Connect 2.0

Mrs. L and Ms. B’s fourth grade classes have just started an exciting new project! They are going to be creating multimedia book reviews on VoiceThread (check out a sample here) and then sharing them with partner schools around the world so that their single book review can become a dynamic conversation around books.

Our goal is to promote a love of reading for all students. We can share our VoiceThreads with other classes here at ISB, as well as partner classes in other international and public schools around the world. We will post all of our completed multimedia reviews on our wiki: Books Go Global!  (thanks to Lucy Gray for inspiring our wiki layout with her fabulous Cities of the World wiki – another amazing global collaboration to join!)

VoiceThread is an easy to use, free, online digital storytelling tool that allows students to share their ideas using images and their voice. One exciting feature of a Voice Thread is that it allows us to collaborate with other students around the world. Once a Voice Thread is created, other students can add their own images and narration to the initial Thread. This means that students around the world can begin to discuss and share their thoughts about their favorite books.

Now, I have to admit, I think VoiceThread is pretty cool. When I show our grade 4s a sample VoiceThread I thought they would just be blown away by the tool. And, to some extent they were impressed. But, when they really got excited, and I mean literally shaking with excitement in their seats, was when I mentioned that these book reviews would be shared with other students all around the world.

I find these global connections exhilarating myself and I’m so impressed at how quickly and easily fourth graders were able to grasp the power of these tools. One student asked if she could create her book review in English and her native language, so that friends and family from her own country (who might not speak English) can still enjoy her work. Which then started a discussion about the possibility of a book review being started in Korean, but making it’s way around the world, being translated as it travels. We talked about having partner schools on every continent and ending up with one book being reviewed in as many languages as possible – just like “real” books are published in different languages. What a powerful thought for a group of nine-year-olds!

It’s clear that this project is going to be amazing!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 1:57 pm and is filed under 21st Century Literacy, Global Collaborations, grade 4. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.