Students will select digital artifacts that represent their culture to future generations. Constructing this Time Capsule involves critical-thinking skills, social studies, language arts, math, and science, but the students are so delighted with the project, they have to be coaxed into leaving the computer lab. The results will appear on the Web in MidLink Magazine for a global audience to explore. Most English teachers consider audience and purpose as they develop writing assignments. They know that when students write for publication they often care more about their final product and are willing to spend more time working on it.
Research suggests that the quality of the writing improves as well.
As it becomes easier to create Web pages, more teachers are launching literary magazines, poetry collaboratives, and even multimedia exchanges on school Webs. Since 1994, MidLink Magazine, known as the Digital Magazine for Kids, by Kids, has provided just such an audience to teachers in every discipline. MidLink invites teachers to share their work with international colleagues. Like most collaborative ventures, a great deal of thought and planning goes into each quarterly issue of MidLink. The magazine departs from standard procedure, however, as teachers plan through e-mail exchanges and live chats.