This blog post has been in the making for over 12 months.The first part was written (and then left in the draft folder) in November of 2009, while the second part is being written as the unit was unfolding over the last few weeks.

I began working with our Middle School Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Kuhr, to upgrade one of her units (Author’s Point of View).

I wanted to:

• describe the teacher’s train of thought from the moment, I approached her with the idea of taking reading of short stories to challenging students to create a podcast narrated from a different point of view.
• compare the initial lesson objective the teacher envisioned to the unexpected lessons the project taught teacher and students.
• her journey of podcasting for the first time, playing and staying one step ahead of her students when working with Garageband.
• document 21st Century skills, students were being exposed to and were practicing.

I wanted to document in way:

• that could it could be shared on our school’s (private) professional development Ning, so her colleagues could be inspired by her “courage” to just try it out and by the possibilities upgrading a “once traditionally taught unit” could bring to their own class
• that it could be shared on our school’s 21st Century Learning blog to keep the school’s parents informed of what their children were experiencing in the classroom. What skills are we teaching our students? What are digital natives capable of creating?
• that it could be shared on the Langwitches Blog in order to reach a wider audience than the one of our small school community. Reach out, so educators from around the world could get an idea that would, in turn inspire them, to try something different in their classroom and as a result reach more students from outside of our school.

Ripple Effect

Sharing what one is doing, sharing what one is learning along the way, will not only allow for reflection, but it also will create a ripple effect. A ripple effect that in turn will touch the lives and the future of others.

As the unit upgrade and the podcast project progressed, I kept documenting via a draft on my blog. Mrs. Kuhr was faster than I was and wrote a fabulous documentation and reflection of her lesson on our school Ning. With her permission, I am cross- posting:

LESSON:
To Teach the Literary Element – Author’s Point of View

OBJECTIVES:
Students will learn the various points of view and be able to identify them in literary works. Students will explore how point of view affects a story’s plot. Students will learn to discern the subtle differences between author’s point of view and perspective, and how to employ each in their own creative writing.

Next, the SET INDUCTION:
I love to tell stories, so I began with a 1st person narrative about an awkward situation that involved me and several others. After I told the story, I asked students to imagine the thoughts and emotions of the other “characters”; how the story would differ, say, if told from a 3rd person omniscient point of view. Or, better yet, what kind of stories would the others tell?

Then, APPLICATION: Each class read a short story from their literature texts -

• 8th: The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
• 7th: The Foghorn and All Summer in a Day, both by Ray Bradbury
• 6th: Eleven by Sandra Cisneros

and was asked to identify the author’s point of view. Students were then instructed to imagine how their stories would change with a different character’s or object’s perspective. Discussion ensued, and though the repartee was thoughtful and stimulating, I felt I needed something more concrete by which to evaluate. I had recently spoken with Silvia about the successful podcasts she was doing with the lower grades and wondered if the same technology could be used as an assessment tool…

Alas, the PODCAST: Using Garage Band, each student recorded a retelling of the story he/she read from a perspective other than that of the original narrator. Students could select a minor character, the protagonist or an inanimate object to tell their tales. In some instances, students were allowed to create characters (a.k.a. the “fly on the wall”), as long as they stayed true to the storylines. After recording the narration, enhancements (e.g., sound effects, music) could be added to the podcasts.

Finally, ASSESSMENT: Actually, the podcasts themselves are the means by which I will evaluate whether or not my objectives are met. As students finish, they will present their podcasts to their classmates, first explaining why they chose their particular perspectives. In each case, the class is responsible for identifying the author’s point of view.
Note: Though higher level critical thinking and creative imagery were my goals, what transpired produced a whole new skills set in digital storytelling. As a result, I asked my 8th graders to create a generic Podcast Rubric for all grades. Hence, in addition to the lesson’s objectives, students will be assessed on podcast content, technical production, and presentation.

WHAT WORKED:
The majority of the students “got it”. They were able to use perspective and point of view in a creative writing/storytelling scenario. They were enthusiastic, focused (for the most part), and exhibited pride in their work. Peer review was more “critique” than “criticism” – always a plus. And I learned more about podcasting and Garage Band than I ever thought I would – or could!

WHAT DIDN’T WORK:
Concurrent recording. Oy! There were not enough places to hide and record in quiet. Background noise was a problem, and editing often led to volatile frustration. Time was also an issue. I had originally scheduled 5 class periods per grade for this assignment. (I should have known better.) We are now on week 3.

WOULD I DO THIS AGAIN?
Yes, with tweaking. Now that I know what’s involved, I’ll begin with a definitive rubric that reflects objectives and goals, add a production schedule, and stagger recordings.

e

Lisa Nielsen from  the Innovative Educator  wrote around the same time as I had started this blog post (in November 2009) “21st Century Educators don’t say “Hand it in”, they say “Publish it!” . In my opinion, Mrs. Kuhr took the step towards becoming that 21st century educator. She moved from having her students “hand in” a written response to a prompt to allowing students to add elements such as voice and sound effects to support their character’s perspective as they were recording a podcast. She also realized that her usual assessment rubric was insufficient. She invited her students to join her in creating a new assessment tool that would reflect, not only the basic literacy skills, but also the their podcasting skills.

Fast Forward

Fast forward 14 months. We are in 2011 and Mrs. Kuhr has the previous year’s experience under her belt. Podcasting (and Garageband as a tool) do not scare her anymore and she was ready to repeat the “upgraded version” of her author’s point of view  unit with her students.

Current 8th graders had had the experience with podcasting as 7th graders (with a different story). When presented with a new story, they were also given a choice of media they could use to express “their” chosen point of view.

A few students chose to create individual podcast files, while others decided on a collaborative episode. The latter group worked hard to come up with job descriptions and divide the responsibilities among themselves.

Students assigning their own job responsibilities

Here are the jobs they came up with:

• Project Manager
• Assistant Manager
• Sound Manager
• Scribe
• Script Supervisor
• Technical Assistant
• Liaison
• Character Coach

They also collaboratively designed a rubric for their point-of-view project.

Students Helping Create their own Assessment Rubric

Here are a few examples:

• The Tell Tale Heart retold by 8th grade (collaborative group work)
• The Tell Tale Heart retold by the old man’s heart (William)
• The Tell Tale Heart retold by the old man (Manya)

One students chose to create a PowerPoint to express yet another point of view (the bed)

7th graders were also given a choice of media (audio, video, powerpoint, essay, multimedia poster, etc.). They all chose to create a multimedia poster with Glogster. Mrs. Kuhr quickly created a teacher and student accounts and had them in business in no time.

Glogs are interactive posters that can include different media (images, audio, video, text). All student-created-projects (glogs, powerpoint, videos or podcasts) involved dealing with, finding and using digital media for their creations. A mini-lesson evolved around the issue of Copyright and Fair Use grew out of this need.

Rikki Tikki Tavi Glogster

Rikki- Tikki- Tavi Glogster Example

Students created their glogs about a specific character from the story and their unique point of view. They linked to each other’s glogs to tie the story together. Some students used more text and links, others were heavier on images and some even inserted audio.

Where do we go from here? How do we extend the learning further? How do we “upgrade” more parts to include more 21st century skills and literacies ? How can we give students more job responsibilities to empower them and take ownership in their learning? That will be part of Mrs. Kuhr’s and my reflection before next school year’s Author’s Point of View unit rolls around again.

Around the World with 80 Schools

Around the World with 80 Schools started in January 2009 and is an ongoing project.

In order to join you have to be directly involved with students (Pre-K-16, Adult Language Learners, etc.). This is NOT the platform for you, if you are charging a fee in order to skype with students.

The challenge is to connect your students with 80 schools from around the world via Skype (a free video conferencing tool).

Once completed, you will be inducted into the Hall of Fame of “Skyping Certified Educator” So make sure you keep documentation of your connections. It is up to you how regularly and for how long you connect with your Skype partners. The only requirement to count as a “connection” is that you are connecting your students with another school anywhere in the world. While it will take some participants a few months to complete the challenge, it might take others several years and different student groups to connect with 80 schools. There is no time limit nor pressure to make a certain amount of Skype connections in a given time period. You are welcome to join with your students at any time. There is no grade nor subject area limitations.

“Around he World with 80 School ” has continued to grow beyond expectations. Currently there are over 400 participants.

A few weeks ago, I added a Ning platform to facilitate management, communication and collaboration among members.

http://aroundtheworldwith80schools.ning.com/

The Ning already has over 175 185 members participating.

I am in the process of transitioning ALL the project content to the Ning, which means the

• Sign-up form
• Contact info spreadsheet (You received the link after you completed the sign up form)
• Project wiki

will no longer be active and maintained starting May 1, 2010.

Please take the time to

1. Sign up for the Ning
2. Add your location to the Member Map
3. Document your skype connections on the Ning via links or blog posts.

Add your location to the Member Map

Adding your location to the member map is extremely important since many contacts are being made on the basis of time zones or country/state location.

The Ning is also growing with groups, specializing in certain grade levels or subject area teachers. We have also started a group of “experts” who are offering a subject area expertise and willing to skype into your classroom.

Muchas escuelas en Latino America están volviendo a trabajar y estudiar en las proximas semanas después de sus vacaciones de verano. Volviendo con mucha energía e entusiasmo de empezar un año escolar nuevo e integrar competencias del siglo 21 con tecnología.

Jose Rodriguez me invitó a una sesión de Puentes Al Mundo, que es un sitio dedicado a promover conversaciones en español en la red.

Es tiempo de promover la participación de docentes y escuelas que quizás no saben o no se sienten confortable con el idioma inglés.

El proyecto nació de la idea de combinar mi pasión por despertar y alimentar una conciencia global en mis alumnos aquí el EEUU.

Este deseo está conectado con la necesidad de enseñar y preparar los chicos para las capacidades del siglo 21, a través de tecnología.

El octubre pasado, viaje a Perú y conocí a Tatiana U., una maestra de un jardin de infantes en Lima. Ella entusiasmada de conectar sus chiquitos, recién aprendiendo inglés, con nuestros alumnos de la misma edad que  están empezando a aprender español.

Preparamos una serie de encuentros entre las clases por Skype donde los chicos cantaron unas canciones, jugaron un juego y leyeron un libro juntos.

Al mismo tiempo conectamos nuestros alumnos con el colegio Goethe de Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Con las maestras de computación e inglés  (Heidi M. y Cris) conectamos a los alumnos de sexto grado para aprender de nuestros países respectivamente. Con una serie de video conferencias los chicos se conocieron, pudieron hacer preguntas y compartir Halloween virtualmente.

Las conexiones y el aprendizaje que tuvieron lugar fueron increíbles. Los alumnos estuvieron atentos, entusiasmados y preguntaron “¿Cuándo podemos hacerlo otra vez?”.

¿Cómo podemos hacerlo otra vez? ¿Cómo podemos conectarnos a más escuelas, más paises, más culturas, más idiomas. ¿Cómo abrir nuestros paredes de las aulas a un mundo grande y accesible?

Así nació Alrededor del Mundo con 80 Escuelas.

Concepto: Conectar con 80 escuelas en diferentes partes del mundo via Skype. Las llamadas serán entre 1-5 minutos para decir “hola” e intercambiar/compartir algo interesante de su vida diaria o de su ciudad o país.

¿Cómo participar?

1. Llenar el formulario con tus datos de contacto
2. Te llegará una invitación de mirar la hoja de todos los participantes del proyecto, colaborar y agregar una foto o otra información al mapa de google de los participantes, colaborar en el wiki del proyecto para agregar las conexiones y aprendizaje que estás haciendo con tus alumnos?
3. Puedes esperar hasta otro participante te contactará o usar el e-mail de uno para iniciar tu propia conexión para combinar una fecha y horario de encontrarse via Skype
4. Preparar a tus alumnos ANTES de hacer la conexión. ¿Dónde está la escuela geográficamente? ¿ Qué vamos a compartir? ¿Qué sabemos de esta ciudad o país?
5. Posible cronología de la llamada
   1. Hola (15 segundos)
   2. Introducción de la escuela ( 30 segundos)
   3. Introducción de la otra escuela ( 30 segundos)
   4. Escuela 1 comparte (1 min)
   5. Escuela 2 comparte (1 min)
   6. Preguntas  ( 30 segundos)
   7. Adiós ( 15  segundos)
6. DESPUES de la llamada repasar con tus alumnos. ¿Qué escucharon? Comparar con otras conexiones que tuvieron. Observaciones durante la llamada. ¿Qué aprendieron? ¿Alguna sorpresa?
7. Documentar la conexión con fotos, videos, resumen, reflexión de lo aprendido en tu proprio blog y agregar el enlace al wiki del proyecto.

Escuelas participando:

View Larger Map

Pilar Soros Mateos en su blog Eskolas, subió un buen screencast, como usar el Google Traductor para traducir el Wiki del proyecto al español.

Todos que estan interesados en participar en la sesion en vivo de  La vuelta al mundo con 80 escuelas  Proyecto colaborativo a través de Skype, encuentrenos el domingo 22 de febrero a las 17:00 hora global en http://puentesalmundo/live.

O si estan leyendo este blog post pasado esta fecha pueden escuchar la grabacion  http://puentesalmundo.net/node/36

At the beginning of January, I spoke with Howard Wolinsky who writes for the Skype in the US Blog about the “Around the World with 80 Schools” project.

School ‘langwitches’ teacher to reach out with Skype Video to 80 schools around the world.

Around 5 weeks into the project, we connected again for an update.

“Skype Sunday” enables students in six countries to meet on video in 60 minutes

Technorati Tags: AroundTheWorldWith80Schools

Six schools in six countries in one hour? Is it possible?

Over 100 participants in 23 countries have shown desire to connect with other schools and left their contact information.

Time zones issues seem to be the biggest hurdle in connecting our students with schools from the Eastern Hemisphere during school hours.

I invited the students in my TechClub to come and join me on a Sunday evening, the night before a school holiday on Monday, in order to skype with schools in Asia and Australia. Luckily that school holiday was a country specific one (Presidents Day) that the  other schools did not observe.

My own daughters and a family friend joined us to create a group of students from grade levels ranging from 4th-11th grade.

As you can see from screenshots of Google Earth above, taken on Sunday February at 8 pm (EST), it was already dark for us on the East Coast of Florida while the schools in Asia and Australia were already in school on Monday morning.

We met about 30 minutes before I had scheduled the first skype call with Thailand for 8 pm (our time). I showed everyone the google map with yellow placemarks indicating the schools that we would be talking to that evening. We made a visual connection to the time zone issue by looking at the geographic location of these schools on the map.

Each student received six index cards that they labeled with the country. I then asked for volunteers to

1. Introduce our school
2. Share something about our school or location
3. Ask a question

I also asked them to help me take notes of what each school would be sharing or asking us.

While we were in the middle of preparing our index cards, we received the first Skype chat notification from Ann Mirtschin (Australia) that they were ready for the call. Oops, even with using GMT and a converter online, I still must have mixed up the timezones and was off by one hour. (Maybe Daylight Savings time issue?)

So we needed to be flexible and improvised and jump in!

Open YOUR windows to the world!

image by ozekki

You could literally hear the hinges of the window screech as they opened up and we connected with:

1. Anne Mirtschin from Hawkesdale P12 College,  in Hawkesdale, Australia
2. Chrissy Hellyer from International School of Bangkok, Thailand
3. Jason Crewe from Busan Foreign School Elementary School in Busan, South Korea
4. Wendy Liao from United World College of South East Asia East Campus in Singapore
5. Heather Davis from Yew Chung International School of Beijing, China
6. Amanda Marrinan from St John Vianney’s School in Brisbane, Australia

In one hour students were exposed to:

• Connections to people and  cultures from
  • Australia
  • Singapore
  • China
  • South Korea
  • Thailand
• Measurements and Conversions
  • Temperature- Celsius- Fahrenheit
  • Distance- Kilometers-Miles
• Geographic Literacies
  • Language, Accents s & Dialects
  • Time Zones
  • Hemispheres
  • Seasons
  • Continents
  • Oceans
  • Location
• Technology
  • SmartBoard
  • Webcam
  • Skype
  • Chat,
  • GoogleMaps
  • Spreadsheet

Questions students asked the most

• Subjects taught in School
• Sports
• After School Activities
• How many languages do you speak?
• How many different nationalities are in your class

Students took notes on what they heard during our connections

Australia- Hawkesdale

• 11th & 12 th Graders
• It is summer there right now
• Boomerang is used for hunting, killing animals
• Lots of Koalas and Kangaroos
• Waltzing Matilda is an Australian folk song
• Red White and Blue flag

Thailand- Bangkok

• 5th Graders
• 81 year old king
• 15106.82 km away from Jacksonville ~9320.56 miles
• About 53 different nationalities
• International School
• 1870 students at the school
• They are in the rainy season- hot and humid
• They have many After School Activities
• Soccer is a very popular sport

Singapore

• Kindergarten
• other side of the world
• Audio was not working well

South Korea- Busan

• 4th Graders
• One student used to live in Jacksonville
• best food in cafeteria is Pizza
• Many of the students have been to the USA
• Popular sport: soccer
• Really hot in the summer

China- Beijing

• 4thGraders
• Wear red shirts as part of their uniform
• School is on East side of Beijing
• They like to play football, soccer, rollerskating, ping pong, basketball, badminton, Monopoly
• Their teacher, Mrs. Davis is from Canada
• Each student is from a different country, no Chinese students are at the school
• They all speak English and Chinese and the language of their home country.
• They travel a lot during their vacation
• Just celebrated the Chinese New Year (Year of the Ox)
• Currently -2 C
• About 850 students at school from 41 countries
• They like to eat ice cream
• They just learned about Alaska
• Ni Hao (Hello)
• Xie Xie (Thank you)

Australia- Brisbane

• 2nd Graders
• Net Ball- Like Basketball, but you don’t dribble, you have to throw it into a goal
• Sunny and hot
• They play soccer, cricket, football and netball (for girls), swimming, tennis
• They live close to the Pacific Ocean
• They live close to a bay.  “MoretonBay”
• One family of their class lives on a boat
• 28 C- 82 F
• 26 kids in class- 16 are boys
• compared activities in school
• wear uniforms

Things to consider for the future:

• Students tend to be quiet and shy the first time. As will anything else, give them time to practice and they will come out of their shells
• Let students be more involved with setting up the skype call. Let them manage the chat, dial in and video and audio settings
• Let students guide the conversation more
• Practice through role play ahead of time a CONVERSATION.
• Teach them to continue a question with follow up. How about you? My name is….what is yours?, etc.
• Improvisation and flexibility. How much do you want to script and prepare the conversation? How does that affect English Language Learners?

Technorati Tags: AroundTheWorldWith80Schools

Thank you to everyone who has participated or is working on connecting with another school through the Around the World with 80 Schools project.

For many of you this is the first time Skyping with another class and I applaud you in taking the first step. The benefits for your students AND you are incredible.

Through twitter and blog posts, I am hearing about these connections you are making.  PLEASE document your journey in one way or another.

Write about and reflect on the experience and learning that took place.

Image by Andrew Rollinger

We are pioneers in making these global connections with our students and can only imagine the benefits for the future.

Many schools have programs like Skype blocked or have administrators who do not support “time wasted” on non-tangible, non- standardized test preparations.

How can you document your journey and experience?

• Enter info about your connection on project’s wiki on Your Journey
• Blog about it (please add “AroundTheWorldWith80Schools” tag)
• Bookmark to Del.icio.us (“AroundTheWorldWith80Schools” tag)
• Send me an e-mail or twitter and I can add you info

Technorati Tags: AroundTheWorldWith80Schools

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?

Technorati Tags: AroundTheWorldWith80Schools

In the process of Skype becoming more and more popular in schools and  teachers are becoming more comfortable in using it with their students. there seems to be something else emerging:

Rituals

Two of the Around the World with 80 Schools participants have let me know of a ritual  that they are observing at the start of a Skype conversation another school.

Lorraine Leo from the Jackson School writes:

Our class traditionally sings ‘The Circle Song’ at the beginning of our Skype contact with schools followed by a short chat.

The lyrics the song are:

‘Come and join the circle, come and take my hand.  Come and join the circle.  Come and be my friend.  Gather round and see what the world can be.  Come and join the circle.  Come and share God’s word with me.

Another ritual came to me via the wiki invitation from one of the participants ( I am sorry, but I can’t remember who it  exactly was. You know who you are, please drop me an e-mail or comment here, so I can give you properly credit )

We start out every Skype conversation with a game of  “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. The winner out of three games, wins cookies from the other class.

I think the idea of a ritual is a great one.  On wikipedia, you can read

The purposes of rituals are varied; they include [...] strengthening of social bonds [...] stating one’s affiliation, obtaining social acceptance or approval for some event — or, sometimes, just for the pleasure of the ritual itself.

I have added a page on the Project’s Wiki to add your existing school’s Skype ritual or an idea of one.

If you are not one of the project’s participants, leave us your school’s ritual or routine as a comment on this post.

I am off to think of one for my school…

Technorati Tags: AroundTheWorldWith80Schools, Skype

Howard Wolinsky, Skype’s USA blogger, contacted me a few days ago to ask if we could talk about the Around the World with 80 Schools project.

He recorded the skype conversation and wrote about it on School ‘langwitches’ teacher to reach out with Skype Video to 80 schools around the world.

I am hoping it will help spread the word of the project, especially to schools in Europe and Africa.

Technorati Tags: AroundTheWorldWith80Schools