Through the help of various people around the globe (thanks Jared!!) I'm starting to pull together some educators to work on some collaborative projects over the upcoming school year. Specifically, I'm looking for international classrooms (although I won't say no to anyone - ) that are early primary. I teach a JK-SK class and with that comes some limitations and difficulties, but hey, I'm willing to work through those and around them.
I'm most particularly thinking of projects that may have to do with cultural traditions - during holiday times, specifically, but could be year round. We could share pictures and comments about these traditions. Also, I thought a study of native animals, with possibly some seasonal/migratory info included would be interesting.
I'd welcome any other ideas. Contact me here if you'd genuinely like to see something like this happen.
Here in Ontario, Canada we're about halfway through the summer break and since I've now had time to do a little decompressing, I'm doing what teachers the world over do - thinking about the upcoming year. For a while now I've been interested in the whole Web2.0 thing but in the back of my mind was always the question:
Sounds like great stuff, but how would you do it with kindergartners?
I mean, generally speaking, they can't read and write yet. Other than buddying up with an older class to do their reading and writing, how would it work? And let's suppose that a teacher is in a school like the one I just left. One that only has kids in it to the age of 8, maybe 9.
Well, with the generous support of people like Jared here at Christonium, and the great suggestions of people associated with Classroom 2.0 and other Ning networks, I think I have some ideas. These ideas certainly did not start with me, I'm just throwing some out that had their birth in the seeds planted by others.
What about starting the year off with an exchange of pictures and/or video? The home classrooms can spend time discussing the similarities and differences between classes. They could use Venn diagrams to explore higher order thinking skills. I'm sure others can expand on this.
How about using Voicethread? What a great site , and thanks to Susan from CR 2.0 for pointing me in its direction. If you haven't seen it, check out at www.voicethread.com . Students can upload pictures and then add audio commentary. They can also download from flickr. No microphone? No problem. There's also a writing option. So for those people who would like to include an older class, they can techno-scribe. There are already some great projects on voicethread, from early primary teachers.
Later projects could include sharing cultural traditions during holidays like Thanksgiving Day here in North America, or Christmas time. Projects that happen later in the year can be more detailed as teachers get to know their students, their backgrounds, their strengths and weaknesses, etc. What about a project that talks about native animals and/or plants. How about weather patterns? Community helpers?
I truly believe that younger students should be included in technological literacy. Yes there are some limitations, but children continue to amaze me with what they can do. Is it a function of the relativity of the learning? Hhmmmm.................. Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:58 pm
You can change this category to a different name or delete it all together if you want. Use the tool on the right hand side of the page called "Create Categories & Items".
Try changing the name of this category ("My First Category") and turning it into a private category. It's actually pretty easy to do. Here are the steps:
1) Go to the category "My First Category" in your top navigation and click on that link.
Note: You'll notice that you are inside of the category "My First Category" and that your item "Distance Collaborations" is listed in a box below your top navigation but the item "Distance Collaborations" will not be displayed; "Distance Collaborations" is only displayed as a link to the item. If you had more than one item in this category you would see both of those items listed here.
2) In the "Create Categories & Items" area above your mail center on the right hand side of the page you'll notice the link titled "Categories". Click on that link.
3) When the page has finished loading you'll see that the "Create Categories & Items" area has more options in it. Read what these new options are and find the one that says "Edit Category" and select the link that says "Yes" next to it.
Note: Once again the "Create Categories & Items" area has expanded. You'll notice a form at the top that shows your category titled "My First Category" in an editable text field (so you can change the name) and radio buttons that say "public" and "private".
4) Select the radio button that says "private" and submit the form.
Note: The category "My First Item" is now set to private. Only you and people you allow will be able to see that the category even exists. You can check by logging out and going to your site's URL. (You have opened up your site right? I sent you an email about that). Once you've done this I think you'll have a pretty good idea how to control categories in christonium.
Let me know if you have any trouble. Once you've made this category private I'll show you how to give me permission to see it just like I gave you permission to see one of my private categories. Sun Aug 26, 2007 8:28 pm
I've done a little preliminary investigating of VoiceThread and I think for Kindergarten teachers there are a lot of possibilities for collaboration here. For example, on the VoiceThread site I've seen a link to ABC's and student discussion of a filed trip to the zoo. What better way to make their learning meaningful then to have students recall or simply tell what happened in a particular photo. If you'd like to share some pictures and digital storytelling, please contact me by adding a comment here or emailing phdawson@sympatico.ca