In planning global networking projects, teachers have successfully created contexts for collaborative and critical inquiry. Our goal must be to ensure that students go beyond being passive recipients of knowledge to being investigators, knowledge constructors, detectives, social activists, and teachers. Students need skills in gathering information they find, otherwise knowledge will remain inert rather than becoming a catalyst for further inquiry. Technology, including web browsers, word processors, and databases, can bring access to a much wider range of information than was previously found in textbooks and school libraries. Students also have access to a greater variety of sources of information through the proliferation of media.
Teachers show students that their experiences and feelings are valued.
This phase also strengthens students' comprehension of the topic or issues by grounding the curriculum in the students' lives and histories. Global networking exchanges encourage the sharing of personal and local histories. As students prepare their culture packages or write their introductory messages, they become aware that it is only by revealing their own world that they can expect others to show them theirs. When students later respond to the questions they receive afar, they take on the role of local experts, with new opportunities to learn about and understand their own community. And students have the opportunity to see their peers through new eyes.