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Home & School Projects
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My Country – Learning Guide
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In this project, SchoolNet Global children describe aspects of the country in which they live - using their own words and pictures.
Their completed projects are building an archive of personal experience of life in different countries including local and national features, places of interest, and how our thoughts and actions affect our environment. This commentary is created by young people and for young people and is helping to widen intercultural and international understanding.
Bilingual children and those learning a second language can write in both languages, adding a further dimension to their accounts.
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1. How to get started
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Ask your children to think and talk about:- Where do we live? How does living in our country affect your life?
- What is special or different about our country and its people?
- What could you do to make your country a better place to live?
- If people of your age came to visit, where would you take them?
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2. How to choose the focus of study
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Ask your children to think and talk about the local area, the region and the whole country. Each child, or group of children could choose a favourite topic to research, for example:- Geographical features
- Interesting places – man made and natural
- Changes that I can remember
- Caring for our country
A group might wish to find out about other countries and think about similarities and differences.
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3. How to organise the practicalities
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Research: Children can obtain information about their chosen country and topic from any number of sources including the library, television, Internet or through direct interview with members of their local community. Interviews could also be conducted by email with friends abroad.
When undertaking research online, children should be supervised by a responsible adult, and should only access websites that have been previously approved by their teacher or parent.
Interviews: We recommend that parents or teachers agree interview questions with children in advance. Any face to face or email interviews should be supervised by the parent or teacher.
Images: Children must seek permission, where necessary, before they use any images to illustrate their web pages.
Writing up: Children can write up their projects off line, either by hand or on a word processor, and then copy and paste onto their SchoolNet Global template. They can edit their work online as often as they wish before they publish.
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4. How to ensure child safety
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SchoolNet Global is a safe, mediated environment, where children are protected from unsuitable material. All work is checked by SchoolNet Global mediators prior to publication. By following the SchoolNet Global Safety Guidelines, you can ensure that your children have fun and learn in safety.
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5. The 5 Steps to Cyberspace
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The SchoolNet Global publishing process takes children through easy steps to publishing their work to the world:
1. Find Out
The child chooses a project and undertakes research.
2. Sort
The child collates, organises, interprets and edits their data and decides how to present it to an Internet audience.
3. Create
Children can create their text in any wordprocessing package then copy and paste into their web page template. Simply click to add images saved on your own computer.
4. Check
Children check what they have written and ensure they have permission from interviewees to publish their work.
5. Show
Children submit their work for publication to the Internet. Work is approved by the child's teacher or parent and by SchoolNet Global mediators prior to publication. Within a few days, their completed pages will be published in the SchoolNet Global Gallery for the world to see.
5 Steps to Cyberspace
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6. How children gather and organise information
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To help your children decide what to write, you could ask these questions: - What is the climate like in your country?
- How do people make a living and how are their roles important to the country as a whole?
- what do you love most about where you live?
- what do you dislike and how would you like it to change?
- consider someone who lives or has lived in another country. What is life like for them and how are their lives different from your own?
Once the children have completed their own My Country project, they could ask older members of their family for their thoughts and present these in separate project write-ups, providing interesting comparisons for the children, their families and the whole SchoolNet Global audience.
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7. Extension activities
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More able children can undertake in-depth studies, for example:
• How geographical features form and change over time. How are they changing now?
• How the country is governed – locally and nationally
• Environmental issues
• How is the use of digital technology affecting the country – jobs, communications, rural communities etc?
• If you have links with schools or individuals in other countries, your children could work on a joint project, perhaps writing in each other's language.
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8. Online investigations
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The SchoolNet Global Gallery contains a wealth of information written by children all over the world. Searching through these pages provides a good starting point for any new investigation.
SEARCH My Country
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