That’s what some believe. So, for subjects ranging from Spanish to science, from homework help to exam reminders, teachers around the country are beginning to allow students to text in class.
Working with Sarah Soltau- Heller from Port Hardy, Canada has been an incredible pleasure. A prime example of “Collaboration Etiquette among Professionals“could be defined.
We started out by collaborating on a Google Doc between teachers. We had an idea section, a time line as well as an area to compile resource links.With e-mail and skype calls we crafted a project that both ends would feel comfortable with (tech skill & time wise).The idea was to collaboratively allow students to create a sports news cast about the Winter Olympics.
Then we created a wiki that would house all the media, information, documentation and resource links for our Olympics 2010 Collaboration project.
Brainstorming with Wallwisher
To stir enthusiasm even further for the second graders on our end, Sarah arranged for a Skype interview with one of the Olympic torchbearers from her home town.
Interview with Olympic Torch Runner from langwitches on Vimeo.
Sarah and I had a very interesting discussion on Skype about what our goals for a COLLABORATIVE project were going to be. We did not want to have our students gather information, deposit them on the wiki and then independently “do their own thing”. We wanted them to share the spirit of the Olympics
I have been thinking about the collaboration thing since we chatted on Skype. Â Is this really collaborative? Â Is it really collaborative learning for the students from each other? Â How to make this about the children creating and producing and not just me spending hours on the computer.
Within our schools we collaborated with the art teacher and librarian to pull in more resources and connect what students were learning and experiences with other subjects.
Learning about Orcas from Canada
Learning about Orcas via the Arts
Learning about the Sport of Curling
We created a VoiceThread with images of all the sports disciplines represented in the Winter Olympics. As students were learning about each sport from books, TV at home or videos shown in school, they were to take note of facts or other helpful information to be recording in an audio comment on the VoiceThread.
The VoiceThread would then become the primary source of information for the students for background information as they were preparing their final Sports Newscast script.
Students then recorded their sports segment of the podcast, alternating between students from the USA and Canada to produce an international newscast.
We created the podcast in Garageband, each student on a different track. Sarah sent all her students’ tracks as mp3 files to me, which I then dragged and dropped onto the tracks in my Garageband project file. I added sound jingles for transitions and …voila… we had a collaborative international newscast.
We also arranged for the students to practice and play the Winter Olympic Wii game of Curling. Each class practiced individually.
Practicing Curling on the Wii
Cheering each other on
When then arranged a day and time to have a final competition. Unfortunately we had an accident on our end and our Wii console fell and would not operate. We still sang the Canadian and American National anthem for each other and watched the Canadian team do their Curling via Skype.
Singing the National Anthem of Canada and the USA
Besides learning about Winter Sports, the objective of the unit was global awareness, sportsman ship, patriotism, learning about other countries and flags.
For the teachers it was an incredible adventure of international collaboration. Thank you Mrs. S-H & Mrs. B.
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