Around the World NOW

Around the world NOW !! Anne Mirtschin, Hawkesdale P12 College,Victoria, Australia

4 continents in one classroom - Manila, Boston, Hawkesdale, Sth America

It was a wonderful experience for my students for their voices to be heard in Australia, Boston and Argentina. The boys told my other classes in first year so now they are plotting to have a rebellion if they too will not be given a chance to experience the virtual classroom. I have no choice but to ask all 8 sections to prepare a powerpoint presentation and when the opportunity arise any day they should be ready.We have lots of pictures to show to you. We want also to see pictures of your students and whatever activities in school or outside they are involved in. The boys would love to know more what life is in Australia as seen through the eyes of their fellow students. Rox from Manila

http://www.jacksonschool.org/webcasts/Manila_Melbourne_9_09_08/

About me

Some particulars

Teach grades ICT 2 to 12

Personal blog , classes blog and

backyard blog

Set up Individual student blogs

Joined many social networks

Exploring a flat or virtual classroom through variety of global projects

Experimenting with global videoconferencing

Laying the eplanks for a web2.0 school as part of TPL with Jess McCulloch

MS Innovative Teacher of the Year, Victoria 2008

Conceptual Age

Communicate

Connect

Creativity

This session will cover:-

Pedagogy

Online applications for connecting

Practical uses, outlining personal experiences

Factors for success

Future Potential

I would like for my students

become confident, independent and self motivated

Take appropriate risks but learn from their experiences

be safe from predators and other dangers

Be able to become life long learners

Enjoy learning about other cultures

Reflect an appreciation of different ways

Take responsibility for their learning

Encourage and support others

Experience a range of learning activities

POLTS

Use strategies that are flexible and responsive to the learning and thinking styles, values, needs and interests of individual learners

Capitalise on students’ experience of a technology rich world

Develop attitudes, knowledge, skills and process which enable learners to contribute to to and react to change within the community.

.....Blogging.....

Sections to a blog

Posts

Pages

Categories

Tags

Widgets – clustr maps, delicious links

Blogroll

comments

http://backyard.globalstudent.org.au

The power of comments!!!

H eatherb http://heatherb.globalstudent.org.au/ | [email_address] | 203.214.92.148

What wonderful photographs Ann. I loved visiting your backyard and noticed just how green everything is now and how full all the dams are. Having seen it all looking parched just a few months ago I fully appreciated the transformation that had taken place

[email_address] | 207.200.116.71

This is so interesting. I especially like how you and your neighbors help each other. What a better world this would be if everyone did this. And I love the picture of your Maggie and Fergus!

Anita Marie

My Backyard is Seattle Washington- and it’s in everything I write. Nothing has inspired me more. I can see you all feel the same way too. Pretty great, isn’t it? Anita Marie

Lori

I seem to end up visiting many volcanoes– Mt. St. Helens, Kilauea, Lassen, Yellowstone– now I have one more to add to the list– Mt. Rouse!

From Mt Rouse Volcano Discovery Centre , 2007/08/29 at 5:46 AM

travellr [email_address] | 136.173.162.129

our local railway is separated from my house by a road and a field/orchard. After 17 years of living so close my nights are no longer punctuated by the sound of passing trains but on still day I can hear the sound of the road crossing barrier warnings. Far from hating the sound of trains, I think the sound of their passage is comforting

I am an Australian living in Qatar in the Middle East and was scrolling down the posts and found a picture of a plate of HOME BAKED Anzac biscuits. “What a horrible tease!!!” I began thinking until I scrolled a little further and the recipe was there as well!!! I can TASTE them just by looking at the picture…. and now I can go home and make a batch.

Steph’s independent post prompt I’ll ask the world a question (that’s you) and you answer it whats your favorite movie and why?

So wrote a grade 5 girl, independently, as her own post prompt

15 replies from countries including the UK, Israel, NZ and USA

Some of the comments

G’day Steph. I am in Tasmania and have a class blog as well http://wyatt67.edublogs.org Now to answer your question - my favourite movie would have to be “The Sound of Music” because I like Julie Andrews as an actress and I also love the songs in the movie. The storyline is also great.

Riptide Furse // Jul 31st 2008 at 6:42 am

I have many favorite movies. One of them is The Pistol: Birth of a Legend. Although the title makes it sound like a violent movie it isn’t about guns. It’s about achieving your dreams. It is the true life story of “Pistol” Pete Maravich. He is one of the best basketball players ever. The movie follows him on his journey to becoming a pro basketball player and how he overcame so many obstacles by practicing and keeping focused on what he wanted.

Lisa Thumann // Jul 31st 2008 at 6:48 am

I like a lot of movies. But I love The “Shawshank Redemption”. Tim Robbin’s character, Andy, proves to me again and again that if it’s important to you - it’s worth fighting for.

I also happen to love Morgan Freeman’s voice, so the fact that he is the narrator is an added bonus.

See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/ for more information about the movie.

Meeting Ines from Portugal

Thanks, Murcha!

I have been honored to translate you. Your post will be great as an exemple of the wide variety of possible activities that blogging with students enable, with the respective benefits both academic and pedagogic. Hopefully students parents will be relieved and enthousiastic about the new horizon their children are about to unveil. Trough translation we keep in the spirit of web2.0, where collaboration and sharing remain prior values, thus enabling beginners to take “on line-life lessons” from veterans and accelerate their own development.

Ines

Google applications

google docs – processor , sheet , presentation

Calendar

Reader

Notes

Igoogle

Google maps and earth

Google groups

alert

Working with sheets

google forms

chat function

basic spreadsheet formulas

projects

The google form

Collaboratively setup

Students filled in after being given the shared url

Dumped into sheet automatically

A section of the google sheet showing the results of our survey between Denver, USA, Hawkesdale , Aus and Nablus, Palestine

Student Outcomes

How I did it…

save url for google forms into a shared folder, students copy and paste onto internet explorer tab, fill in form, submit Results immediately filled into google sheet

I export results into MS Excel>students manipulate data for summarizing and reporting (ave and sum functions) Graph results

Can either screen capture graphs in MS Paint, convert to jpg and insert as image in blogs or prepare MS Powerpoint>uploaded into www.slideshare.net for embedding in blog.

Students prepare report on findings

Sample student work

Year 9/10 Leecie or flurogreen

Year 8 Tavish

Growing an online PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK

A flat classroom.....

Skype (www.skype.com)

VOiP

Live chat

Audio

conferencing

Videoconferencing

Bookmark and save chats

Can record conferencing-

eg powergrammo

Some constraints

Sound quality can vary

May drop in and out

Lose video ability once more that two people use skype

Broadband is essential for videoconferencing

However, skype is constantly seeking feedback

Video conferencing

Korea

Connecticut - link

Canada- jeff

- anne

Global Staff conferences and planning meetings

Teaching about Australia to Nashwaaksis Middle School, Canada

Facebook

At Nashwaksis school, students have access to facebook

Bulletin board advertised the webcast

Students added questions they would like answered, so I knew how my content should be tailored.

After my presentation, they used the bulletin board for evaluation and feedback purposes.

Questions prior to videoconference

If you were in the outback is it true that there are houses out there that are under the ground???? If so how were they made?

I was wondering whats so specail about Australia ? Whats so specail down there ? If you were walking down the street, what would people there be wearring ? ( shorts, jeans, hoodies, t-shirts ? ) What is your favorite thing about Australia ?

Are the foods in Australia the same as in Canada or do they eat weird things like ants ???

Student feedback

That was soo cool! it was real awesome of the cool things i (and everyone) learned, I think i'm gonna do some research on more later...

i really liked the fact that we were actually talking to her. not just in email. i thought all the pictures she showed were pretty sweet. also, i thought it was cool how we are used to different surroundings and habbits.. yes, we dont say put your bookbag in the boot... i still find it awsome, though. i love australia so much! (not to mention thier accents!)

i loved her accent. when she said RIGHT-O ! hahaha !

It was incredible, Its just so different from what is normal here. I probably would of never found any of that out if it wasn't for that presentation!

that was an EXCELENT, presentation. I LOVED IT. it was very interesting, and i think that getting to learn chinese is a very diffrent thing then what we learn here. THANK-YOU SO MUCH. :D

i dont really understand why they learn chinese... i dont really think that makes much sense

we wanted to know what bubble taps were.

hardware/software

Headphones with attached microphone

Broadband

Skype

Slideshare set up on a wiki

Processes

Met on projectsbyjen.ning.com

Shared blogging

Took turns to write a post prompt each week

live blogging

Finale was a ‘show ‘n tell’ with students – huge success

Used webcam for school tour

Collaboration nation

Sharing

Cultures

Experiences

Schools

Knowledge

Youth

Extra curricula

Live Blogging

The Connecticut Chant Hannah...hannah....hannah....!!! A live pet bird opened the show.......

Flurogreen’s post

Today, Friday 13th June, we participated in a show and tell video conference on skype with Collaboration Nation. It was great to see the people from Collab to come in after school. The time for us was 10:00am but for them it was like 8:00pm on THURSDAY night not FRIDAY! We learnt so much from them such as: They have a place where you can buy donuts called Duncin’s donuts, they are really into baseball like we’re into AFL, some of the students there support the Sixers basketball team and they dance and cheerlead.

It was so good to be able to talk to kids from another country. All they seemed to do was laugh. That made us laugh too. They were easy to talk to and easy to understand. It was good to be able to see what kids our age are like, their interests and the way they look and speak. It was so good.

One let down for me was that the smart board had lines in it which annoyed me a bit. Another thing is that the time went too quick. Unfortunately we had recess and it was getting too late for them. I could have spent a lot longer talking to them.

It was so much better than the blogging thing we did with them becasue we got to see the actual people. The blogging was awsome but this was so much better.

Some networking sites

classroom20.com

globaleducation.ning.com

Ningineducation

Technospuds and projects by Jen

Various Teacher mailing lists

edNa – the Australian site

many, many more - use a search engine

Voicethread

(www.voicethread.com)

User friendly

Digital storytelling

Collaborative work

Moving on

Global projects

www.youthradio.wordpress.com

www.es1001tales.wikispaces.com

www.ms1001tales.wikispaces.com

From me to you

Flat horizons project

Where to find some

Classroom2.0

Global school house

Projects by jen

Lucy Gray’s global project ning

Flatclassrooms ning

Videoconferencing with Manila

"I remind my students that they are ambassadors representing their class, school, state, country, continent and hemisphere ....This is especially helpful when doing a recording since it's sort of like 'live t.v.' It was fun to see the smiles from the kids in Hawkesdale when they realized that the students in Claret were in the audience! Students love working with students......no matter what continent they are on." Lorraine Leo, Boston

Manila link It was a wonderful experience for my students for their voices to be heard in Australia, Boston and Argentina. The boys told my other classes in first year so now they are plotting to have a rebellion if they too will not be given a chance to experience the virtual classroom. I have no choice but to ask all 8 sections to prepare a powerpoint presentation and when the opportunity arise any day they should be ready.We have lots of pictures to show to you. We want also to see pictures of your students and whatever activities in school or outside they are involved in. The boys would love to know more what life is in Australia as seen through the eyes of their fellow students. Rox from Manilah

and some words from Manila

“ Thank you also for the opportunity that you have given us to meet your students. Thank you Lorraine for being always around to help us. The AU students were such a big hit among my students. They were all so excited. They were actually caught by surprise since I did not have the chance to meet them prior to our webcast. They all wanted to speak on the microphone. Well, what motivates more a 13 year old boy than to see a pretty girl on video”

View recording

Other software for collaborating

Ustream

Flash meeting

Wikis

Elluminate

Ms communicator

Dimdim

e Discover,

adobe connect

Some considerations

Cybersafety

Digital citizenship

Work ethics

Time commitments

Time zones

Infrastructure in other schools

Maintaining the contact

Be prepared for some hard work

Communication is the key. Start via emails, blogs, wikis, twitter etc

Share blog post prompts, comment on each others blogs

Confidence is the key – staff need to trust and accept each other

Tips for videoconferencing

Equipment required: microphone, web camera which can be rotated, camera stand (if possible) datashow, white wall/screen or IWB

Choose appropriate software to you needs. Check out the capabilities, cost, safety aspects, recording capabilities.

Network cables often preferable to wireless networks

Get to know your colleague before commencing videoconferencing– use emails, blogs, wikis, live blogs etc Try video emails. Talk to each other over skype.