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Around The World with 80 Schools

Wow! You can’t set this up like this on purpose! I was just contacted about being part of a project that just might be the perfect way to engage with using Skype video-conferencing in your classroom. This project has been set-up by Silvia Tolisano via her blog “Langwitches” – “The Magic of Learning Through Technology.”

The project is called “Around the World with 80 Schools”. Silvia explains it this way in her blog post:

I am really thrilled about the use of Skype in the classroom. You can tell by reading the last posts about Skype:
Reasons for Skyping in the Classrroom
Video Conferencing with Elementary School students
I would like to connect my students (PreK- through 6th grade) in the next 6 months to at least 80 different schools in order to circle the globe once.
Here is the idea:
Keep it short. Skype calls can be from one minute to no longer than 5 minutes.
The goal is to connect with at least 80 schools in different parts of the world. Some of the schools will be in the same country or even city.
Don’t stop until you have circled the globe with at least 80 different schools?
Let’s connect via Skype, just to say Hello , Hola, Ni Hao, Hallo, Shalom, etc.
Prepare with your students ahead of time, what you would share with the other school about your own and what questions would you ask? Remember you will only have up to 5 minutes for Q &A
Examples:
What languages do you speak in the country you live in?
What continent are you on?
How do you say “?” ?
What is the nearest big city?
What is the name of your president?
What did you always wanted to know about our country?
We will keep track of the schools we connected with on Google Maps.
The goal is to do this in the next 6 months (January- June of 2009)
Will you help us out? Please fill out the following Google form, so I can contact you for
Around the World With 80 Schools.

We are an elementary school in Jacksonville, Florida/ USA that wants to take on the challenge to connect with at least 80 schools in different countries and continents.
We want to circle the globe in the next 6 months.
Will you connect with us via Skype to complete the challenge? All it takes is a 1-5 minute Skype call.
Please fill out the form below, so we can contact you and set up a time to say “Hello”.

I strongly suggest you check out the project here. To enroll your class in the project fill out the simple form on her blog.

Obvious tie-ins to your curriculum would be world geography and mapping skills, writing, by keeping a journal and running map of locations you talk to, oral language skills and technology skills and more.

 

Learning is messy!

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Exercise Improves Kids’ Academics

From the “I Told You So Department” comes this article and studies:
Exercise Improves Kids’ Academics, by Dan Peterson, LiveScience’s Sports Columnist

I’ll let the article mostly speak for itself but will post this one telling quote:

“Ironically, one of the solutions proposed for raising test scores, the federal No Child Left Behind program, encourages schools to focus more of the school day on the core academic subjects while reducing class time in peripheral subjects, like art, music, and physical education. In fact, only 6 percent of American high schools offer a daily gym class. Yet a 2002 Virginia Tech study showed no relationship between reduced class time in those subjects and higher overall standardized tests.”

Learning is messy!

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Making Video-Conferencing More Than Just Cool

If you are going to use video-conferencing in your classroom, it can’t just be to chat with someone. Back when Christian Long was an active Twitterer he said it like this:

“It is NOT good enough to simply say, “My 2nd graders in Anytown, USA Skyped a classroom in 4CornersOfGlobe.” That’s cliche, NOT innovative.”

I agreed then, but have recently modified my thinking somewhat.

First,  Skyping for a few minutes or so to get your “feet wet” and making sure the connection works and everyone knows how things work has always been a good idea. I still do that especially if the other person / classroom has never Skyped before. Sometimes just the other teacher and I, but sometimes the class will touch base for a few minutes. It builds confidence in the technology and gets that initial experience out of the way. Think of it as passing out the math manipulatives and allowing students to play with them a few minutes before actually using them in the lesson.

Typically when we video-conference I know about it days or more ahead of time. We are usually Skyping to share info about a topic  we’ve been studying or to work on a project so students are engaged in learning activities before the conference that include speaking up, practicing their parts, and editing material beyond just the content we’ve been learning. This is akin to having students give oral reports and I’ve learned the hard way that students don’t come knowing how to do that well. So we practice small excerpts of their presentations and critique them.

This is the kind of work that adds to the time it takes to do project based work and puts many off doing project based work. If you skip these important parts it is like doing a class play by going over things once and then putting on the play in front of a large audience … how comfortable would you feel doing that? I find incredible value for my students though in practicing  language skills that are actually  based on the skills they will use the most later in school and in life.

During these preparation periods students often find that they have left gaps in their explanations that would make it impossible for others to understand … by hearing each other you are able to note those gaps and students get better and better at making their writing more informative. It also teaches them to read that way –  When students are language deficient they often don’t understand that they are suppose to piece all the information they read together to make sense.

Video-conferencing sessions are fantastic experiences for them because those issues come up often and they get tons of practice clarifying and writing for understanding which means as a teacher you can use that experience to teach them about READING for understanding the same way.

Depending on the exact reason for and nature of the video-conference we are doing then, we use some or all of these techniques to get ready. This sets the students up to learn not just content, but the language skills they tend to be so lacking in, as well as 21st century learning skills we are all getting used to.

Last, but not least, I have students take notes, and formulate questions to ask to clarify what they are hearing. Finally when the video-conference is over I often have students write about what they learned or what happened.

So what does this have to do with the original topic of this post … the Skyping a classroom just to share a bit of information? If when it is done students are debriefed and information is archived somehow – notes, class brainstorm, class discussion – and especially if students share about places or events common to their area during the conference I think it is a valuable use of time. Students are learning to communicate effectively while learning about a different geographic area and culture.

From a teacher’s point of view your are not having to arrange transportation, or take time to travel even to another class in your own building (5 minutes or so), there is little set-up, Skype is an easy download and install, and making the connection is as easy as making a regular phone call. So as with the use of any classroom manipulative, video-conferencing is valuable when students are briefed and debriefed and then something constructive is done with the learning so students process it at some level.

Learning is messy!

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If We Are Going To Invest In Infrastructure, This Is The Best Money We Could Spend

With the siren call from many, and President-elect Obama’s seeming support for investing in and re-building our long neglected infrastructure I have hope that schools and educational programs will be included.

Generally, No Child Left Behind has banked on the belief that complete focus on reading and math would be the savior of “At Risk” students. That by using essentially the entire school day outside of lunch, and in many cases, even doing away with recess to gain more time for basic literacy skills, students would “catch up”, or at least do much better.

Even before the advent of NCLB, tighter school budgets over the past 30 years have slowly eroded many programs in music, the arts, sports and other what were considered “extra-curricular” activities.  During those budget cutting times these “extras” were deemed non-essential and were therefore quickly cut from stretched budgets. Middle and higher income parents instinctively understanding the importance of the “extras” from their own school experience, filled in by enrolling their kids in sports leagues, scouts, music lessons and more … with a bit of grumbling here and there. However, when those opportunities were gone from the schools, they were also gone for many students whose parents did not see or understand the value in them, nor have the resources or job schedules required to run them around to various venues and pay the fees and equipment costs. Having these programs available after-school for free or very cheap was key to equal access, and I think to fundamental learning.

Now we hear more and more that learning the phonics and other reading skills without the schema for understanding and making connections to what we read leaves students still behind. It seems that those that have said all along that students require these “extra-curricular” activities not just to be physically fit and well rounded in the arts and social interactions with others, but to bring meaning and understanding to the world around them and to what they read were right.

Here’s an excerpt from a post I wrote 2 ½  years ago:

… If the only sport you ever played was volleyball – you still get a sense of winning or losing a close game – or just the fun of playing, getting sweaty and tired – so tired you can hardly stand-up but you keep going. You have a feel for what a good play looks like and feels like – so you have a tendency to recognize them in other sports.

When I played sports in elementary school it worked something like this. After school I didn’t rush home so I could speed through my homework, toss down dinner, have a parent drive me across town to practice – then come back and get me later – putting more cars on the road, pollution in the air, more chances of being in an accident. Instead I … stayed after school. The coach (usually a teacher getting paid a small stipend) met us and ran practice until 4:30 or so. Those that didn’t have their homework done that day in class – stayed in class and got it done before they could practice – and if it happened twice they couldn’t play in the game that week – still had to practice though. Kids that had a hard time getting homework done … suddenly didn’t. We have a soccer program for a few kids at my school – and almost every kid that is on the team does better in school during the season.

Elementary schools tend to be located in the neighborhood – most kids can walk home after practice, or it’s a quick ride home later in the day when parents are more likely to be home from work. You get home before 5:00 – in time for dinner, homework, and family time. No rushing around. We use facilities that are already there but aren’t being used after school. Kids have something in common with other kids in their neighborhood to talk about. Of course kids don’t need the exercise … they’re already in great shape … right?

All that and research shows that students that are involved in sports or other extra-curricular programs (art, dancing, scouting, music, etc.) do better in school – Is that something we should promote? The best investment this country could make would be to provide extra-curricular activities for ALL elementary school children (and middle and high school students too) – and get more use out of facilities that are already there and waiting.

Playing and doing are messy learning!
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From Iceland To Classroom

 

 

You might remember just a short 2 weeks ago we Skyped Alan Levine into our studies from Iceland. On Wednesday, just as planned, he showed up again, but this time in person … and he was bearing gifts. Coins from Iceland – one per student which we distributed around the room today. He also brought a few rocks which will show up during our geology unit a bit later in the year. As has been the case lately my students began questioning Alan about what had happened since our last meet-up and they took notes on their laptops so they could blog about their experience later. But then things changed a bit. Alan wasn’t just a resource, now he had become an audience too.

So as students heard him mention seeing the Northern Lights, the Hekla Volcano, and other Icelandic locales, they would search and then pop-up to show Alan what they had found about whatever topic he had mentioned. They especially loved showing him photos. They even shared the web site from Alex our bicycle racer friend that had just been here the day before. Alan was quite intrigued by their enthusiasm, and I’m sure he thinks I’ve done just a masterful job of teaching them web searches. I’m afraid they are mostly self taught. We have worked some on refining searches when they get tough, but mostly what Alan saw was pure excitement.
A few students began searching for Alan’s name and looked for photos of him … “Is that you? – Is this you?” they would ask. Sometimes they would revel in finding photos of people that were quite obviously not him, but had his name and they check out his reaction when they would ask him if it was him. Alan played this up for them and would laugh at their “jokes.”

Besides showing Alan their finds the students were sharing with each other and some even changed their background images to photos they found of the Northern Lights or an Icelandic volcano or horse or geyser. Too much fun!

 

 

Another great experience!

 

Learning is messy!

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Bicycle Racer “Peddles” Bicycles To My Class

Local bicycle Racer Alex Candelario and Reno Bike Project Co-Founder Kyle Kozar visited our classroom last Tuesday. They were there in support of our newest project. Both Alex and Kyle rode their bikes, they figured about 5 miles, which brought a look of disbelief on many of my students’ faces. My students’ experience with bike riding is a bopping-around-the-neighborhood kind of thing, so 5 miles seemed pretty far.

Alex, who races for the KBS Medifast Pro Cycling Team shared about racing, training, health, nutrition and living green. The students were intrigued by everything he shared including his description of his car which runs on vegetable oil. 

I’m used to my students being pretty shy and tight lipped … and not really forthcoming with questions or curiosity, but our experience Skypeing in Alan Levine 2 weeks ago should have given me a clue. I asked questions here and there to get things rolling and to keep things going, but I was probably in the way more often than not. Alex may have had a better workout answering questions from the class than he got riding the 5 miles to school.

They found out about everything from what he puts in his water bottles during a race, to how long races can be – up to 160 miles in a day.

Students took notes during the hour or so that Alex and Kyle spent in class, and will post what they learned to their blogs soon. Another great writing experience for them being more like on the spot reporters. They also reveled in finding Alex’s web site, and other references to him on the web.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the meantime, we are still in the research phase of the project and will be gathering information and making plans through next week. This went a long ways to generating excitement about bikes, racing, health and the Reno Bike Project!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks again to Alex and Kyle!

Learning is messy!

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Our Newest Community Service Project – The Reno Bike Project, Project

We’ve finally kicked off our newest project. How I discovered this opportunity is part of the story. On a busy evening (they all seem that way lately) I made a quick check of Twitter happenings and saw this from David Laplante, CEO of Twelve Horses, a local web design and marketing company:

I had been searching for a project to go with our study of environment, climate, energy and community service. So after checking to see if this was a non-profit and a few other items … we had our project idea … well the students would have the final say, but I know them well enough. : )


Bikes, rims, frames, parts, all waiting for riders.

I met Kyle and Noah who are the guys behind the Reno Bike Project at a local pizza place and discussed their vision and the possibility of us helping out. That Saturday I met Kyle at the shop, had a look around, and snapped a few pics with my phone.

From the Project’s MySpace page:

 

The Reno BIke Project is committed to producing an outlet that will encourage all forms of cycling, including personal health, alternative transportation, cycling activism, as well as cycling arts and culture throughout the Truckee Meadows. We strive to progress Reno as a more eco-friendly, healthy, culturally rich and communal city through cycling awareness and improved resources.


After some initial science lessons on climate, where and how we get energy, a book about climate change, a story, out of our reading series no less about community service, and a discussion about various projects we’ve been part of, I told my students about the Reno Bike Project. I explained the RBP mission and that we could use our communication skills to mount a “marketing campaign” to pump up donations. The students were enthusiastic right from the get go.


The other learning pieces that go with this are health / childhood obesity (Nevada has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the country), the history of bicycles, recycling, air quality (smog), global warming and community service. This was why we Skyped Alan Levine last week in Iceland to learn firsthand about geothermal energy and the climate of Iceland. (Alan will visit face to face with my students this Wednesday BTW).

We took some time today to start using Diigo to archive web sites we are mining for information about all the topics mentioned above (see the brainstorm from our ActivBoard that we posted to our class wiki). Diigo is a local company here in Reno, and I’ve had initial email discussions with Maggie Tsai to help us out if needed.

Each group got a topic to focus on this afternoon. Due to my inexperience with Diigo, and because some of our laptops are older and run browsers that are older, we took 30 minutes to work our way to being able to post web pages to Diigo. Then we took another 25 minutes to try out and problem solve how posting and tagging work. They really did well. Next I’ll have each group analyze and critique which are their very best web site finds and then share them with the class. One of the classes’ early ideas is to set up a wiki with a clearinghouse of links to information about each topic.


Lots of forks for the road!

We’ve already set up a class visit by Kyle and a bike racing buddy of his next week. I know my students have never been around real bike junkies or racers or racing bikes and equipment, so this should be a new experience for them – and another writing opportunity.


Need a bike part? They might have it!

Learning is messy!

 

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One Reason We Blog – Finding and Clarifying Misconceptions

As my students were writing today about yesterday’s experience with Alan, I caught several misconceptions students had about what we had learned. One student explained, for example, that the reason Iceland isn’t as cold as one would think, based on how far north it is, is because all the volcanoes and lava heat the air and make it warmer.

I asked the rest of the class if this was true and expressions told me some thought it might be. Others though were able to explain that it is mainly the relatively warm water that surrounds Iceland that moderates the temperature. The lava and volcanoes might have a very minor impact, but they are not the main reason the weather in Iceland is warmer than expected.

Misconceptions show up in writing, it is a record of that child’s thinking. So it is a great way to deal with misconceptions when you meet with students about their writing … especially when it is about curriculum and not a story they are writing (thought it can show up there too). One of the “unintended good consequences” of our blogging is that we write a lot, so there are more chances that misconceptions are going to come up and be caught by me, but they are caught by students too because they read each others’ posts, so they are practicing critical thinking skills. These are perfect teaching moments. You explain the issues with their thinking and help them with their ideas, and then they immediately go and re-think to re-write and that helps plant that learning they just experienced. When they re-submit their blog for posting you see it again, can clarify more if needed, or post if it is ready.

Last year when we did a unit on distances in space and sizes of stars and planets, the first posts about their learning seemed to be MOSTLY misconceptions. I took the blame for them not being clear and we re-visited the concepts and looked at some of their writing on the ActivBoard and edited much of it as a class. When students could see their fuzzy thinking and incorrect information they wanted to re-write. Most didn’t even want to “fix” what they had, but wanted to start over. Their next attempts were much better and they actually wrote a bit more because they felt more confident about what they knew.

Learning is messy!

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