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Too often, students are merely consumers of information. Allowing students to publish their work on the Web gives them the chance to be producers of information, contributors to the knowledge base. I believe that student publication is one of the most promising potential uses of the Internet.
Folk Tales From Africa (http://hi-c.eecs.umich.edu/umdl/stories97/index.html)
High school students produced these stories set in Africa. They researched background information such as setting and weather via the Web, then published their results for others to read.
Middlezine (http://www.salamander.net/people/hnoden/)
This on-line magazine publishes student work by middle schoolers.
Reviews by students (http://hillside.coled.umn.edu/class1/bookreview1/Teacher.html)
Simple, yet effective, example of student publishing. The elementary students wrote reviews of childrens' stories and their teacher created a table of contents linking the reviews together.
Publication of student work does not mean that every student has to be in front of an Internet-connected computer. Students can create material to be published on a non-Internet connected computer or even an AlphaSmart keyboard, with the teacher collecting the material together and posting it to the Web.
Remember also that your school doesn't have to have a dedicated computer as a Web server for students to publish. Apple's OS 8 allows any Mac with an IP address (connected permanently to the Web) to be a Web server. http://macb.soe.umich.edu/ is a working example: It's being served from my regular desktop computer. There are also sites which allow you to submit text via the Web and have it served from someone else's machine, leaving you one less thing to worry about.
When you do student publishing, remember to have a definite audience in mind. You may want to contact potential readers, either by e-mail or through word of mouth, before students begin to write. Having an audience accomplishes two goals: First, students are assured that someone will read their work, and second, students can picture their audience and write their work accordingly. Publishing on the Web without an audience in mind is kind of like putting a note in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean--it's possible that something good will come of it, but not likely.
