Around the World in 80 Schools

On April 2nd my class and I were Skyping with Brian Crosby’s clss in Nevada while they were being filmed by a local ABC news crew. Here’s part of the information on the link:

“Local Elementary Students Travel To Canada In One Day Twenty-two local kids traveled to Canada and back Thursday, as part of a school lesson, but they didn’t need any permission slips for this trip. The group of sixth-graders from Agnes Risley Elementary School in Sparks used modern computer technology called “Skype” to visit our Northern Neighbors. Canada is the fifth country the group of 11 and 12-year-olds has visited so far this year. The students are working on a national project called “Around the World With 80 Schools,” but there are actually more than 150 schools involved. So far, they’ve been to Argentina, Thailand, Iceland, New Zealand, and Canada. There’s no telling where they’ll go next. By 11:00 a.m., the 22 students had 21 new friends from Sasketchwan, Canada. They traveled there using ‘Skype’, a free video-conferencing website that allows people to connect face-to-face, no matter the distance. “It was pretty cool. We can see them and they can see us. We can talk to them,” said 6th Grader, Cynthia Lara. “These are the new 20th century tools. We all grew up with chalkboards,” said teacher Brian Crosby. The students gave their new friends a presentation of our state song, and answered questions about their favorite sports teams and foods. “It’s a really great experience. At first I was nervous, but now it’s easy and I think it’s cool. It feel like I am traveling and I get a new experience every time,” said Paul Nguyen, 6th grade student. Then each of the students has their own blog that they post about their experience, many getting dozens of web hits a day.

These are some of my students’ blog posts from our class blog:

Today we skyped with a school in Sparks,Nevada it was cool.They had a news reporters there and they filmed the skype call in there school there is 500 students.They are from Grades K-6 they have 22 students in there class.They used to have a girl in there class that had leukemia,cancer,but she had to stay at home.We talked to them for about 30mins it was really cool.There Teacher name is Mr.Crosby.There school name is Agnes Elementary School.And that’s all Comment Back PLEASE. ReginaPatsRule

Today we had a skype call. Skype is a program were you can talk and see people. Our skype call was at 11:15 this morning.(CST) We skyped with Agnes Riley Elementary School in Nevada.

Today at 11:15 we skyped to people in Nevada and there school is called Agnes Riley Elementry school and they had a couple of people from the news station were there filming the skype call to put it on the news.It was awesome.You guys should try chatting with them on skype.

Click here to read the rest of the story and watch the news story.

My students enjoyed the experience which was different from their previous skype calls. Brian’s class was well organized with information and pictures about their location and school. My class really liked how Brian’s class presented the information and want to prepare a presentation about us for our next skype call.

It was great fun and we enjoyed being famous for a short time. Thanks to Brian and his grade 6 class for inviting us to join in the Skype call.

Iditarod Global Collaborative Project

We’ve just finished working on a collaborative project following the Iditarod Trail Dog Race. The project was tied to our Social Studies, Science and Language Arts curriculum. This is the second year of the collaboration with the project beginning in early February . Students worked with partners in classrooms in the United States and Canada. There were around 150 students working together in ten groups. The students worked on background assignments: history, weather, geography and musher information for four weeks prior to the race starting. Once the race began, the first Saturday in March, the students followed their mushers and wrote blog posts about their mushers progress in the race.

Last of the Iditarod <!– 03/18 –>
	Lance Mackey won the Iditarod race. And he has a six to 8 houre lead.Our guy Mitch Seavey is at Shaktoolik and so far he is in 5th. Iditarod <!– 03/10 –> Today for the Iditarod my musher Ken Anderson and he is now in 18th place and he now has 15 dogs on his sled.He is at acheckpoint his average speed is 6.05.Stay tuned for more info.

The feedback from the project was great.

What I really liked in the 2009 Iditarod sled dog race was that I learned about Alaska. Did you know that the biggest volcano in Alaska is called Redoubt? Jeff King came in 12th place and has had better runs. What was your favourite part of the 2009 Iditarod sled dog race? 0kiwifruit0
In this year`s iditarod project I learned that you have to look after your dogs.Also you have to look after your sleds because when Dede broke her sled.I also learned that Lance Mackey won 3 times in a row. googlyeyes

In this years Iditarod project I learned about Balto.I also learned about the weather in Alaska.Then I learned about the trail in Alaska . I learned about that it takes a long time from Anchorage to Nome.This is what I learned about the IditarodBabyBash What I learned from the Iditarod race is that you all was have to feed your dogs first before you eat. The musher get water by digging a hole in the snow so you keen put a barole in the hole. Then they put snow in the barole to make the snow melt and they made water. When the musher gets close the the other musher they have to say “trale”. When a musher sees a moose in there way they can kill the moose or scare it away. What I like about the Iditarod is the place’s that the musher are in because when a musher is in 40th place and two days go by and that musher is in 3th place it so neat how fast they can go. what I learned about the iditarod What I learned about the iditarod was that its not all about who comes in first. It’s out having fun,doing something you and old friends can do together. The iditarod is alot about sportsmanship. What thrilled me the most was how helpful the people of the iditarod are when something happens out on the trail. The most thrilling thing I saw on the iditarod was how everyone helped each other like when some one fell asleep on the trail when they were still moving and fell off there sled, they woke up when they hit but there dogs werent stopping, they ran to catch them but endead up catching a ride with another racer. This is what I learned about the iditarod. I’m already looking forward to working on the project next year. I’m glad the students enjoyed working on and learning about the Iditarod Trail Dog Race.

David Warlick Keynote @ iTSummit09

Redefining Literacy with David Warlick March 24th, 2009

http://davidwarlick.com/wordpress/

How do we prepare students for a world and future we don’t know about. We need to stop integrating technology but integrate literacy. If students are literate “in terms of their information landscape” they will ask questions and challenge information. Students must be willing and encouraged to ask questions. In fact, we want students to become digital detectives; look for clues and evidence about where their information is coming from. We want literacy to go beyond reading text on paper and answering questions about the text. Students are reading in a global electronic highway where anyone can publish which means that the demands for literacy are changing. Today literacy means that students need to “expose what’s true: find, critically evaluate, organize and apply.”

We also need to teach students to communicate their ideas in a compelling way that moves beoynd text to videos, photos, digital storytelling, music and art.

Contemporary Literacy:

Exposing What’s True

Employing the Information

Expressing Ideas Compellingly

Do it all within an Ethical Context

Redefine Literacy, so that it reflects today’s information.

Developing a Technology Plan

My school division is developing a technology plan for students, teacher and administrators. Up to now we have operated without any formal direction and lots of technology. We are considered a technology rich district. Our school division is investing great sums of money in hardware for schools and teachers. Each elementary school in the division has two media carts complete with ten MacBooks, data projector, airport, digital cameras, digital video cameras, digital microscope (which I never remember we have) and a music keyboard. Teachers and students also have iMacs and eMacs in their classrooms. As well, each teacher in the division has been given a laptop for their use. The problem is that with all of this available technology we do not really have any formal plan about integrating the technology into our daily teaching.

Last November interested teachers and administrators were asked to submit applications to become part of the technology concept planning group. We met twice prior to Christmas to discuss wants, needs and dreams. After Christmas we were sent a goal document composed by one of our superintendents and our IT manager. We were asked to edit and revisie the document prior to sending to our board of trustees. The trustees approved the draft document and asked for specific outcomes. The planning group was asked to add details to each goal that would be developed into a more detailed document.  So, that is where we are at. I am not sure what the next step is but  I am looking forward to working on the plan.

If you were able to list ideas that would comprise a perfect technology plan for your school district what would you add?

Are You Aware?

As I was searching for information about educational blogging I came across the following listing on Google:

Are You Web Aware? | Blogs

Information shared in blogs may be too subjective or trivial to be meaningful in any kind of educationalBlogs may provide easy access to offensive …
www.media-awareness.ca/…/wa_resources/wa_teachers/are_you_web_aware/web_aware_blogs.cfm – 30k – Cached – Similar pages way.

Curiousity peeked, I had to go to the listing and check it out. The first piece of information started with this:

Over half (52%) of all blogs are developed and maintained by teens ages 13-19.

(Source: Georgetown University , Gender, Identity and Language Use in Teenage Blogs, 2005)

For those of us who have been following the current information and discussions in technology this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

Media Awareness Network

Media Awareness Network has links for parents, students and teachers to support media literacy.

What do you think?