FRANCE, GERMANY and USA ONLINE

Overview

1. Project History
2. Participating Schools
   • Dante-Gymnasium Munich
   • Josef-Hofmiller-Gymnasium Freising
   • Lycee Fustel de Coulanges Strasbourg
   • Windsor High School Connecticut
   • Lycee Jean Moulin Albertville
3. A typical simulation: "Mountains and Ecology"
4. Other Scenarios
   • Genetic Engineering
   • Intelligence and Education
   • Nuclear Testing - Environment - Human Rights
5. Extracurricular Activities in Conjunction with the Simulations:
   • Alpine Ecology Group at Dante-Gymnasium
   • Joho Writing Club
   • Workshop Videoconference
6. Telepolis und Internet World Expo

The Center for Information and Language Processing (CIS) of the University of Munich has set up an international telecommunications program in which students from selected French, German and American school will form electronic partnerships based on project ICONS. For the next two to three years they will carry out negotiations on topics of mutual interest. The utilization of networking technology will promote communication and exchange among the students. The project is particularly valuable for foreign language learning, but also an important interdisciplinary learning experience.

Work with telecommunications, particularly in the form of simulations, has many advantages

• The real world comes into the classroom - real international relations provide the context for the curriculum.
• It prepares the students to deal with the world beyond their own borders.
• It helps create and test negotiations strategies.
• It integrates computer and networking technology into the classroom.
• The motivation factor is its biggest bonus - students find themselves doing much extracurricular research and independent work willingly.

• The motivation factor makes it a very useful tool for foreign language learning.

• Electronic partnerships based on project ICONS form the basis for subsequent real exchanges between the schools.

  A Typical Simulation

  • ICONS, acronym for International Communication and Negotiations Simulations, is a computer assisted simulation that puts students into the world of international negotiations and supplies scenery and software. Students located in high schools and universities around the world are linked via telecommunication networks to a host computer at the University of Maryland and participate in a dialogue about international issues. Each participating institution represents a particular country-team, with students on that team playing that country's foreign policy or business decision makers.

  • POLNET II, the software that drives the simulation is a UNIX-based program running on MicroVAXs at the University of Maryland. POLNET supports both message mode and conference mode. In the message mode, communications are sent and received by country-teams on a daily basis via email. These messages are stored in memory, and await the arrival of the receiving team to read its mail. In the conferencing mode of communication, country-teams sign on to the system simultaneously and exchange a dialogue of messages focused on a particular issue.

  • The simulation coordinator (Simcon) at CIS prepares a scenario, schedules the conferences and coordinates the discussion.

  • A period of debriefing follows the online sessions.

  History of the Project

  I Initial Phase: Freising, USA:

  The project began with a trial run in 1993/94. Two American high schools and Josef-Hofmiller-Gymnasium in Freising, Germany participated. The topic was "Gene Technology". The students were asked to evaluate the current siutation in genetic engineering and make proposals for dealing with cloned genes.

  II Second Phase: France, Germany, USA

  A second simulation on the topic of "Mountains and Ecology" has been in progress since October 1994. In addition to the first participants, Dante-Gymnasium in Munich and Lycee Fustel de Coulanges in Strasbourg have joined the negotions. The goal of the discussions as formulated in the scenario sent to each participating team is: "...to set up a model convention for ecologically sound, low impact developments in mountain regions."

  

  Other themes discussed so far are: "The Making of the Educated Person " und "Nuclear Testing - Environment - Human Rights."
  Here are some typical scenarios from past discussions.

  Preceeding the simulation and as a follow-up, students can introduce each other via email, use data banks to dind information, prepare for live exchanges, and help each other with homework and language problems.

  III Final Phase: Tutorials, World Wide Web, Freenet

  • In a third phase the language learning aspect becomes a priority. Out of the wealth of original language exchanged by the sutdents a diagnosis of the errors will be made. The information from this analysis will be used to produce language software specifically geared towards the students' personal weaknesses. The communication languages are English, French, German, so translation will play a more important role.

  • Multi-media aspect: at present most of the communication consists of an exchange of texts. The students are beginning to incorporate sound, graphics and videos into their presentations to put their project onto the World Wide Web. Have a look at their efforts so far:

    Dante-Gymnasium Muenchen

    Josef-Hofmiller-Gymnasium Freising

    Lycee Fustel de Coulanges

    Windsor High School

    Lycee Jean Moulin Albertville recently joined the project.

  • Pending support from the Ministry of Education, efforts will be made to set up a freenet system in Munich to permit more local schools to participate in the project.

  IV Telepolis

  The above schools, together with Luise-Schroeder-Gymnasium and Gymnasium Ottobrunn are participating in the Telepolis project in Luxemburg from November 3rd to 12th, 1995. For the duration of the project the Goethe Institute is doing an exhibit in Luxemburg the "Cultural Capital of Europe 95." During the exhibit some 25 schools all over the world will discuss the school of the future in cyberspace. They will deal with such topics as "an architectural vision of the classroom of the future". The goal of the project is to create on online documentation on the school of the future. All visitors to the exibit and other schools on the internet are invited to join the discussion.

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  Liz Klobusicky-Mailänder