Project Announcement / Call for Collaboration

You can create your own call for collaboration by copying and modifying the example below and sending it via email to teachers you know who might be interested in being your partner for a Santa Letters exchange

(NOTE: this is an example, and all dates iare approximate only. You would adjust the dates to meet your own needs.

Subject: [HILITES] Ages 5-17 Letters to Santa 
                   - Since 1985
Date:	 8/01/2025 7:40 PM
To:      gsn-hilites-list@topica.com

SEND REPLIES, questions, comments to
          santa@globalschoolnet.org

BASIC PROJECT INFORMATION
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PROJECT TITLE: 
  -- Letters to Santa

PROJECT BEGIN and END DATES:  
  -- 10/12/2025 to 12/15/2025
  
NUMBER OF CLASSROOMS:  
  -- no limit

AGE RANGE:  
  -- 5 to 17 years

TARGET AUDIENCE:  
  -- Anyone

PROJECT SUMMARY:
  -- This letter exchange, pairing primary with older students, is one 
of the oldest and most successful projects. Best of all, it is simple:

* Primary students write email letters to Santa.

* Secondary students reply, pretending to be Santa.
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PROJECT DETAILS
---------------
PROJECT LEVEL:  
  -- Basic Project

CURRICULUM AREAS:  
  -- Language

TECHNOLOGIES USED:  
  -- Email, List server

COLLABORATION STYLES:  
  -- Information Exchange; Impersonation


FULL PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
  -- The "Letters to Santa Claus" activity is not a new one. Teachers 
and parents have always helped children write to Santa.

This bearded, fat, jolly, red-suited folkloric old man sometimes 
represents different things to different people. But coming as he does 
in the dead of winter, he seems mostly to symbolize hope.

This lesson is based on the experiences of teachers who have used email 
to send letters to and from Santa in projects since 1985.

It is a lesson that is especially well-designed for the newcomer to 
Internet-working, yet one that more advanced teachers and their students 
enjoy using every year.

The project concept is a simple one:

When you register to participate, we match you up with another class 
with whom you exchange letters... one primary class (ages 5-8 years), 
one older class (ages 12-17).
  
Students in the primary class write letters to Santa using a word 
processor. They send their letters via electronic mail to their partner 
class.
  
Students in the older class write replies to each primary letter and 
send them back via email.
Over the past few years this project has mushroomed. Thousands of 
classes have exchanged countless letters to and from Santa.

Included in the program have been:

bilingual 
communicatively handicapped 
deaf and hard of hearing 
gifted 
continuation 
opportunity 


OBJECTIVES:
  -- Improve Student Skills:

*  Academically
The project strengthens students' writing. Primary students want their 
letter to Santa to be "just right", and secondary students feel such a 
high degree of responsibility to the task that they also want their work 
to be their best. Students gladly write, edit, revise and
perfect their letters.
   
They even get quite a bit of practice reading, because they want to read 
each others letters and compare the contents.
  
*  Socially
One of the most noteworthy results of this project is the cooperative 
mode that the students seem automatically to slide into so effortlessly. 
They want to help each other, to compare what they have written with 
what others in the class have done. The desire to cooperate is obvious, 
natural and strong.
  
*  Technically
In video interviews taken after they have completed the project, 
students state that they feel more comfortable using the computer 
keyboard and the word-processing program. They are also intrigued and 
interested in learning about electronic transfer of information.

PROJECT URL:  
  -- http://www.globalschoolnet.org/gsnsanta

PROJECT SPONSOR:  
  -- Global SchoolNet Foundation
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PROJECT REGISTRATION INFORMATION
--------------------------------
REGISTRATION DATES:  
  -- 09/01/2025 to 10/31/2025

REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS:
  -- Complete project materials and guidelines are at 
     http://www.globalschoolnet.org/gsnpr. 

     Please PRE-REGISTER by sending email NOW to santa@globalschoolnet.org.
     We'll reply with a complete timeline and further instructions.

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