You can design assessment so that the learners realise that you want them to concentrate on producing good content rather than technically elaborate presentations. You can weight the assessment in favour of the content but also weight it in favour of the research process. Learners should be guided towards working with information and producing content - information of their own. When we expect learners to give evidence of their thinking when they produce content, the ICT naturally finds its most appropriate role as a tool to support this, and not the focus of the activity.

In the Linking Schools project conducted between Dover Combined school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and the East Lansing Education District in Michigan, USA, the focus was on the learning and the content when the project started - mainly because Dover did not have any computers! Initially they relied on the postal service and teacher exchanges to transport their messages from South Africa to the USA and back again.

"..I shared the Dover writings with my students today and the whole experience was quite wonderful! They noticed many things as they read through several of the pieces: the pride they have in their country, the respect they have for teachers and adults in their lives, the expressive way they talk about nature, their musical and film interests ..., and the way they are "just like (our) teenagers.."

Marianne Forman, 7th Grade Teacher ELPS

The educators collaborated on the teaching and learning that they expected to take place. They shared lesson plans. They structured class activities for learners in both countries to work on the same projects. When they installed computers and connected to the Internet and e-mail they discovered that they could enhance the learning as well as increase the speed with which the responses came from the other countries. However the key to the success of their projects was the way in which they structured their activities in order that learners in both countries could collaborate. Have a look at their Linking Schools website where you can gain some insight into how learning experiences can be designed so that learners in two different countries can produce similar work of a high standard, using ICT in its most appropriate role as an enabling tool.