Download the rtf version of this file.

Strategies to design/analyse a project

Introduction
There are a number of schema available for determining if a project (description) is adequate. Some of those schemas are for evaluating the educational worth of a project, the ease of participating, the general structure from the teacher's perspective, while others are about evaluating the descriptions of projects on the web. There are also some schema's which while evaluating project descriptions, provide advice on promoting a project, designing the descriptions of it, collecting samples of teacher and student resources and so on. A list of useful web sites which detail such schemas is available here.

In this document, Natcom is presenting a structure to organise ideas about designing telecommunications curriculum projects. Most project begin with a creative idea, a determination to meet a need or an opportunity presented by the technology. For example, a team of teachers may have opportunity to trek virtually with an adventurer and thus want to engage Australian children in knowledge, not available in traditional texts. Regardless of how a project idea emerges it is necessary to organise thoughts and work from the vague "good ideas" to a curriculum project design that will achieve its objectives, contribute to Australian educational directions and knowledge.

Whether analysing existing projects or designing a new telecommunications project, it is important to identify the following concepts.

Curriculum design elements including pedagogical approaches inherent in the idea, the theories of learning, the curriculum interpretation which is embedded in the project idea and interpretation of teacher and student needs being addressed in the project

Project structure asking questions like: what do project managers do, what do sub-project managers do, what do teachers do, what to students do, what do online experts do and what order of activities occurs for all parties.

Tools and Strategies accounting for the management needs in the project, that is the tricks, tips, procedures and tools that aid publication and promotion, registration, participation, collation of samples, development of online content etc.

 

Housekeeping tasks identifying the housekeeping for participants, sub-project managers, the project coordinators and other stakeholders.

Project managers need to identify how teachers will react to their project idea and design attributes as the project moves from a concept to a repeating episode. Project managers will most likely undertake five phases of project design and need to plan for project management strategies in each of these phases. This is not a linear design process and stages are interdependent and entwined.

The following ideas will need to be addressed.

Conceptualisation - putting together the conceptual parts of curriculum design, pedagogical principles, instructional design or project structure and a maintenance system.

 

Design - ensuring the project is worthwhile, durable and accessible.

 

Implementation - helping people participate and grow within the project and helping the project mature.

 

Maintenance - the ongoing phase when different teachers become involved and existing teachers become expert and demand more.

 

Development - when as money and expertise grows the project takes on new more sophisticated shapes, has more resources, and evolves different activities.

Thus when designing a project and designing what could/should happen in all of these phases, telecommunications curriculum project designers will need to:

Find ways of integrating solid curriculum rationales and processes into the conceptualisation of a project and be able to articulate those processes in a way that will appeal to teachers.

 

Identify some overall project designs that help organise project activities for all stakeholders.

Collect ideas for tools and strategies that enable publication and promotion, registration, participation etc.

 

Collect ideas about project maintenance and housekeeping.

It may be useful to examine some projects (or at least the view presented online ) with these four questions/purposes in mind. The following model may help project designers analyse their project ideas and draw from examples of existing projects. The first table is a blank table which provides a schema for understanding a project and identifying valuable attributes (from a project designers/ project manager's perspective). The next two tables are worked examples of this analysis model.

Project Name:___________________________________________

Reviewers:______________________________________________

 

Description	Interesting features
Find ways of integrating solid curriculum rationales and processes into the conceptualisation of a project and be able to articulate those processes for teachers.	Identify some overall project designs that help you organise project activities for all stakeholders.
Collect ideas for tools and strategies that enable publication and promotion, registration, participation etc	Collect ideas about project maintenance and housekeeping
Why would participating in this project be professional development for teachers?	What jobs does the project manager do?

Project Name: Global Youth Forums
Reviewers: Debbie and Michelle

Description	Interesting features
Students from multiple schools participate in dialogue around a social issue. A host school chooses the topic and poses a number of questions. Teachers work with students through a social investigations model or information literacy -infn problem model using the dialogue and questions to interact with the issue at a high cognitive level.	Duplicable for different issues in different curriculum areas for different ages. Project management is about nurturing host teachers and their classes.
Find ways of integrating solid curriculum rationales and processes into the conceptualisation of a project and be able to articulate those processes for teachers.	Identify some overall project designs that help you organise project activities for all stakeholders.
Audience for problem posing for host school - aids development of deep thinking through questions. Audience for opinions of participating schools encourages expression of reasoning, logical argument, use of supporting evidence and other critical literacy skills. The online discussion provides a context for some stages of the information literacy cycle. Students sharing information and knowledge in the early stages provides a chance to practise information sifting skills.	Duplicable project that allows teachers (host and participating) to control the pedagogical process, subject matter and approach to the "investigation". Online component part of a natural curriculum process. Activities for teachers and students well defined. Previous Forum stories a useful resource. Online guests add authenticity. Teacher community for curriculum advice.
Collect ideas for tools and strategies that enable publication and promotion, registration, participation etc	Collect ideas about project maintenance and housekeeping
Calendar of events - automatic updating by event coordinator, must put in complete infn Archived Lists to record student dialogue. Collects resources from participating teachers/students. Advice on being a Forum leader. Add events to Curriculum Project Registry. Web coordinates activities. Direct appeal to curriculum - thinking skills reference, reference to assessment One stop shop for participants. Teachers can have their own web sites for each forum if they like. Teachers list community across all forums about classroom management and curriculum design.	Could have some more automatic processes to aid management and enable automatic updating of the web site. Web site encourages people to become coordinators and make calendar fuller. Overall coordinator has to build lists, make calendar entry, build resources sections etc.

Why would participating in this project be professional development for teachers?

• Professional community of teachers provides support before, during and after a project
• The curriculum design is defensible
• Each forum has a different pedagogical approach - examples of good practice
• Teachers can exert their own stamp on the project and try things in a supportive atmosphere
• Good collections of resources available from participating teachers - many hands make light work.

Project Name: Virtual Field Trips
Reviewers: Debbie and Michelle

Description	Interesting features
Students undertake a field trip of a site and take a class along virtually or they take a field trip and build a virtual tour online of their activities. Students are given an investigation to do or problem to solve and have to take responsibility for planning, data gathering, analysis, and sharing data and final results.	Duplicable for different circumstances in different curriculum areas for different ages. A chance to provide an audience for field notes and investigation results. Can make use of new technologies as school acquires them? Can include synchronous and asynchronous activities, face-to-face and online activities. Teachers only have to coordinate with one other teacher.
Find ways of integrating solid curriculum rationales and processes into the conceptualisation of a project and be able to articulate those processes for teachers.	Identify some overall project designs that help you organise project activities for all stakeholders.
Focus on the research process. Provides audience for data gathering. Provides first hand sources of primary data. Field trip can be staged with different interactions to coincide with the stages of the investigative process. Students practise questioning skills with each other before the field trip - deeper questions and better data. Context for data organisation skills, reporting/publishing skills - people in field trip and remote class can be audience. Team work skills built in. Communication skills built in. Technology skills practised in context - chance to use mobile computing, sound recording, live video, chat interviews etc.	Duplicable project that allows teachers to control the pedagogical process, subject matter and approach to the "investigation". Online component part of a natural curriculum process. Activities for teachers and students well defined. Records of field trips a valuable resource. Professional communities for teacher support, technical and curriculum advice. Partner matching service. Online mentors of experienced teachers.
Collect ideas for tools and strategies that enable publication and promotion, registration, participation etc	Collect ideas about project maintenance and housekeeping
Lists for teachers to find partners, ask for help etc. One stop shop for participants. Resources on technical information important. Calendar of events	Need to capture stories about successful field trips. Overall coordinator has to build lists, make calendar entry, build resources sections etc

Why is participating in this project professional development for teachers?

• Professional community of teachers provides support before, during and after a field trip
• The curriculum design is defensible
• Each trip can have a different pedagogical approach and different model - examples of good practice
• Teachers can exert their own stamp on the project and try things in a supportive atmosphere
• Good collections of resources available from participating teachers - many hands make light work.

This model for analysing projects was used by the Natcom team to both understand existing projects, reinvent project ideas so they were more robust and describe models for telecommunications activity. The model also enabled Natcom associations to apply the following list of questions to any telecommunications activity idea. These questions reminded associations that while playing project manager roles, they had to ensure they understood the projects from a teacher's perspective.

What overall curriculum interpretations are embedded within this project?

What overall curriculum processes are embedded within this project?

 

What learning theories are embedded within the activities?

 

Does the project promote higher order thinking skills, collaborative effort, active learning and life skills?

What does the telecommunications add a component to the project that is otherwise not possible?

Does the project contribute to students' understanding of the global nature of the world and help students understand the role of technologies in reshaping the world?

Does the project help students understand how they can be empowered by their growing understanding of online culture and its relationship to our local and global culture?

Stakeholders may find the process of using these reinvented schema useful when understanding, evaluating and conceptualising telecommunications curriculum projects. At worst, the schema provides a designer's checklist and some rationales for decisions as they are made. At best they provide a strategy for ensuring the project design is robust and achievable for all stakeholders. This schema also ensures any project idea is educationally defensible and can withstand scrutiny while also allowing for growth and development within the project as it matures.

Web sites which address project designs

Judi Harris has developed a web site of her schema. http://www.esu3.k12.ne.us/institute/harris/Harris-Activity-Structures.html

An extension of Judi's work by the Linktolearn professional development group.
http://l2l.org/pd/linktuts/inteproj.htm

European SchoolNet has advice on project design. http://www.de.eun.org/projects/

Jill Wallace developed a clear paper about designing projects. http://ais.cs.sandia.gov/~jwallace/project_design/online_project.html

Global SchoolHouse guidelines for project design. http://www.gsn.org/teach/articles/design.project.html