A visit to Southend this summer might seem a bit of a come-down after previous trips to places as far
away as Turkey and Canada, but Spike seems to have enjoyed his day-trip with the pupils of Little Heath Special School in Essex. As usual the story of his trip, together with some photographs, can be seen on the school website in a special area called SpikeNet.

Spike is a teddy bear, but a very well-travelled one. Like many other schools, Little Heath has taken up the Travel Buddies idea, originally promoted by the British Council in Australia. Spike, their travel buddy, goes on his travels and the pupils in the school learn about the places he visits, write to him and answer his emails.

The Internet has made this kind of project possible. Teachers can easily set up exchanges with travel buddies by email and then plan the work that will be done in school to develop this. After the visit, the
school homepage can be used to publish writing by the pupils and to encourage them to visit the site, perhaps from home or a local library, to read about Spike and his travels.

It is this use of the Internet - to make contact, to provide a real audience and to encourage reading and writing - that is far more important than its use as a library of information. Indeed, as a library, the
Internet is seriously flawed. As an almost-free publication and communication centre, however, its possibilities are boundless. Many teachers in special schools have felt isolated in the past, perhaps thinking that no one else has to teach a child quite like the one in their classroom. In recent years many of those teachers have made great use of the mailing lists managed by Becta to contact others, exchange ideas and look for solutions.

More young people with special needs are now able to use email following the rapid increase in Internet-connected computers in homes, schools and libraries. Even young people who can communicate only in
symbols can access email through the use of programs like Inter_Comm (www.widgit.com). Communicating through email can be a great leveller, and many users have remarked upon the way in which they are taken seriously online, compared to some reactions in real life if they are wheelchair users or have a speech difficulty.

In the classroom, it is perhaps the Web that offers the most exciting possibilities, although there are areas to be careful about too. Publishing on the Web may only mean that a few parents and local people will read what is there, but the possibility exists for anyone in the world to access the information. This means the school should have a clear policy on the use of photographs and names.

Parental permission will always be needed before photos of pupils are put on a website, and many schools have developed a policy for photograph use which can easily be applied to online publication. Group photographs are usually fine, and many schools use only first names when crediting a piece of work. We don't want to disappoint a child who is proud of the piece of writing they have just produced - but neither do we want to provide a dossier of information about a vulnerable child to anyone who may be browsing the Web.

With these cautionary provisos, the way is clear for schools to develop a wide range of websites that celebrate the literacy practices of the young people we teach and offer useful ideas for sharing with others. Some special school sites are extremely inventive, and often far more interesting and useful than the big professional online resources.

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