Telecollaboration in the Classroom
Drew Polly and Clif Mims


AGENDA

Announcements

1. Please bring headphones on tomorrow and Wednesday.
   
2. Distribute printed resources

Before We Begin

1. Setup your Social Bookmarks (Example)

Introduction
Your Principal is interested in the students at your school collaborating with other students around the world. He has asked you to discover ways to use the Internet to collaborate with other teachers and students in areas that fit into your curriculum.

Task
Using the below resources (and others that you find), you will come up with a product that provides 3 options for online collaborative projects that you can integrate into your curriculum. Your product can be in any form, including: a PowerPoint, a wiki, a webpage, an audio file, a brochure created in Word, etc.

Process

1. Think of a concept that you teach that students have trouble learning.
2. Could collaborative activities with other students in North Carolina, in the United States or around the world assist student learning?
3. Visit some of the websites below. As you visit them consider:
   1. How do these projects or websites assist students' learning?
   2. How do these projects address content that you teach?
   3. What other skills (in addition to content) will students develop?
4. Synthesize your information.
5. Make a project proposal.
   

Resources

1. Zoho - Collaborative tool to share documents (word processor, spreadsheets, presentations)
2. Google Documents - Share documents (word processor, spreadsheets, presentations)
3. CIESE- Collaborative projects in science education
4. iEARn Global Classrooms - Global collaborative projects that focus on international partnerships
5. iEaRN Social Action Projects - Global collaborative projects that involve social action
6. Global School Net - Database of ongoing projects and upcoming collaborative projects
7. Internet Classroom Project - Lots of ideas in various curriculum areas
8. NASA's Internet in the Classroom Project - Projects focused on space and NASA
9. Kid Proj - Website with various projects to connect students around the world
10. Teacher TAP - Resources and lots of links to other projects
11. Project Globe - Collect, share and interpret data collected from various locations around the world
12. Collaborative Projects across Curriculum - Projects are grouped by curriculum
13. Whales, ...
    

Examples

1. Inclusion - Homebound student continues to be active member of classroom.
   
2. Video Conferencing and Streaming - The students are in Memphis, TN the teacher is in Selmer, TN and the guests speakers are in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
3. History Happening - "Experiencing Asian history the wiki way"
   

Evaluation
Your principal expects that there will be the following information in your proposal:

• Content/Standards
• Description of the Project
• Overview about How the Project Will Be Implemented
  

Notes and Resources from My Personal Learning Network (PLN)
Please share any resources, information, cases, scenarios, etc. that you think will help teachers learn more about these topics. I have a feeling some of you may be holding back a bit out of courtesy. Rest assured that I welcome your input in this endeavor! Click on the Easy Edit button above to add to this page. Membership is NOT required. However, you can join this wiki by clicking the Join This Wiki button toward the top-right corner

Latina vivit! - by Paula Brandle's Classroom Wiki

• Project Proposal for 10th Grade English Online project Goals: Broaden students’ world view. Connect students to other young people around the world. Enhance student comprehension of world literature texts (Escape From Slavery, Night, My Forbidden Face, The Kite Runner, etc.) Motivate students to write. Enhance student understanding of cause and effect in world issues.Cross curriculum – literature, writing, world cultures, history, sociology Procedures: Using the unicef.org webpage, students will listen to audio digital diaries from young people around the world.Students will register to join discussion boards and participate in discussions with youth from around the world. Students will brainstorm social issues that affect their own lives and then work in teams to compose and record a digital diary about an issue they choose, and post to the UNICEF page.

Teachers Learn from Looking Together at Student Work - Education World by Diane Weaver

• School reformers say the way to improve education and accountability is by improving the way teachers and students look at student work. Today, Education World examines two collaborative approaches that teachers are using to look at student work.

The Horizon Project 2008

• The ultimate in global collaborations! Students in 11 classrooms collaborate in creating wikipages and artifacts about the megatrends listed in the Horizon Project published by the New Media Consortium.

Where Can I Live

• Students collaborate across the country concerning entry-level salaries, standard of living, costs of living, etc.

Mystery Maps

• What are Mystery Maps?
• This is a collaborative project that allows students to interact and discover different places in the world.

• How does it work?
• Students choose a geographic location and develop clues in the form of written information, photographs, or any other media source(s) to inform other students of their location.
• Other students can access these clues and attempt to discern their "mystery" location.

• Why is it beneficial?
• This project teaches history, geography, and cultural backgrounds to various students involved with the program in the United States and around the world.
• This is a good introductory lesson to world history since it teaches students areas of the world that they are unfamiliar with, but places they will be learning about throughout the year.
• In essence, this gives them background knowledge for the rest of the year.

• How will we implement this?
• For instructional purposes, this will allow the teacher to go back and use the projects that the students created to go back to throughout the year.
• Regarding the student project, we will take the following steps:
• Show the students the website and other student examples to make students aware of expectations for the project.
• Students will be provided with a list of possible locations to choose from.
• The will also be shown the types of sources that they can use for their clues.
• Students may either work individually or in pairs and they will pick one of the locations.
• They will be given on day of research in the computer lab to find information and pictures for their GeoMystery.
• Each student/group will be responsible for creating five “clue” pages the following day, which will be based on their research.
• Once this has been completed, students will present this to the class and have their audience try to determine their location.