International Teen Life

After about a month's work, it's finally beginning to come together...

I have to admit that I've been holding out on you. While I usually try to be very transparent in the work that I do in my classroom, I haven't posted about this new project until it got off of the ground with the worry that promoting it would doom it to failure and the trash heap of projects thought of and uncompleted.

In the middle of December, a small group of teachers, Kim Cofino and Jabiz Raisdana from Kuala Lumpur, Jamie Hide from Columbia, Lee Baber from Virginia, and myself began putting our heads together about more intense ways to bring students together. All being middle school teachers, we came up with the idea for a project that would focus our students around examining and reflecting on their own lives first and the lives of other people their age in their nation. From here, we want the kids to think globally and look at the lives and the concerns of people their own age in other parts of the globe.

From the planning wiki we've been working on;

"The purpose of this project is to have teenagers from different locations around the globe exchange their thoughts and perceptions of what their lives are like. By viewing, reading, and listening to the perspectives of others from around the globe, they will gain a greater perception of the similarities and differences of people's lives around the world. I DO NOT want to do an international project where kids learn about the holidays, foods, etc, of another nation. I presume we have all been through enough of these already. I am looking to dig deeper, to have kids dig, read, write, etc. I want them to explore issues, and work intensely to gain a clearer understanding of concerns that people have in a global world."

We've set up a Google calendar that is looking empty right now but as things heat up over the next several weeks will fill with our ideas. Currently this is where we are:

1.) In the next week or so, the kids in each school need to post an introduction to themselves and their concerns on their blogs. This will serve as a baseline for all of us and will introduce all of the kids, giving the kids in other places a chance to find people who they want to add to their personal learning network.

2.) Each school is producing some type of piece to introduce their classroom, their school, and their community to the others. This may be a podcast, a video, slideshow, etc. These we will post and exchange.

3.) We are currently putting together plans for a Skype call over the next approximately 10 days for the kids to have some synchronous time together to talk about the concerns that youth in their nation have. While the kids in Kuala Lumpur are probably out simply because of the time differences, they will have the opportunity to participate through exchanging of files.

4.) We have just created a planning wiki for the kids where they can post their own thoughts and questions for the kids in the other nations about their lives. This wiki also currently has an initial planning page where the kids can post their plans for their final representations (more on this later), ask for tech help, opinions, etc. This wiki sits empty now, idling, waiting for its time.

While we are just beginning off, I am truly excited about this project. We are bringing together so many things: blogging, Skype, wikis, video conferencing, podcasting, digital storytelling, etc in one place that is truly a new literacies sandbox!

Let the fun begin!

technorati tags:teenlife, pbwiki, project, blogs, skype, connections, classroom

Comments

[susan funk]

This project sounds very exciting. Let us know how it goes! :)

[Barbara]

Wow! You never cease to amaze me with your vision and your energy! You multitask much better than I do. This project captures, for me, the spirit of what it is all about I am looking forward to seeing it unfold and sharing it with my staff.

[Clay]

Exciting project!

If you would like to add another East Asian (Seoul) classroom to give KL some real-time interactivity, let me know. Our school just formed a K-12 "21st Century Literacy Cadre" and there are some MS teachers ready to explore.

Say the word, but no worries either way.

I love your blog, by the way.