Executing my first goal of communicating relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital media formats has proven to be positive challenge. After establishing a fifth grade level blog, I have found that I have had eighteen views of my positing. Included in my blog wash an explanation of what skills students have been working on as well as some examples of student work, with names removed. I will be launching my first and second grade blogs tomorrow, both containing student work as well. I hope to have my third and fourth grade blogs done by the end of the week, just in time for the Thanksgiving break. Thank you to my classmates who offered great knowledge and thoughts as to using a blog, Twitter and/or text to establish the contact with parents. Their responses provided me with information I had not yet considered, such as the lack of privacy using Twitter and the ability to set up group texts without the use of my own phone number.
My second goal is proving to be a bit of a challenge though I hope for a positive outcome. As I write this our school is considering establishing a sister school in Africa and I am again looking for input from classmates. This school is beyond poor with buildings made from corrugated metal attached to two by fours, no windows, just open areas where the metal does not reach the roof and fresh water is provided through a sister which gathers rain water from the roof. Students range in age form first to fourth and boys and girls keep their hair buzzed short to keep free of lice. This is the little I know about the school, but I will know more this week as I ma meeting with colleagues, one of which who has been there and assisted in setting up the water gathering system.
One of the main teachers there has internet at his home, but there is no connectivity at the school. We are considering sending an iPad to them so students could exchange vides of each other; w are twelve hours apart, so any live interaction is out of the picture. I am looking for enriching experiences to share either through emails, videos or blog posting that the head teacher would have to upload once he is home. One idea I remember hearing from a classmate was reading the same book with epals in another country and through blogging students shared their views of the story and characters in the book. I am considering something like this, but am certainly looking for more ideas to deeply engage students on both sides. "People need a deeper understanding of the thinking, motivations and actions of different cultures, countries and religions. Global awareness promotes understanding, tolerance, and acceptance of ethnic, cultural, religious and personal inferences as they plat our in communities and workplaces, It also helps people through the complexities of different points of view that spring from different parts of the world" (p21.org, p. 13)
Any ideas are certainly more than welcome.
References
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved
from http://www.p21.org/
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you are making excellent progress with your GAME plan. I am happy to hear the blog is working for you. Just out of curiosity for my own sake, what blog site are you using and are you posting all students work or just picking and choosing exemplars from the group?
Establishing a sister school in Africa sounds like an amazing experience, I love that this is a school effort. Would you consider using Skype or Google Hangout to video chat with the students and teachers? Of course this would only work if the bandwidth is strong enough. Allowing the students to see and talk to students will help them gain a deeper understanding of the culture and may trigger some excellent discussion and authentic questions. Thinking about the modern conveniences that the school is Africa is lacking, could the students at your school do some real life problem solving and maybe some STEM (science technology, engineering, and mathematics) projects to find realistic ways to address a specific problem. Great post!
Tiffany
Hi Tiffany,
DeleteMy blog for Walden is through Google Blogger, so I began my first blog using Blogger, but I became concerned that parents might be able to access my other blogs, Google profile, etc. My other grade level blogs are through edublogs, which has worked out fairly well as it handles images and QuickTIme movies easily. I am selecting the handful of images to display, attempting to show how students take the basic lesson and just do that, which is great, and others use their tech skills to add to the project. Does that make sense? I don't want my students producing cookie cutter projects, so I lay out what is required, but always encourage individuality. In the case of a podcast or class slideshow, generally everyone is represented.
Connecting with the sister school is so exciting, but a little challenging as they are 12 hours ahead of us, so realtime communication is pretty much out of the question. The other problem is, at the school they have no internet, but one of the administrators has internet access at home. Our plan is to send the administrator an iPad, so he can video tape the kids at school and when he gets home he can upload the videos on to a private YouTube channel that I will set up. He can download videos of our kids to share with students as well, this would take place, maybe every other week.
I love your idea about using STEM to problem solve, they could sure use it! They currently have 130 students and 2 "latrines" which I think are holes in the ground. One of our science teachers was over there 3 years ago and by testing the "drinking" water, he was able to get a well dug for their water. I'm hopeful that once we get really established with them, we may be able to present their needs to the students and, like you said, have them do some real life problem solving.
Thanks and have a great Thanksgiving!
Sarah