We are Off! First Connection in Around the World with 80 Schools

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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Skype Connection Rituals

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…

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Skype Interview- Around the World with 80 Schools Project.

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.

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