We are Off! First Connection in Around the World with 80 Schools
by Langwitches ~ January 13th, 2009. Filed under: Collaboration, Global Awareness, Projects.
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My original idea of charting the journey in order of geographic location has turned out to be a logistic nightmare. Timezones and availability of each school seem to make contacting each other harder than it had to be.
Since the primary objective is to make the connections with the school, we are going to connect with the participating schools at a mutually agreed upon day and time, not when the geographic location would dictate them.
So far we have 72 schools participating in 18 countries. There is still time to sign up. Especially from a country in Africa and New Zealand!
So we are off on our journey around the world with 80 schools.
Today we had the privilege to connect with Brian Crosby’s seasoned 6th grade Skypers from Nevada.
Brian and I had a brief skype call the day before and talked a little bit about what we wanted to accomplish and how we were going to stay within the 5 minute time frame.
Here is the suggested timeline, we came up with:
- Hello (15 sec)
- Intro of School 1 (school/geographic location) (30 sec.)
- Intro of School 2 (school/geographic location) (30 sec.)
- School 1 shares (1 min)
- School 2 shares (1 min)
- Data collection Question (30 sec.)
- Goodbye (15 sec)
I connected his 6th graders with one of our 3rd grade classes. In the morning, I went to their classroom to install Skype and set up the webcam. I showed them Nevada on Google Maps. The few minutes before the actual skype event, the classroom teacher, Mrs. W., picked 2 students to do the introduction for our school, 2 students to share about our travel bear and 2 students who would ask the question for our data collection. All the class was very excited.
We did have a couple of issues
- little bit of audio problem (Florida could not hear Nevada well)
- Something was wrong with Florida’s webcam (we saw a yellow stripe through the screen, which I think had to do with plugging the webcam into the front USB instead of the back of the PC)
Nonetheless, the kids were amazed and compeltely engaged to see, absorb and connect what they were hearing and seeing.
We found out what some of the favorite books of the class in Nevada was and explained to them why our students wore uniforms.
We went a little over the 5 minute alloted time, but we will get there with practice. 
Did you know that the two schools that connected today are 2239.08 mi (drawing that line in Google Maps, automatically displayed the distance) apart from each other. I wonder how many miles will we complete after connecting with 80 schools?
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January 14th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Am still dazed and amazed with this project. Congratulations Nevada on being the first ones to kick off this adventure. We’re looking forward for our turn.
Thank you Silvia, for this wonderful opportunity.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Alex, We are looking forward to talking to you and your students too. Every time we look at the project’s google map, students want to find out what is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Talk to you soon.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I am really excited about this project especially now that it has started. I have talked to my coordinator and she is totally behind us. We will be one of the schools that will be having a sleep over at school in order to fully participate. We will be practising and getting prepared after Chinese New Year holiday.
Heather
Beijing
January 16th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Heather,
Let’s talk soon to find a time to connect across the time zones. It will be amazing! Thank you for participating.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Congrats on your first connect! I’m busy over the last week collecting ideas on how to use blogs and Skype with my students (this has been a dream for a while), and you’ve kicked it up a notch. I hope to follow your lead a little in my efforts. FANTASTIC IDEA on making it a journey. I plan to watch closely. I agree with another post, a contact sheet list of participating schools would be GREAT! I’m hoping to partner with other classrooms, so ANY resource by which to connect with students already using Skype is greatly appreciated.
January 25th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Relton,
As a participant in Around the World with 80 Schools, you should have received an invitation to view the Google Spreadsheet that was created from the form participants filled out. Please let me know if you did not receive the invitation.
February 12th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
[...] en un proyecto de 80 escuelas He observado el desarrolllo de este proyecto reciente (vean aquí y aquí). Silvia Tolisano, LangWitches, January 20, 2009 [Liga] [etiquetas: escuelas, Audio Chat, audio [...]
February 12th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
[...] We are Off! First Connection in Around the World with 80 Schools [...]