The Internet

Establishing the contacts with the project participants in different countries

The project "Animated Debate" could not be created if it had not been for the Internet. The entitled Debate was based on the exchange of pieces work and opinions, and common work on the animations which were created. This debate between the project participants in Poland, Romania, and Italy, was conducted by the means of e-mail and the users' forum, created for this purpose.
Learning and using the Internet was one of the most important element of the workshop process.

The Internet was used to making contacts with partner groups as well as searching and gaining the information and materials necessary to work. The workshop participants mastered the use of the Internet while looking for the information about the countries which took part in the project, as well as photos and films devoted to the myths and parables adapted by them, and in the final stage, searching the sound effects. On the website of the project there was the forum launched in the first year, where all the young participants had access to, as well as the instructors and administrators (the forum was available only for the project participants). Each of the participants made their own e-mail box. For the majority , it was the first e-mail address, and this fact, reinforced by the correspondence with peers, was the source of great satisfaction.

The use of the Internet was received with the great interest among the participants. Even these children, who before had had nothing in common with the computer, heard at least once about the possibilities of the Internet. Making e-mail accounts, using the forum, and searching information on their own, all these, let's repeat it one more time, was very exciting, especially for the children who had not had any contact with computer. And these kids were the fastest and efficient to master the use of computer. Although it is obvious that in this stage many problems were encountered. First of all, the youngest workshop participants needed a lot of time to become convinced to the usefulness of the e-mail and the sources of knowledge in the Internet. Here, great attention and wise action of an instructor is needed. For a child, who works with the computer for the first time, and meets such abstract concept as e-mail, the most important is to gain the conviction that using the Internet can be enjoyable and it is not a difficult task at all. It can be achieved by conducting the first classes towards common play in the Internet. It is not about the Internet games and browsing the entertainment websites, but about the correspondence between the participants or sending the Internet postcards. The instructor of a group where intellectually disabled children are, has even more complicated task. Here, it is worth using the web pages for kids, where are tens of rebuses, puzzles, and the simplest arcade games. People who have the motion dysfunction should have a helper - it can be a voluntary or any child from the group, who for example can help to open the correct webpage. The Internet postcards and correspondence, after getting used to the computer and Internet, should not be of a great difficulty.

Parallel to the skill of moving around the Internet, the participants learnt the other tool that is computer work processing. Each person learning how to use the computer should, in a short time, master the important keyboard functions and the basic possibilities of the word processor. Therefore during the workshop there were some exercises, which showed the differences between the applications, such as Notebook, WordPad, and Word. While playing in the Internet, it was easier to master the basic keyboard shortcuts. These skills are used not only when making notes or writing letters. The correspondence is the most natural way of text editing and that is why, the most motivating to practice and accuracy.

After mastering the e-mail, the next skill which is to be mastered by the workshop participants, is the efficient use of the search engines. This stage should start with a short description of a tool, but without the exaggerated amount of theory. One should focus on the practical usage. Children and youth can begin searching, starting from the information about their city, their favourite book or film, and only after they should find information necessary in the work on animations. In case of the "Animated Debate" project it was seeking the data about partner countries (looking for symbols, connected with a chosen country and then the use of it in the animation), as well as looking for the data about myths, photographs, and graphics which presented the ancient heroes). However, work with a search engine should be controlled - the most important ones, such as Google or AltaVista, have some protection, but the amount of their "results" is usually so enormous, that some web pages of the undesirable content can be placed among the found pages.

Conducting the workshops, where children and young people use the Internet, one must not forget about the threats connected with it. Computer harms physical health - eyes or backbone diseases, lowering general physical performance, and even sleep disorder or skin diseases. The Internet and computer games, especially the most complex strategy games which engage many users online, lead to isolation, escape from the reality, breaking the real bonds for the benefit of the fictitious world which gives the opportunity to be someone else, creating one's own person. It rapidly leads to disorders of the sense of personality. But one has to be careful - it works both ways. Very often the escape into the computer, Internet, and the world of games, is a signal that something wrong is happening in the real world - loneliness, discrimination at school - then an Internet date or hour-long entertainment becomes a remedy.
One should also mention the risk of decreasing the moral sensibility caused by the easy access to negative content - there are millions of uncontrolled pages in the Internet, full of violence, sex, and sophisticated brutality. All these threats exist, one should not forget about them, but realize that the source stays not in the computer's and the Internet's nature itself, but in the wrong use. As any other object, the computer can be used in a good or bad way, for a good or bad purpose.

Making the e-mail accounts>>>