Connect 2.0

Our fabulous elementary teachers and students are participating in a wide range of exciting projects that help them connect to the world around them using web 2.0 tools. If you’re curious about web 2.0 or the different ways that your children will be using technology at school, please come to our monthly Parent Technology Coffee Mornings in the ES Learning Hub (the first Wednesday of every month at 7:30, as listed in the school calendar).

For now, you can get started by checking out our first projects for the school year:

Grade 5: Students Teaching Students

The wonderful Chrissy Hellyer and her fellow new ISB teacher, Aly McAloon, will be kicking off the school with a classroom blogging project that will eventually include a regular podcast focused on the Lucy Caulkins Readers Workshop. Our students will start by reading and commenting on each class’ blog, while learning about online safety and appropriate behavior, and will eventually become contributing authors to this blog. We will connect with another grade 5 class at Shanghai American School and the American School of Madrid to help engage and motivate our learners to share their learning with their classmates around the world!

Grade 4: BlogPals

Our fabulous returning teacher, Sonja Merrell, who participated in the 1001 Flat World Tales last year, is back for more 21st century learning this year! She has decided to start the school year off with a class blog, which she will use as a communication portal for her students and their parents. We’re going to start off the year using this blog as a discussion tool, to build a strong school-home connection and to get her students thinking about their learning in a more interactive way. Over time we will have each student as a contributing author to the blog, in order to record their learning and development over the course of the school year.

Grade 2: A Window to Our World

Another amazing returning colleague, Susan Souza, is connecting her class to a partner class via a tool called Ning. She conducted a similar project last year and was amazed to see how quickly her students took to this new learning environment – posting questions and answers, commenting on individual student pages, and sharing their learning as a class – all in second grade! This year the project will focus on building intercultural understanding, learning about diversity, and getting to know our collaborative partners in this private network.

Grade 1: ESL Learners Speak English

Our enthusiastic grade 1 ESL teacher, Erin DeYoung, started using VoiceThread in her classroom last year as a way for her beginning ESL students to practice their English in an authentic environment. We had a great time connecting to grade 1 ESL students at the American School of Madrid, and we’re planning to re-connect again this year. Our students will start practicing their English with an short introduction to each student so that our partner class can really get to know each person as an individual. Over time the students share a bit about their lives in Thailand, the school, and other grade 1 favorites.

Kindergarten: Kids Draw!

Our amazing Kindergarten team teachers, Sandy Chin and Akiko Nagamine, are jumping in to a new model of technology learning with their fantastic class. We have started out the year with a short unit on drawing, where the students were asked to draw a picture of themselves on paper (for a unit entitled “All About Me”) and then draw the same picture on the computer (using KidPix). We discussed what was the same and what was different about drawing on paper and drawing on the computer. Interestingly, although almost all of them though drawing on the computer was more difficult (we still need to work on those fine motor skills), most of them liked drawing on the computer better. After this short unit, Sandy, Akiko and I realized we have lots of room to grow with drawing and technology. We’d like to revisit the concept of drawing on the computer over the course of the year and build in some thoughtful reflection, ideally with VoiceThread, where students can talk about the context of the picture, and the skills they learned while drawing.

All of these projects are being facilitated by our 21st Century Literacy Specialist, Ms. Cofino, in partnership with the classroom teacher. You can keep up with all of the new and exciting developments in 21st century literacy here on the Connect 2.0 blog!

Mr. Dudash took writing to the next level this week by having his students podcast their work and set it to music. The students in the class were asked to select one piece of recent writing that they were proud for use in their podcast. Next they selected a piece of accompanying music that best fit with their story or theme. Each student then took an evening to practice reading aloud with emphasis and style. The next day they recorded their story into Garage Band, a podcasting program that put all of the components together. I think you will agree, Grade 5 has some GREAT writers!!

Check out all the action here: http://dudash.edublogs.org/

We encourage you to listen so some of the podcasts and leave a comment about the ones you liked. The students would really appreciate your opinion.

What is a podcast?

A podcast is a digital media file, which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers. The term, like “radio“, can refer either to the content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.

Cross post from http://www.medagogy.edublogs.org

Big movements start with small steps……………..

A simple conversation with Scott last week started like most conversations at ISB, passing each other in the hall. Scott just attended the LEARNING 2.0 and is eager to explore many of the ideas and tool he picked up there.

“Hey Justin! I’m looking to get a little deeper with peace day this year, got any ideas?”

Scott is always looking for meaningful ways to get his students engaged in the writing process and reflect on a deeper level. He has been using his classroom blog as a tool in process but up until now it did not really have an audience other than parents. It was time to change that. Together we came up with some questions for the post that we felt would stretch students to think about peace and what it means to them. You can see the post here.

Time was a factor here as Peace Day was the next day. As we know the read/write web is a powerful tool that can quickly and easily bring people from all over the world together to share and collaborate. The only barrier is knowing that each other exists. I decided to reach out to all my contacts and get the ball rolling. I put out call to teachers and coordinators to have their students stop by and share their perspective along with the country they came from. I also helped Scott embed a cluster map on his site so we could track where the hits were coming from. If you don’t have one on your site get one today! The goal of this little post was to get a few different perspectives from other students to create and opportunity for further conversation about peace.

The results…………..112 posts!!!!!

Mark Picketts at Carol Morgan School , Dominican Republic answered the call and got several of his teachers to involve their classes

Mark Dilworth at International School Manila, answered the call and also got his teachers involved.

Kim Cofino at International School Bangkok , answered the call and reached out to her global community to bring in some great comments from the U.S

Carolyn Foote - Librarian, Texas , answered the call and wrote a fantastic post about Scott’s experiment and featured some of her favorite student comments!

Maryland answered the call. Thank you!

Philadelphia answered the call. Thank you!

The list goes on…………….

One conversation…….led to one email………….led to 112 posts………..which led to a global audience and a conversation about peace!

That is what these tools are for. That is why they MUST be BLENDED into everything we do. Because the time invested reap rewards that keep on giving.

All it took was a teacher willing to ask “How can I go deeper?”

If you are reading this and interested in involving your class please drop by Scott’s Learning Blog and have your students post. We would love to read their thoughts!

One small step at a time.

 The elementary school is buzzing with energy and ideas since more than 10 of its teachers flew to Shanghai for the Learning 2.0 conference.  Teachers and students across the ES are tapping into the potential that some of the new tools (blogs, wikkis, podcasts) to enhance their own teaching and learning.  A term that was used quite often over the course of the weeks was that of blended learning, and it is definitely one that we will be exploring further this year.

Blended Learning is the combination of multiple approaches to learning. Blended learning can be accomplished through the use of ‘blended’ virtual and physical resources. A typical example of this would be a combination of technology-based materials and face-to-face sessions used together to deliver instruction. In the strictest sense, blended learning is anytime any instructor combines two methods of delivery of instruction. However, the deeper meaning lies in engaging the students of the current generation. Thus a better example would be using active learning techniques in the physical classroom and a social web presence online. Blended learning is a term that represents a shift in instructional strategy.  Shift is happening and the ES is right there with it!

http://connect2.edublogs.org