IEARN

If you haven't checked out iEARN lately, give it another look-see. They have some really cool technology-rich international projects in which your classes could participate. There is a catch, the service costs $100 per classroom and $400 per school. While there are plenty of ways to find resources for free, if you need a bit more guidance, this may offer an option for you. Some of my colleagues have praised it. Their project center is featuring a Folk Tales project, Tulip study, Holiday Card exchange and a lot more. They also have a professional development section on the site, where they offer courses for educators. The courses are $360 for members and $260 for members. Here's a list of their current offerings:
Creative Arts
Creative Writing/Language Arts
Social Studies/Contemporary Affairs/Geography
Science/Environment/Math
Teaching of Foreign and Second Languages
Learning Circles
Moving Voices (Making digital documentaries)
PEARL: Integrating Journalism skills into the classroom

It's a great resource that's becoming even greater!

Cereal as a Cultural Indicator?

I'd like to think I know a cool project when I see one, so when my school's social studies teacher came to talk to me about a sociological experiment involving Breakfast, she had me at "coffee." Her idea is to have her students collect data about what people in various countries eat for breakfast, and then to analyze that data for social, economic, cultural and even religious significance. Awesome, right? We've got the 4 Breakfast wiki for the project set up and initial emails sent out to our World Village partners, it has been posted in various places, now we play the waiting game. Won't you come and play with us?

Our Chat with India Today

Today was our first Skype video chat with our new partners in Indore, India at the Southern Heights School. The Tech Coordinator there, Kumar, is such a friendly and dedicated person. I feel honored to be gifted with a partnership with him. I updated our wiki today with some videos highlighting the dance that he spoke to our children about and some photos. Although our children were all supposed to meet, there was a communication problem and their children were not there when we showed up. I have found if you go with the flow, anything can be an excellent learning experience. So, we spoke with Kumar instead about the holiday his students were on and how they observe that holiday. We're looking forward to our next chat on the 17th...take two!

Stating Your Intentions

In my email inbox today, there was a "declaration of intention" awaiting. The email from our newest World Village partner in Indore, Madhya Pradesh India had a pdf attachment formally declaring their intention to partner with us and explicitly outlining their wishes for certain outcomes. This blew me away. In a world of hastily-typed emails, K. Ram Mohan Rao took the time to state his school's intentions. It reminded me of the power words can have. Technology can trivialize the communications process, it can distance us from the gravity of our own statements. This man from the Southern Heights School in India treats his words with care and honor. I have already learned from this partnership. I think all our new partnerships should begin this way.
image credit: pandagon.blogsome.com

The World Village Comes A'visitin'

This week marked a momentous occasion for our World Village initiative: we had our first visitor. Now, it's not the first visitor the school ever had, but it's the first to occur because of our global connections initiative. Mr. Samuel Yalew is the founder of the Ethio International School in Bahirdar. He stayed with my family for an evening after a week-long conference in DC, then visited our school for a day. He gave informative and interesting presentations to our 2nd, 3rd and 8th graders. I was not only impressed at Mr. Yalew's ability to communicate and connect with our students but also with our own students' questions in response--they were thoughtful and insightful. Here are some images:

Global Education Initiatives

It's gratifying to realize that I have been blogging for exactly one year. David Warlick cajoled me (and others) into starting a blog during his keynote at last year's AIMS Technology retreat. And here I am, a year later, still blogging. Yesterday, I led a directed session on Global Educational Initiatives at the 2008 AIMS Technology retreat I have been attending since Sunday. I think it was well received and I promised that I'd post the slideshow on my blog. So, here we go:

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A Fully Integrated Experience

This week at our school is International Festival/Multicultural Fair week. For about two weeks in the winter, our entire school learns about various countries and that learning occurs across subjects and grade levels. It's one of the most exhilerating times for me as a teacher. There are those who complain about how much work it is, but they do acknowledge how the level of immersion is maximally effective at helping children learn. I wish every day could be like that in our school. Here are some of our activities in Technology classes, along with some videos of classes in action:
http://wearetheworld.pbwiki.com/TECHNOLOGY
And here's one of the videos:

International Studies Immersion Week

Each year, our school holds an immersion week during which they learn all about a given country. It's tied to their International Festival dance performance, and our Multicultural Fair. This year, we've really got our stuff together. Our curriculum coordinator and a second grade teacher Allison Archer have created a We Are The World wiki for our entire staff to use. They have preresearched materials to share with each grade level and designed whole-school "hooks" so that it is a community-wide experience. In years to come, we'll be able to reuse these resources when the "cycle" comes round again. It's a perfect example of how an online collaborative resource can benefit not only a school, but parents at home and those outside our own community as well.

By the way, we are using pbwiki for this and they have improved their bandwidth a great deal from the last time I posted about them. I have absolutely no complaints about the service. It's an ideal tool to use, easier than wikispaces at this point....