| Telecollaborative project work for students in a kindergarten through 12th grade school setting is an innovative teaching practice that is promoted and supported by various organizations and Internet Websites. Each year teachers from around the world involve their students in these projects, while other teachers abandon the practice after one or a few experiences.;The purpose of this research is to provide users of telecollaborative project work with strategies and ideas to make the practice an educationally stronger experience for all involved. During their participation in a project called Learning Circles, a group of teachers were investigated as a whole and through a small case study to understand what they were expecting and the role these expectations played in teachers assessing their own experience. Interviews, messages, surveys, and documents were analyzed to determine if educators actually realized the expectations that drew them to use telecollaborative project work; the benefits teachers found for themselves and their students; strategies that could be used to improve the process; the influence of teacher's level of technology integration, project-based learning, collaboration, obstacles, enablers; and the extent to which teacher's expectations affected their plans to enroll in future projects.;Major findings revealed that most teachers did realize their expectations for their students and themselves, but encountered many challenges and obstacles through their experience. Teachers provided many suggestions for improving the process and identified new collaborative models that could be used to promote greater success for future telecollaborative project work. |
