Our sixth grade IT students had a very exciting day today:

Not only was it the first day of a new quarter, (the first day of IT for this year), but they also got to meet a group of Year 7 students in New Zealand (and their fantastic teacher) without even leaving the classroom!

Thanks to our lovely new iMacs (with iSight built in), and Skype, we were able to video conference with our new partner class in NZ this morning.

For many of our students this was the first time they had ever participated in a video conference – and certainly the first time they have ever done so as part of a school project.

This group will be collaborating together to create a multimedia presentation – here in KL we will be using iMovie, the students in NZ will be using Movie Maker. Part of their responsibility will be to teach each other how to use the software they are learning about. I love the idea that students in an all Mac school can learn how to use Movie Maker, and vice versa!

Throughout the project we will be communicating via our blogs, our wiki, e-mail, Skype, and any other other method we can find! We will be keeping track of our conversations on the wiki, and, after we return from break, will link all of our blogs to the wikispace to open a more direct line of communication for the students.

When I was sharing this story with my colleagues at lunch, one teacher described her first international project when she was teaching French in Canada. She set up a pen pal class with students in France – they would write a set of letters, wait about 2 months, and then get a set of letters back from the class in France.

In comparison, today was the first day that our students heard about the project, minutes later they had joined the wikispace set up for the project, brainstormed questions to ask their new friends, and got to meet them – all within 1 class period!

My colleague at lunch said it perfectly: It is amazing to think about the speed of communication today. What used to take months, now takes minutes. How lucky our students are!

Image 1: http://www.danieljmalone.com/images/1/news/technology/2006/07/skype-logo.jpg
Image 2: http://www.podpodpost.com/photos/ist2_557799_air_mail_envelope.jpg

4 thoughts on “Communication overdrive

  1. I am breaching the 21st century with students on my campus. We have started blogs, wikis, Skyping, Movie Maker, and iMovie. How can I get started in finding a partner class to begin a project together?

    David James
    Kaufman, Texas
    djames@kaufmanisd.net

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