Lesson 1: Introducing the Internet and E-mail

Student Objective: Students will learn about and practice clear, personal communication through writing, speaking, and demonstrating.
Time Required: Thirty minutes for student lesson preparation; one hour for lesson with seniors
Materials: Name tags, list of senior participants and student teachers, computers with EarthLink software, Easy E-mail Student/Senior Worksheet 1 (PDF), pen/pencil for each student and senior, blank journal for each student

Thirty-Minute Prep Before Seniors Arrive (optional):

1. Provide each student with the name of his or her senior partner. Create a name tag for each student that will be worn throughout the lesson. Review Easy E-mail Student/Senior Worksheet 1 (PDF) together.
2. Have each student write his or her senior partner's EarthLink e-mail address and password on the worksheet. Students can also write down their own personal e-mail address for their senior partner, if desired.
   NOTE TO TEACHERS: For Mac users, e-mail should be accessed through Web mail on the EarthLink Personal Start Page^SM.
3. Before the seniors arrive, ask: What does it mean to "communicate"? Is communication limited to conversation? If not, what else is involved? (body language, tone of voice, emotion, word choice, etc.) As a class, discuss how good communication does not depend on similar ages or genders. Good communication is about sharing ideas, personalities, and experiences.
4. Explain that personal experience and the time period that people grow up in help to shape human behavior. For example, imagine a person born in 1934. Perhaps his or her early childhood was defined by the Great Depression, influencing how he or she may think about savings and income. With the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941, he or she may have seen the impact of war on home, women, and patriotism in his or her early teen years. Within the workforce in the early fifties, perhaps he or she experienced economic prosperity for the first time.
5. Ask students to consider the events influencing their early childhood and teenage years, and then project ahead to what might affect their young adulthood. Compare and contrast that description to what a person born in 1934 may have experienced as a young person (see above).
6. Remind students that seniors have different personal experiences that have helped to shape them into the people that they are today. These differences make a project like GenerationLink both challenging and fulfilling.
7. While students are working on Lesson 1, instruct them to mentally note situations where culture and personal experience play a role. After the lesson, they will write about these moments in a personal journal.

Lesson Directions:

1. Seat each student and senior pair at a computer. As a group, go around the room and ask each person to state his or her name and say hello.
2. Distribute a copy of Easy E-mail Student/Senior Worksheet 1 (PDF) to each student/senior team.
3. Review the introductory paragraph as a group, and answer any of the seniors’ initial questions.
4. Have students and seniors read the worksheet together, and complete the steps. After twenty-five minutes, each of the seniors should have sent his or her student partner an e-mail.
5. Instruct each team to take a five-minute break if time permits.
6. Instruct each pair to visit www.aarp.org and complete Section 2 of the worksheet.
7. After twenty-five minutes, reconvene as a large group and discuss any new questions.
8. Ask seniors to take home the Easy E-mail Student/Senior Worksheet 1 (PDF) for their reference.

Senior Homework (optional):

Ask each senior to bring one or more e-mail address to the next class to practice sending mail to friends and/or relatives.

Student Wrap-up (optional):

For homework, instruct students to write a two-page journal entry describing their first day of teaching. Have students focus on the communication between themselves and their senior partners.