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My first line of attack was to post the picture to our web page and send a message to the Kidsphere mailing list, asking for help. In my excitement I violated one of the primary directives I give my students when teaching them about asking for help online. I asked for help before I tried to help myself.
When I got home I started to do research and was amazed when I came up with useful information with my first search term. I immediately realized my hastily posted request for help was unnecessary and could actually backfire if well meaning people inundated prospective leads with requests. So I got right back online and posted an apology and a retraction of the premature help message. It was less than three hours between the two postings, but I already had three offers to help.
Having just done a surface search I determined there would probably be enough information to put the search into the hands of students. I wanted them to derive the benefit of participating in a meaningful learning activity. The following day I met with Beth and Tsuneko Kojima, our Japanese language teacher. We decided to turn things over to her fourth year language students.
Three students began the research and reported results back to the class. In the weeks and months which followed, one student, Hubert Gautier, made it a point to continue researching, following up with contacts, and to keep the search alive. |
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