What New in Computers at GECDSB?

Sending an Email on a Vacation

I enjoy a good chuckle and this project did it for me. The premise was to send an email message and to see where it went. Over the two week period of the project, it was expected that there might be a little response to the project. The "little response" exploded. The story is below.

SENDING AN E-MAIL ON A VACATION Greg Dobson Mill Street Public School

The Y2K 4/5 class at Mill Street Public School recently sent an e-mail on a well deserved vacation. An e-mail was sent by the students to six people in Ontario. It stated

:

"We are grade four and five students at Mill Street Public School in Leamington, Ontario, Canada. We are doing a project on mapping skills and we need your assistance. We are posting all places on a map where our e-mail travels during the period November 8 - 30. If you receive this e-mail please do the following:

(a) E-mail our class at gregd@mnsi.net to inform us that you received the message.

(b) Forward this message to other people in the world so that our e-mail can continue travelling."

At the end of its two week vacation, the e-mail travelled to twenty-three different countries and the Y2K 4/5 class received over three hundred responses. The students plotted every single location the e-mail vacationed on maps that are posted around the classroom. It was a very enjoyable, interesting, and educational experience for both the students and the teacher.

The results of the project can be examined in more detail by visiting the project's website at http://www.mnsi.net/~gregd/project.html.