The basic waterfall model for production has been around for many years. With it, there is a seemingly linear sequence of events: 

In reality though, many projects, including student-based information communication technology projects, may have many intermediate steps, and can go through many iterations, causing the process to be very non-linear in nature. In other words, students may test out concepts by playing around with them or actually implementing them, then go back to an earlier phase to improve upon them with new found ideas and/or skills. There should be lots of flexibility allowed, but students must also realize that there is a basic game plan. 

There should be a breakdown of marks for each phase of the project along with clear expectations of what is required by students (i.e. – rubric). These phases can also serve as milestones for self, peer or teacher assessment.

Problem-solving projects incorporating the Internet or World Wide Web help students to develop higher level thinking skills while using technology in meaningful ways. You should present your students with motivating, genuine problems or open-ended real life problems to which solutions and answers are not easily found. These problems will afford students the opportunity to make choices in inventing or creating answers and solutions with and through technology.

Creating roles and situating a challenging problem within a setting or scenario creates excitement. For example, students could take on various roles, such as that of an investigative reporter, scientist, time traveller or designer. They might embark on a treasure hunt, be stranded on a island or journey to Mars. You can easily adapt problems from traditional textbooks or curriculum guides and make them more exciting with this technique.

Instead of simply suggesting the use of search engines to locate information, the teacher should identify quality resources that are appropriate and valid. 

Many technology-based activities are cross-curricular or integrated. This means that they deal with more than one subject area as well as using information communication technology. An example would be combining writing (i.e. - word processing) with mathematics (i.e. - spreadsheets) and science (i.e. – computer generated models) while using the Internet as a research tool. 

Organizing students into teams has many advantages. They will need to work out various responsibilities and a plan as to how the facts will be collected and organized. Teachers need to create criteria to guide and rate all of the activities. Due to the nature of our evolving workforce, working in a group is becoming popular. Fostering interaction and collaborative problem solving in students will help prepare them for this new reality. Authentic learning is also important, and the Internet provides a number of opportunities to make learning more meaningful and situated. Learning in ways that are personally meaningful to students has many advantages!

Going further than a traditional presentation at the synthesis stage, students can effectively use a combination of media to communicate their findings through multiple senses by creating their own Website.