idea. Further, these projects are unique in that professional development of teachers is at the forefront of the project design. There are a few groups in Australia which have similar agendas and their work has inspired the Natcom associations to build project models which will alter teacher practice as well as influence curriculum development.

In developing these models, the Natcom associations investigated existing project ideas from Australia and overseas, and selected the most appropriate ideas for the Australian content to include in their suite of project models. The models mix good existing ideas with visionary new ones to provide a direction for the future which capitalises on existing expertise and moves the educational community forward. The models do not reinvent existing knowledge about online curriculum practice, but recognise existing expertise while also pointing to new future directions.

It is expected that professional associations, university research groups, professional and commercial groups and systems will build telecommunications curriculum projects using these models for online activity. The models represent ways to describe and defend online activities, as well as define strategies to implement activities. Once groups have identified the ideas and strategies to help teachers work in particular curriculum topics and processes, it is likely groups will combine elements of models to develop specific projects around themes. Stakeholders will be able to take advantage of the identification of online activities and use them to create projects which appeal to teachers, have inbuilt professional development and which will work in Australian schools.

In particular, these models for online activity have been described and developed for designers of telecommunications curriculum projects, not necessarily for teachers who may participate in them. The descriptions are intended to inform projects designers about what constitutes a worthwhile projects, what makes them manageable and how they might be evaluated. This project managers view of online activities is vastly different from the one which teachers might see. It encompasses discussions of matching partner schools, of implementing registration processes of designing web-based environment to enhance participation and about professional development models, issues which teachers assume are in place, so they can work effectively with their students. It will be the task of project designers to design the stories of curriculum projects to tell teachers.

The models here are therefore influenced by some core beliefs about telecommunications curriculum projects and curriculum project design. This has determined what is emphasised with a model design and how it is described. These beliefs do not make form an exhaustive list, but represent themes the Natcom associations believed to be a priority in Australian education now that stakeholders will want to address. For example, the models incorporate the need for professional development, for building self-sustaining professional communities, for linking teachers and their students with expertise and models to collate content. Thus when describing the models for activity, particular descriptions enable the themes to emerge and demonstrate that telecommunications curriculum project ideas can help address these concerns for Australian Education.

Conclusion
The models represent the selection of online activities which Natcom associations believe are necessary to incorporate into Australian telecommunications curriculum projects now. The models emerge from professional associations' knowledge of the needs of grassroots teachers while also setting curriculum directions which are achievable and forward thinking. They are about providing authentic learning situations for students whose teachers understand the impact of new technologies on Australia's future. In particular these models are based on some core beliefs about helping teachers become involved in using technologies in schools and in helping teacher communities exercise new participatory and informed attitudes as teachers work together to build this next and future generations of telecommunications curriculum projects.