What is NetConnect?

 

"...will offer opportunities for students at Key Stage 3 to explore diversity."

The NetConnect project offers opportunities for students at Key Stage 3 to explore diversity. The suggested activities supports work in Education for Mutual Understanding and Cultural Heritage. The project work will relate to a range of 'intercultural' issues and will make a major contribution to English in the NI curriculum. The resource takes the format of an on-line teenage ‘magazine‘ comprising five ‘issues‘. Each issue contains four structured lesson plans, interactive games and teacher support and guidance material. There are opportunities for work to include talking and listening, written communications, preparation of articles, design of web pages, audiotapes, videos and dramatisations. The designated teachers may link, where appropriate, to work within other subject areas Ð for example, art & design, PSE, RE, history, geography. The pilot of the resource will give students at Key Stage 3 a voice in shaping the content of a continually evolving website, to support work for intercultural education. The development process itself will benefit students in project schools working within the Northern Ireland curriculum. The 'end of project' outcome will be evident in the final NetConnect resource containing samples of work from students. The ultimate aim is an on-line intercultural resource to which all schools in Northern Ireland will have access. The activities contained in each of the five issues will allow students to:

• develop an understanding of how they relate to and value others;
• identify and investigate any negative feelings they may have about themselves, others, and traditions outside their own experience;
• explore their own experiences and those of others, including ethnic minority groups in NI;
• investigate and understand the values of equality and diversity;
• explore and investigate issues related to equality and diversity within our society;
• share experiences, communicate and present their ideas, opinions and investigations both within the classroom and to other project schools through the NetConnect web site;
• develop and communicate presentations and submissions for publication on the NetConnect web site which will result from their classwork;
• engage in activities to support development of a range of communication skills, including appropriate communication through the internet;
• use and develop IT skills.