As with other simple but powerful educational strategies, it is far easier to describe what distance team-teaching partnerships tare notu than it is to come up with an invariable definition of what they are. Team-teaching partnerships between two distant classes are definitely tnotu student-to-student "penpal" projects, but rather are class-to-class collaborations. And while there are no hard and fast rules for organizing a team-teaching partnership between teachers in two schools, we can expect that in a typical partnership --as a bare minimum-- two teachers will plan identical short-term projects in both their classes and, as a culminating joint activity, each teacher will exchange her students' work with the distant partner class, allowing both groups to compare and contrast their efforts. Indeed, these basic elements are common to every one of the hundreds of documented cases of distance team-teaching

projects over the last seven decades. For, like many simple yet powerful classroom strategies, these distant collaborations are perennial, with deep grassroots origins and a long history which began before microcomputers were dreamed of (Sayers, 1990). Another recurring feature of distance team-teaching is the extraordinary impetus it provides for teachers to become involved with classroom technologies of all kinds. For from the moment distance is introduced into the teaching equation, students and teachers are required to rely more heavily on educational technology as a tcultural amplifieru in their efforts to "turn up the volume" in their dialogue with a distant partner class, in order to compensate for the inevitable distortions introduced as messages crossed time, space and cultures. Students' written communications became more meaningful to their faraway colleagues when supplemented by audiovisual media, and often mixed media. Finally, nearly every distance team-teaching partnership creates what may be termed a "network for intercultural learning." The very fact of having a partnership with a distant class encourages local students to look more closely at their own community and at the multiple perspectives that may be found right before their eyes, within their own class and school and in their neighborhoods. As these students complete projects with their distant classmates, they will develop important insights into how reading and writing can mediate intercultural communication. Moreover, If they are using word processors to polish their writing, and if they finally share their projects using computer-based communications systems, these students will also be building important technological skills while they engage in intercultural learning. tOrillas: An intercultural distance team-teaching networku The classroom teachers who participate in the tOrillasu teacher partnership network, which the author has helped coordinate since 1985, make use of telectronic mailu and tcomputer-based conferencingu to plan and implement joint educational projects between their distant classes, and to "electronically publish" their students' collaborative work. tOrillasu offers an interesting case in point of a contemporary intercultural learning network that weds the traditions behind decades of long-distance team-teaching with the multi-faceted possibilities presented to educators by modern communications technology. tOrillasu team-teaching partnerships are multilingual (in Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, English, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish) and multinational (with schools in Puerto Rico, Quebec, and the United States, but also in English-speaking Canada, Costa Rica, France, Japan, and Mexico). tOrillasu has been described as an exemplary curricular project for bilingual education programs (Cummins 1986; Cummins & Sayers 1990), adult literacy programs (Sayers & Brown, in press), English as a Second Language programs (Cazden 1985), foreign language programs (Willetts 1989), and writing programs (Figueroa 1988). The network was also cited as a noteworthy project for linguistic minority students by the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment (Roberts & staff, 1987). Finally, DeVillar and Faltis in tComputers and Cultural Diversityu (1991) judged tOrillasu "certainly one of the more, if not the most, innovative and pedagogically complete computer-supported writing projects involving students across distances" (p. 116). tOrillasu has always been concerned to seek low-cost alternatives to electronic networking, thus making intercultural learning more accessible to a wider range of teachers whether from urban or rural areas, and regardless of whether their classes are located in industrialized or developing countries. Presently, most tOrillasu teachers pay nothing to send and receive electronic messages to fellow educators in 40 countries, aside from the initial start-up costs of purchasing a modem to connect one of their school's computers to a telephone line. This low-cost approach to intercultural communication is made possible by the linking --underwritten by the National Science Foundation-- of two computer networks: FrEdMail (Free Educational Electronic Mail) and the Internet. For years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has advocated that universities should provide K-12 teachers with greater access to campus computers as the nation moves toward building its new "Information Superhighway." To this end, in 1989, NSF awarded a two-year grant toward the development of a mechanism --the NSF Internet Gateway-- for greater access of public school teachers to university computing. To launch this initiative, NSF chose the largest existing K-12 telecomputing network, FrEdMail, upon which to build its ambitious outreach strategy. FrEdMail is a confederation of several hundred electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs) in over 150 school districts across the country and in several nations. During the day, teachers leave messages for distant colleagues on one of these electronic message systems and at night, when telephone rates are low, the BBS's call one another and pass messages along to their ultimate destinations. However, this grass-roots approach limited the international scope of FrEdMail. The NSF Internet Gateway built upon the informal FrEdMail system, making it much more flexible and far reaching, and further reducing --indeed, in most cases, eliminating-- the costs of exchanging "email" (electronic mail) between teachers over long distances. The NSF strategy was simple: key regional FrEdMail BBS's were identified that were located close to universities. Under the coordination of Al Rogers (FrEdMail's founder and one of ten innovators named by tElectronic Learningu magazine as "Computer Educators of the Decade"), these BBS's were specially configured to serve as gateways, that is, they were programmed to pass teachers' email messages into the local university's mainframe computer, where the messages could then be delivered for free to any one of thousands of other university computers in dozens of countries all connected by the Internet (often termed the "network of networks"). Thus, once these NSF Gateways were established, tOrillasu teachers and other public school educators were able to route their messages through the closest gateways, eliminating costs for most teachers to participate in long-distance curricular projects. The remainder of this article will consider the day-to-day logistics of establishing and maintaining an effective team-teaching partnership, with a special focus on the role of telecommunications in implementing successful distance learning projects. As we shall see, teacher partnerships (a) begin with a firm commitment between two teachers, (b) are inaugurated with an exchange of culture packages, and (c) culminate in some identical curricular activity in both classes, which is then shared with distant partner "classmates." tGetting Started Right (endnote #1)u There is a saying in English, "Well begun is half done". This is nowhere truer than in the planning and in the initiation of effective team-teaching partnerships. Three elements are especially critical in getting off to a good start. First, the commitment of both teachers is decisive. Finding a partner teacher is easily enough accomplished. Many effective partnerships begin when two teachers from neighboring communities who already know each other agree to work together, or when two teachers meet at a conference and plan to engage in joint curricular projects. Other teachers prefer to contact a "Partner Teacher Clearinghouse" like tOrillasu --reachable at its Internet address (tOrillasu@NYC.nyued.fred.org) or by phone (212/998-5485)-- to help locate a class in another state or country to work with. Yet in every case, the key word is tcommitmentu: perhaps the most critical element in long-distance team-teaching is the quality of the working relationship between the two partner teachers who are determined to meet their mutually agreed upon goals. For while a team-teaching partnership may prove a simple yet effective context for learning, it can only produce results if the partner teachers honor the commitment they have made to work together. When both teachers keep their commitment, there are few strategies that are more exciting and rewarding; if not, the results will be measured in the frustration and disappointment of students in both classes. Second, before launching a team-teaching project between their two classes, teachers usually find it helpful to exchange what have come to be known as "Culture Packages," which serve to to break the ice and establish a common point of reference between distant classes by exchanging a "group self-portrait". Culture Packages are envelopes or small boxes filled with student autobiographies, maps, photographs, audio and videotapes, student artwork, and other memorabilia from the school and the community such as postcards, school newspapers and exemplary student work. As school and community "self-portraits" are shared, partner classes begin to compare and contrast their communities and world views, so often taken for granted. In this way, critical thinking skills are developed that are rooted in students' daily lives in their families, their school and their community. The day that a Culture Package arrives is an exciting day in any partner class. As a rule, everything else stops in the classroom as the teacher and students prepare to discover the contents of the Culture Package. Yet students' natural enthusiasm when opening the package can be channeled by teachers to further magnify the learning experience. This takes careful timing and a commitment by the teachers to provide relevant and timely feedback to one another. For example, it is usually best if the two teachers agree to mail the Culture Packages on the same date, rather than one class sending a Package and then waiting for the partner class to send theirs (a "waiting game" that is certain to prove frustrating). Also, the sending class can help the receiving class maximize the impact of the Culture Package by including a detailed "packing slip". This packing slip can add a fascinating dimension to receiving a Culture Package. On the packing slip the sending teacher should indicate her class's rationale for selecting each item; for instance, the sending class might include these annotations for the receiving class: tITEMu: Photographs of the students. WHY WE THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED: In this album you'll find a photo of each of the students in our class. Each student brought in a photo from home so that you can see where they live, a vacation they took, or other family members. tITEMu: Audio cassette. WHY WE THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED: This audio tape is really an oral "group letter" describing a typical day at our school. As a class we discussed what we wanted to tell you, planned out in what order the students would speak, practiced our speeches and THEN recorded it. We wanted it to sound nice, like a radio show! tITEMu: Video tape. WHY WE THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED: We created this video to illustrate give you an idea of what our community is like. So we all took a stroll through the neighborhood that ended with us walking into our school and up the steps to our classroom. We hope you get a feel for where we live and study. tITEMu: School newspaper. WHY WE THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED: Six of the students in our class are also in the journalism club and worked on this edition of the school newspaper. The editorial about the school dress code was written by Gustavo and addresses an issue that has been very controversial here. A group of parents have been trying to discourage gang activity by getting the school to adopt a school uniform. The receiving teacher can use this packing slip to shape her class's discussion as the contents of the Culture Package are revealed, item by item. The first impulse upon opening a Culture Package is to immediately display its contents. However, before exhibiting the Culture Package, it is very helpful for the receiving teacher to take a few moments and jot down notes of her students' reactions to the items in the Culture Package. She can ask her students to respond to such key topics as "What we liked best or found most interesting about the package you sent us", "Questions we have after receiving your package", and "Things about your class, your school and your community that we would like to know more about", all topics of tremendous interest to the sending class. It is very important to timmediatelyu mail these questions and comments tby return postu to the distant partner class. The receiving teacher's notes will offer invaluable feedback to the students who sent the Culture Package, and will stimulate these students to develop a more critical awareness of their school and community. Third, after exchanging Culture Packages, it is important to begin immediately on a team-teaching project that extends the curriculum in both of the teachers' classes, a project that can be completed by a specified date, usually before the end of each semester. The most effective team-teaching projects are those which make sense in tbothu classes. Obviously, as teachers negotiate the design of their joint project, they will need to communicate constantly, sounding out ideas, refining suggestions, setting deadlines, and ultimately putting their plans into practice. This is where telecommunications --electronic mail and computer conferencing-- can play a vital role. Of course, it is inevitable that each partner teacher will have different curricular goals; for example, one teacher may be teaching ESL through the social studies content-area with a unit on Families while her partner might have a math/science unit on Mapping. Yet if they have access to an open line of communication such as electronic mail, these teachers can plan a common activity in such a way that both their curricular goals are achieved and extended. For example, students in both classes could ask parents for their birthplaces, and could then translate this information according to a common format such as: My name is Waleed Graham. I was born at Latitude: 43N, Longitude: 73W. My mother was born at Lat 43N, Long 73W. My father was born at Lat 23N, Long 83W. Here is some more information about my family tree: My mother's mother's birthplace was Lat 17N, Long 78W. My mother's father's birthplace was Lat 17N, Long 78W. My father's mother's birthplace was Lat 20N, Long 77W. My father's father's birthplace was Lat 22N, Long 80W. The partner classes could then exchange the paragraphs they have written. Such an activity could lead to interesting and provocative discussions in both partner classes on immigration and family mobility; in the instance above, the student's family tree reveals much about Caribbean history and migration to New York. The key point in this example is that both teachers have designed a "do-able" team-teaching project in a way which complements, extends and enriches each of their tpre-existingu curricular units. tThree of the Most Common Team-Teaching Projectsu Partner teachers generally undertake one of three types of curricular projects: (1) shared student journalism and publishing; (2) comparative investigations, including dual community surveys, joint science investigations, and contrastive geography projects; and (3) both traditional and modern folklore compendia, extending from oral histories and collections of proverbs to folk rhymes and riddles, lullabies and game songs, as well as fables and folktales. (1) tShared Student Publicationsu. Classroom journalism and publishing are among the most common team-teaching projects. This is probably because student newspapers and magazines are a flexible format into which virtually any type of writing growing out of a curricular project can "fit". Also, everyone in a student journalism project has clearly defined roles. Students are "reporters" when they write articles for local newsletters; "editors" while revising and polishing their writing; and "correspondents" when they send finished articles for inclusion in the school newspaper produced by their distant partner class. Every element of classroom technology also has a clearly defined, familiar function; for example, computers become typesetters or teletypes at various stages of the editorial process. If teachers wish to take full advantage of the daily give-and-take that electronic mail makes possible, two partner classes decide to plan and publish a single newsletter by establishing a "joint editorial board." Students from both classes form a panel to make the innumerable decisions which go into a successful journalistic product, ranging from the title of the newspaper and the topics that reporters will cover in both classes, to the final stages of production involving artwork, layout and printing. This project can be enriched by inviting reporters and editors from community newspapers to offer professional advice to students, and by organizing field trips to local newspaper offices. (2) tComparative Investigationsu. The second type of team-teaching project can take many forms, but one of the most popular and illustrative is the "comparative community survey". Here, the partner classes pick a theme of common interest. This theme is usually a controversial one that confronts and challenges the students' respective communities (for example, homelessness, drug abuse, deforestation, or the depletion of the ozone layer). The classes nominate and together evaluate various items for inclusion in a joint community survey that taps public opinion on their chosen theme. Items are selected which provide both quantifiable data and open-ended reactions. When the survey is completed, the partner class teachers help students to analyze the results and to craft a report on their community's stance toward the controversial theme. These reports are then shared between partner classes. The spirit of the comparative community survey is to "Think Globally and Act Locally", and the project often leads to joint community actions initiated by teachers and students. Throughout this type of project, students and teachers make constant use of electronic mail to coordinate actions in both classes as they shape their collaborative research. The goal of this activity, like other comparative investigations, is to develop students' critical inquiry skills. As community "self-portraits" are shared, partner classes begin to compare and contrast their communities and world views, so often taken for granted. This same impulse drives other team-teaching projects which fall under this category, such as joint science investigations and contrastive geography projects. (3) tFolklore Compendiums and Oral Historiesu. In the third category of team-teaching projects are collections of folklore and community narratives. These projects can involve numerous distant classes, not only two partner classes, since the more wide-ranging and diverse the participation, the richer the final product. There is no lack of folklore material to investigate locally, and then to share, compare and contrast with a faraway partner class or with dozens of other classes in the tOrillasu network: proverbs and the fables with which they are often associated; folk games, riddles and rhymes; traditional folktales; even lullabies and folksongs. An especially important outcome of folklore studies is that students come to view their parents and relatives as vital sources of valued cultural knowledge. Folklore studies often lead to more sophisticated oral history projects, in which students conduct more extensive, formal interviews with their peers or elders on themes relating to community history. Thus, this category of team-teaching project is perhaps unique in its use of high technology and modern communications networks, but with the homespun goal of sparking students' involvement with oral traditions that span generations of family and community history, traditions which might otherwise vanish. Conclusion Through sharing Culture Packages and Team-Teaching Projects tbetweenu distant classes, _Orillas_ provides students with diverse opportunities to display and share their changing linguistic competencies and varied cultural experiences twithinu their classrooms, thus fostering genuine second language learning and authentic "cross-cultural" knowledge. These are the skills necessary for creating and sustaining learning communities capable of confronting the social, cultural, and ecological challenges of the coming years -- that is, the sort of learning communities that have deep local roots in the community tas well asu an extensive global reach. tReferencesu Cazden, C. (1985, April). The ESL teacher as advocate. Plenary presentation to the TESOL Conference, New York. Cummins, J. (1986). Cultures in contact: Using classroom microcomputers for cultural exchange and reinforcement. tTESL Canada Journal/Revue TESL du Canada. 3u (2), 13-31. Cummins, J. & Sayers, D. (1990). Education 2001: Learning networks and educational reform. In C. Faltis & R. DeVillar (Eds.) tLanguage minority students and computers, Special Edition, Computers and the Schools, 7u 1-2), 1-29. DeVillar, R. & Faltis, C. (1991). tComputers and cultural diversity: Restructuring for school success.u Albany NY; State University of New York Press. Figueroa, E. (1988). Efectos del adiestramiento en redaccion computadorizada en las actitudes del personal de Tecnologia Educativa (DIP) hacia la ense$anza de la redaccion. Unpublished typescript for Masters Degree coursework, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Roberts, Linda & staff. (1987). tTrends and status of computers in schools: Use in Chapter 1 programs and use with limited English proficient students.u Washington: US Congress Office of Technology Assessment. Sayers, Dennis. (1990). tInterscholastic correspondence exchanges in Celestin Freinet's Modern School Movement: Implications for computer-mediated student writing networks.u Keynote Address, November 17, 1990. First North American Freinet Congress, St. Catharines, Ontario. Sayers, D. & Brown, K. (In press). Putting a human face on educational technology: Intergenerational bilingual literacy through parent-child partnerships in long-distance networks. In David Spener (Ed.), tAdult biliteracy in the United States: A National Clearinghouse for Literacy Education Forum.u Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Willetts, K. (1989). Computer networking applications. tAthelstan Newsletter on Technology and Language, 2u (2), 1, 2, 3, 10. Endnote: (1) Many of the suggested activities described in this section are drawn, in edited form, from orientation materials authored or co-authored by Kristin Brown, Enid Figueroa and Dennis Sayers, coordinators of the tOrillasu teacher partnership network. As this network has focused on K-12 educators in bilingual and ESOL programs, the examples provided are drawn from these settings.