Learning About Communities…Not From Textbooks

I recently wrote about Thinking About Learning Differently- Talking to Strangers, where I mentioned our third graders journey of skyping around the world to learn about different communities.

They have spoken via Skype with classes from a suburb of Los Angeles, CA , an rural community in Missouri and a city, Weatherford, TX. The latest connection was with Anna Faridaku, a teacher and children’s book author from Indonesia.  Students took turns speaking with Anna, who was just amazing in connecting (via the screen) to the kids, answering and asking questions. She engaged them  and pushed them to deeper thinking about similarities and differences about our communities.

They have now also spoken to a class from Prague, Czech Republic and we are working on our next connections with Argentina and New Zealand. Please contact me via Twitter (@langwitches), if you are interested in being part of the 3rd grade learning journey.

The goal is not to only collect cold data, but to:

• make connections between the different locations and communities
• learn about geography
• talk “to strangers”, practicing speaking skills and conversation skills, be aware of body language…
• reflect on how and what we are learning
• invite a global audience (including parents and grandparents) to continue a conversation via the classroom blog
• continuously  becoming better at asking questions and learning that questions don’t stop at the end of a lesson, day, Skype call

Overcoming geographic boundaries

Conversations about Alligators in Florida and Prague

Two native Hebrew speakers meet across the Ocean

Documenting through various lenses

Documenting

Using tools for synchronous and asynchronous collaboration

Formulating questions and collecting data

The comments on the classroom blog below came from family and friends of our students who continued to contribute to students learning after the call ended.

Family continues a conversation after the call ended

Skyping with Indonesia

It is time to THINK DIFFERENTLY about learning!