This year's CyberSurfari begins October 20. To help eleventh and twelfth graders in my American government course understand how political parties develop their stands on issues, I divide them into groups of five, each designated as a political party, and ask them to prepare a party platform. Students are assigned readings and look up party platforms on the Internet. In writing their party platform, students must consider a variety of issues, such as budget, taxes, environment, and education. From the Iditarod Web site, students each choose a musher and follow the racers' daily and hourly standings.
Students chart their mushers' progress by moving paper sleds on a bulletin board in our classroom.
Some students even E-mail their mushers. We also follow Iditarod coverage on CNN's and USA Today's Web sites. When my first grade class went on a field trip to the local hospital, I took along a digital camera to capture the experience electronically. After our trip, we downloaded the pictures onto the computer, and students wrote a sentence about what was going on in each picture. I shared the keyboard with most of the children, so they also got some computer training.