Paper Flat Stanley

Then, inspired by the “worldwide” success” of the “other first grade class’” podcast episode of the Magic Tree House, the six year olds wanted to create their own recording.

As a class their brainstormed with their teacher a storyline so every one of them could have a segment in the recording. It came natural to them that they wanted to be flattened by their SmartBoard and be mailed around the world.

As their homework assignment, they were to pick a location of their choosing and to borrow a book from the library about that location. They could also use the internet to research their destination. Together with their parents they read the book and wrote a short script that needed to include:

• The location (City, State, Country, and/or Continent)
• How did they get there (transportation)?
• What did they do at that location?
• How did they get back home?

They were also given the reminder that

This is an audio recording, so the children need to think about the senses and sound effects they can use to help portray the mood. How did it feel to be mailed? how did it sound and smell at the places. What did they see?

Recording with Garageband

Take a listen and follow these first graders to London (England), Antarctica, Alabama (USA), Space, Israel, Tokyo (Japan), North Pole, Illinois (USA), New York (USA), Hollywood (USA) and Michigan (USA).

Please take the time to let these six year olds know where you are from by leaving a comment. Having a worldwide audience does matter!

Skyping with K12Online Presenters

I am amazed at and grateful for the willingness of colleagues around the world to share their practices, experiences and thoughts by creating presentations to share freely with anyone.

We met at 7 pm and after a brief introduction of K12Online Conference, which only a handful of the teachers present had heard of, we watched Kelly Hines’ presentation Little Kids, Big Possibilities together as a group.

I am even more convinced of the power of having a learning network, when one can ask the presenters of the K12Online Conference to stay up late or wake up early in order to continue contributing to our learning by skyping into our face to face meeting.

Although Kelly’s presentation was about tools, such as Wallwisher, Wordle, Comiqs and Edmodo, her skyping in with us, talking to us from her home in North Carolina, having her two sons pop in and out of view, was what illustrated the true value of the learning for the evening (in my opinion). Kelly Hines is a fourth grade classroom teacher, as real and as busy as all of us. She finds the time to learn, collaborate and share her teaching journey with the world. She connects and exposes her students to tools, that allow them to be problem solvers, creators, thinkers and participants in a global community.

Kelly Hines from North Carolina talked about her presentation "Little Kids, Big Possibilities"

After our call with Kelly was over, everyone picked another presentation to watch and/or simply talk with each other. At 8:30 pm we were ready to skype in K12Online Keynote presenter, Kim Cofino, from Thailand. Kim’s presentation, Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence, and the Future of Education, was simply brilliant.

Kim Cofino from Bangkok, Thailand opened our awarness to a global, interconnected world with her presentation "Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence, and the Future of Education"

She summarized it well for our group when she said:

Until you experience [the collaboration, the global connections]for yourself it does not really click in your mind, you really won’t understand why all these tools that we are talking about are so important and so powerful for learning.

This evening was about being able to show our local teachers, the ease and the accessibility of inviting other voices from across the world to exchange thoughts, ideas and grow as educators together.

It was not about technology, it was about learning with and from each other regardless of location in time and space. It was about bringing awareness to:

• “real” teachers are doing “it”. They are moving towards embedding technology to facilitate learning.
• teaching and learning has to change in our schools, adjust, be flexible and adapt to accommodate a new kind of learner and a new kind of “reality” that exists outside of school.
• the reasons why there is a need embrace change.

Kim so eloquently says:

We are at a shift in society, where the ways we use technology has changed so drastically and so rapidly that it is difficult for education to keep up. My fear is that if we don’t keep up and embrace the new ways of communicating and collaborating, schools as we know them will be eclipsed by something else.

Links to all K12Online 2009 presentations.

Suggested presentations:

• Keeping the Literacy in 21st Century Literacies by Drew Schrader
• Using Web 2.0 tools to teach ‘The Outsiders’ by Drew Buddie
• A Peek for a Week – Inside a Kiwi Junior Classroom by Rachel Boyd
• Show & Tell: Exhibit, Reflect & Critique with Blogs by Sarah Sutter
• The Digital Writer’s Workshop by Jackie Gerstein
• Engaging Our Youngest Minds by Angela Maiers
• Parallel Play or Collaboration–Leveraging the Wiki Platform for High Quality Work by Paula White
• Around the World with Skype by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

The school I work for alternates every year between a Science Fair and a Jewish History Fair exhibition. Students are to research and create a project for the respective subjects. This year the school prepared for the Jewish History Fair.

The sixth graders wanted to explore the theme “Jewish Communities Around the World. After watching Alan November’s video clip, I wrote about my idea of Information Literacy…Authentic Conversation..Globalize Curriculum…. The idea was born to allow students to “get personal” with and connected to their research, to compliment traditional research media, such as books and the Internet, with 21st century communication tools, such as skype, twitter, facebook, and texting.

Through personal real life connections, my PLN on Twitter and this blog, I was able to get in contact with volunteers representing every continent. They volunteered to be interviewed by our sixth graders about growing up or living in their country of residence as a Jew. Our students wanted to research similarities and differences of being Jewish around the World.

Coordinating Interviews and Media used

I would like to express a special Thank You to Daniel Needlestone (London, England), one of the first people to respond via Twitter and in return use his network to connect me with more volunteers!

Skyping with Daniel Needlestone from London, England

Daniel blogged about our interview from his perspective in this post: Mentoring, Online Lessons, Virutal Tours and Computing-All in a Days Work.

No sooner had the online lesson finished when I got a skype call from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano also known as @langwitches . Her 6th grade class interviewed me as part of their project on Jewish communities around the world. I’ve tried to help set them up with different friends of mine on different countries. Apparently Silvia has managed to cover every continent even Antartica! The girl who interviewed me asked great questions and I really enjoyed our 10 minute chat and meeting some of Silvia’s students. I’m very jealous of their project and look forward to seeing the results!

Although we intended to use as many different media as possible for the interviews, reality worked out a little different. Timing issues, as are very common in a tightly packed school day, played a major role. A face to face interview, as well as one of the Skype calls were turned into e-mail interviews in the end due to scheduling issues. Our texting with one of the contacts, who actually was stationed in the Antarctica at the time, had weather problems and no satellite connection available.

In the end we used the following media to conduct research and interviews:

We would like to express gratitude to all of our interviewees whether via e-mail, skype, telephone, face to face or Twitter. Your time and effort was very appreciated:

• Daniel Needlestone (England)
• David Truss (China)
• Mark Lazar (Israel)
• M. Finkel (Russia)
• Ariellah Rosenberg (South Africa)
• Kabren Levinson (USA)
• Ralph Glasgal (Previously stationed in the Antarctica)
• Andrea Uzan (Denmark)
• Gary Sakol (Scotland)
• David Cohen (Australia)
• Elizabeth Davis (USA)
• Noemi & Marvin Szoychen (Mexico & Venezuela)
• Steve Katz (Costa Rica)
• Elena Herz (Argentina)

Students were very excited for the planned interviews. First, we “distributed” the countries among the students. They each received a short bio from the participants and then gathered background research and to generate questions. I sent the questions off to the interviewees who were participating via e-mail and scheduled the skype & twitter conferences with the others. Once the time zone issues were resolved and the day and time was set, students who were not directly interviewing in front of the webcam were taking on the job of note taker or photographer of the sessions.

Taking Notes

Documenting

Costa Rica

USA

South Africa

Canada

Australia

Talking about being Jewish in the Antarctica

Although maybe a bit shy at first, students quickly became more relaxed at interviewing via Skype. All of the students had their questions typed up ahead of time. Their personalities started to shine through though as some added more in depth or follow up questions depending on what turn the conversation took.

David Truss from China

Ariellah Rosenberg from South Africa

One of our participants, Gary Sakol (originally from Scotland), agreed to conduct the interview via Twitter. We agreed on a Hashtag (#JHFI) and on a day and time to meet on twitter. It was the first time for all the students to see twitter live in action.

Twitter Interview with David Sakol (Scotland)

Screenshot of DVD with Skype Interviews

When we were doing our research, we learned the following things that Jews have in common on every continent.

Jews seem to all celebrate Jewish Holidays similar

Most Jewish boys and girls celebrate Bar & Bat Mitzvah by leading services and having some kind of party

Many Jews attend services

There are different degrees of observance

They have rarely experienced direct anti-semitism

They all take pride in being Jewish

Many have gone to Israel or al least feel connected to it

Most don’t wear kipot in their daily lives

All eat some types of traditional food

They take part in the daily life traditions of their chosen country of residence and usually don’t feel like ‘outsiders”.

This type of learning required many more skills than just the use of technology…

we collaborated in our overall planning

created questions, took notes from oral interviews

asked in oral or written form

good initial and follow up questions, which required us to “think on our feet”

shared orally and in writing what we learned from each interview

synthesized, organized and compiled all our final impressions in writing

We also did some “book research” to locate data, flags, and histories for our countries

The final display of the collaborative 6th grade research project was a combination of a typed up country reports, a three dimensional map with flags of locations of interviewees, a DVD running on television of the recorded interviews on Skype and a display of photographs that students took during the the interviews.

Exhibition Display

Map Display

Flags displaying location and media used for connection

Interviewee locations

We heard rave reviews from parents and community about the project who visited the Jewish History Fair. The project is an example how to extend learning by using technology tools to reach further and dig deeper with resources. I believe we attained our goal to

allow our students to “get personal” with and connected to their research, to compliment traditional research media, such as books and the Internet, with 21st century communication tools, such as skype, twitter, facebook, and texting.

Not only did students write their traditional reports, but they practiced 21st century skills of:

• creating (a map)
• collaborating (with their peers to create a snapshot of Jewish communities around the world)
• connecting (with 15 Jews around the world)
• communicating (via different media)

In addition to basic literacy of reading and writing, students were exploring and exposed to

• information literacy
• media literacy
• global & intercultural literacy
• networking literacy

I would like to share a small examples of how technology tools can enhance a learning experience by making (personalized) connections to what is being learned in the classroom, bringing in the outside world, and taking learning literally “off the page” by extending tradition vessels of learning to new digital ones.

Our 3rd Graders were reading a story, called “The Symphony of Whales” by Steve Schuch.

Mrs. R. asked if we could find someone the students could skype with who would make the setting of the book come alive. I sent out a request to my PLN (Personal Learning Network) on Twitter.
A teacher from Port Hardy in Canada was one of the teachers who responded. We set up a Skype video conference with her class and our third graders. It was wonderful to observe the children talk with each other and compare their experiences. While the Canadian children live on Vancouver Island and often see killer whales swimming on their shores, our Florida students were able to report that we have sharks and dolphins in our waters. They also shared that Gray Whales migrate South along our coast line. Students then compared the size of whale teeth or shark teeth that can be found on our respective beaches.

The exchange did not end there. Mrs. Soltau-Heller, the Canadian teacher, contacted me again a few days ago, to share even more…
Take a look at the video below to see extended learning unfold.

Extend Learning from langwitches on Vimeo.

Learning at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School from langwitches on Vimeo.

Third graders find unidentified skeleton on school campus.

Unidentified skeleton found on school campus

What is one to do, when you find such a specimen on school grounds? Students across grade levels took a mini fieldtrip to the pond on campus to examine the skeleton. The BIG question for everyone, including teachers was: WHAT kind of animal was it? What an opportunity and teachable moment for students and teachers to collaborate in the investigation process and find out.

We had different approaches to the investigation:

Approach A:

• took photos of skeleton and xeroxed copies for students to take home and do research involving parents
• researched online for different images from animal skeletons to compare
• using parent veterinarian as resource
• got in touch with school librarian

Approach B:

• took photos of skeleton and e-mailed them to local Museum of Science and History, local zoo and Florida Fish & Wildlife Service
• e-mailed photos to local veterinarian.
• posted request for identification and research help on School Librarians listserve
• blogged about it on The Barefoot Librarian – Can you identify this Aninmal Skeleton?
• took the opportunity for lesson with 2nd & 3rd graders to talk about and demonstrate inquiry and research process
  • first stop library for reference interview
  • use books and online resources to narrow search
  • contact local experts
  • evaluate your sources. What makes an expert? (Animal lover versus Florida Fish & Wildlife Service Employee)

Approach C:

• took images of skeleton with iPhone
• uploaded to Twitpic, which sent automatic tweet to Twitter network

First set of images sent to Twitpic

Second set of images sent to Twitpic

Over the next three hours the “shout out” for help in identifying the skeleton received over 50 Twitter responses with

• links to resources to further investigate
• guesses on what it could be
• help to get experts involved
• questions to help further narrow the answers down
• advice where else to publish questions and take advantage of the power of social networking

Following the tweet

I uploaded the image to the ID-Please group on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/idplease/

After a few hours, comments were left by other Flickr users

Note being left directly on image, identifying the three teeth being typical of a raccoon.

Another tip came and suggested to upload the image to a site called “idthis.org”

http://idthis.org/

The Twitter network also jumped in and retweeted (RT) the request for help onward to their network

Guesses and further questions what animal it could be flooded in

Suggestion of getting in touch with experts who could help our investigation along or expert’s guesses:

Links to more Resources:

I am amazed, again, at the power of the network. As the investigation spread across our school campus, so it did across the network. Having a support team, a flood of resources and experts at your fingertips (literally), it is truly an example how learning, research, has changed through the collaboration, connecting and communication tools of the social network era.

I am happy to report, that all three approaches of research came to the same conclusion.

Our skeleton seems to be a raccoon skeleton.

Our librarian has collected the specimen and is shipping it, as we speak, to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Services, who have offered to clean it up, give us a positive identification and ship it back to us.

[email_link] [print_link]

The first graders at my school had listened to the second grade podcast about animals, and had really enjoyed their story.They were especially thrilled that the second graders had received so many comments from teachers around the world. Believe it or not, but having an audience matters… even to 6 year olds.

They were enthusiastic and eager to record their own voices to get them “into other people’s computers and iPods” too.

I had started reading a chapter book called Vacation under the Volcano by Mary Pope Osborne from the Magic Tree House series with them.

The idea was to pretend that we were interviewing Jack and Annie, the two main characters, about their latest adventure that had taken them to Pompeii.

We read one chapter at a time and discussed as a class, what happened as we were reading. After each reading, I typed up all the questions and answers that students had came up with. The following time I went to their classroom, we recorded these questions and answers from the “script”.

I rotated all students to be either the interviewer, Jack (boys) and Annie (girls). I also had them record several segments as a class chant together (ex. gasping, “no children allowed”), which they seemed to enjoy very much.

Recording with Garageband

I had several students at a time come to the back of the class and record directly into Garageband, while the other students were silently working on classroom work or reading a book. A few times, I also took them out into the hallway, if the teacher had another activity planned in the classroom.

• I was amazed how cooperative and attentive to what was going on with the recording in the back of the room while it was not their turn.
• Several students started to take a real interest in the editing part of the podcast too. They were verifying that I was editing out any clicking noises that were included when I stopped the recording segment, or if a word was repeated twice.
• If they were not happy with their recording, they asked to record over it for a second, third or fourth time.
• Shy and quiet students were coming out of their shell. Their classmates were surprised and impressed of these new “podcast” voices they were hearing from them.

Recording in the Hallway

Recording:

• After demonstrating the difference in the sound of their voices and fluency, students agreed to NOT read off the script.
• I read one sentence at a time to the student who was to record. I let them practice saying the sentence out loud and coached them with their volume, melody and to use different acting voices.
• Some students needed to have sentences split into parts. Putting each sentence back together made it sound seamless in the recording.
• I could tell a drastic improvement among students in their confidence level and voice expression as we progressed in the book.

After class,

• I “cleaned” the recording tracks
• added music and sound effects

The class couldn’t wait to hear the entire recording the next day. They wanted to hear the audio from start to finish, including the newest chapter clips. They begged to hear it again and again from the beginning and not only the added part. By the time we reached the end of the book they had heard the podcast over 20 times.

Skills addressed:

• listening
• speaking
• presenting
• comprehension
• storytelling
• performance
• voice acting
• oral fluency
• media
• technology

Take a “listen” and leave a comment to these first graders who worked very hard and enthusiastically on their recording. Let them know where you are from too. We will create a google map with placemarks to show how far their voices reached.

Thank you for leaving our first graders comments. You are making a worldwide audience real for them and are keeping them motivated. We are tracking them on our Google Map. Once you leave a comment with your location, we will add you to our Google Map.

View MJGDS- 1st Grade Podcast: Magic Tree House in a larger map

As with everything, if you use scare tactics and simply tell children “not to do it” , they will automatically been drawn to whatever you are trying to keep them away from.

My philosophy, instead of shutting tools such as chatrooms completely out, is to use them in a safe environment, engage students and use teachable moments to talk about safety and etiquette.

I have used Tinychat, a private chatroom platform, previously with my elementary students with great success. We were Skyping with another class in the “Around the World with 80 Schools” project. I was looking for a way to involve the group of students, who did not have an active role in speaking with our Skype partners in addition to wanting to document what was being discussed during the conversation.

I have blogged about my previous experiences with chatrooms here and here.

In this past week, I worked with 4th and 5th graders and their teachers. The idea was to introduce a chatroom platform to the students and the concept of “backchanneling”. Not one of them knew or had heard of a Backchannel. I explained that it was a group of people who used computers or smartphones

to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken conversation.

One thing I learned from these experience is that you cannot throw students (not even adults for that matter) into a chatroom and expect them to be able to stay focused, stay on target and use this tool naturally in a productive way.

You need to give students an opportunity:

• to have some “free time” (always school appropriate of course)
• to get used to the specific platform. Where do you type you comments? Where do you post it? How and in what order do you read the comments?
• to get the “giggles” and “goofiness” out

The teacher wanted to use this opportunity to review questions for an upcoming Social Studies test. We met in the computer lab , each student was sitting excitedly in front of a computer and logged into todaysmeet.com, where I had created a room for us.

http://www.todaysmeet.com

Once students sign in with their first names (only), it is a good idea to have each student check in with a roll call to double check that they had signed in with the “right” names. We had a few students who instead of typing their name in after the welcome screen already started typing a statement or a question addressed to another student.

They had about five minutes to have unstructured chat time. I showed them to use @username if they were addressing or responding to a specific person.

using a backchannel

It was also a good time to remind students, that everything they write “can and will be used against them”. All their comments are attributed to their username and tagged with the time that it was posted. If the teacher were to ask to please hold any comments at any point in time, any student who did not follow direction would be very clear.
While their teacher and I would be having a conversation about the topic of their Social Studies review, students were to:

• Not speak aloud to anyone during our backchannel, communicate only via chat.
• Listen to the conversation between the teachers
• Summarize important facts that collaboratively would make up a study guide for the Social Studies test.

I explained to the students that we were using a backchannel for various reasons and that it would not be as easy as they might anticipate. They would have to practice multitasking

• Listening
• Reading the ongoing conversation
• Writing a summarized comment

After the about 20 minute review, the 25 page long chat log that I saved and printed out, revealed the following:

• keyboarding skills come in handy
• some students randomly posted off topic comments and/or continued the conversation started in their “free” time at the beginning of class.
• students posted repeated statements (did not follow the log by reading what had been posted previously)
• Some students did not only posts incredible summarized comments, but also added great additions from their own background knowledge about the subject.
• Students also added facts to the chat that had been previously mentioned in their classroom, but had not been repeated during the live conversation.
• Students started using the backchannel to ask questions.

It was extremely important to go over the chat log with the students. I read it allowed without mentioning the names of the students. They knew anyway who had written what comment. I reminded them to listen for inappropriate and off-topic comments as well as to take notice of repeated comments. I made sure that I pointed out well written comments and congratulated their authors for contributing to the “collaborative study guide”. I feel that students have a better idea now what we expect of them and what kind of skills they are practicing.

We will give them more opportunities to use a backchannel in the classroom.

Update (10/20/09):
Here is an excerpt of a post I wrote to let students’ parents know about our use of backchannel with their elementary age students:

What is a “backchannel” you ask?

Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks.

Backchannels are used more and more in the educational field, during face to face conferences and lectures, as well as virtual conversations. With smartphones and portable computers one can participate and contribute to a conversation, provide documentation and help facilitate by connecting others who are not present.

How were we going to adapt this concept to our elementary school classroom and students?

21st century skills demand that we prepare our children to communicate, collaborate and connect to each other, but also to information. Media and Information literacy are extremely important areas of integration to our current curriculum.

Using a private chatroom as the platform to practice all the above mentioned skills was to harness the students’ excitement for chatting as a means of communication, review material previously discussed in class and collaboratively compile and organize information.

Update (11/22/09):
I received an email from the teacher a few days after we reviewed for the Social Studies test with a backchannel. Mrs. Z wrote:

I am totally amazed. The kids took their Social Studies test on Friday and I have never seen such good papers! I am convinced the back channeling was a major factor.

Here are a few selected parts of the backchannel. There are in reverse chronological order. I removed the students’ name.

Timber was important, so they could build homes and ships

at 2:09 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they would expor the timber to england

at 2:09 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

why did colonists work so hard they could have just given up

at 2:08 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

new england colonies were an extremely important natural resource

they would seal them with wax

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they mailed lots of letters

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

it back in english

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they didn’t use envelopes

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

No telephones they did not use onvolopes

they would mail letters.

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

no face book

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

what they had for lunch

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

People communitcated by using letters and use the pony express

at 2:07 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they weren’t allowed to play games

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

no games either.

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they got fired if they missed a day

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

If they were so sick they could not work they were let go

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

not paied very much and free time no days sick and lost jobs if sick

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they couldn’t become sick or they would be fired.

Apprentices could not have good pay and worked day and night

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they were expected to work for 11 yrs.

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

he founded a lot of things and helped with the declaration of indipendints

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they were not aloud to miiss anydays because they were sick

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

he discovered electricity too

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

apprentices were payed better than farmers

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

they did not get paid very much

at 2:05 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

Apprentices had a very hard life

he really for america he separated to the british

at 2:04 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

he helped form the dellaration of indapendince

at 2:04 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

benjamin helped form the declaration of independence

at 2:04 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

Printer is like blogger

at 2:03 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

he went to pledalphia because he wasnted to become a printe

at 2:03 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

a blogger

at 2:03 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

Benjamin F. went to Philadelphia to become a printer

at 2:03 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

he wanted to be a printer

at 2:02 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

Depended on each other in town

benjamin franklan lived in philidolphia

at 2:01 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

in the towns most people were self sufficient

at 2:01 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

self sufficient= farms were they grew their own food

at 2:01 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

In the towns people were self sufficent

at 2:01 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

Pennsilvania is in the north

at 2:01 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

first hospital and library and fire house

at 2:01 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

Benjamin Franklin wanted wanted to go to Philadelphia to become an apprentice of a printer

at 2:01 PM, 18 Nov 2009 via web

More interesting blog posts about using backchannel chat:

• 10 Reasons to try Backchannel
• Backchanneling in Middle School Social Studies
• What is backchannelling and how can you use it in your classroom?
  

In the old days...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24707395@N02/ / CC BY 2.0

In the old days… students would have been given a specific topic, sent home, to the computer lab or the library to “look up” information. They would then have to write a report, print out images, glue them on a backboard and “present” that to parents and visitors at the History Fair.

In the 21st Century...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superkimbo/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In the 21st century, we need to be looking for and addressing something more…

Information Literacy:

• Online sites and books are still valid information sources, but are they enough to engage students and give them “authentic” sources?
• Being able to get, evaluate and work with information from a variety of sources, such as books, almanacs, blogs, wikis, video, audio, interviews, etc.

Networking Literacy:

• Learn about accessing a network of people who can contribute information from their own experiences, on location and customized (personalized) to our own criteria, not the one a publisher or author chose?

Communication skills:

• being able to interview through a variety of media and communication methods and be familiar with their distinct etiquette.
  • face to face
  • e-mail
  • twitter
  • facebook
  • video conferencing (Skype)
  • texting
  • telephone
• being able to present the information obtained through a variety a media (video, images, audio)

The topic is “Jewish Communities Around the World”… what better way to allow authentic research to take place than go directly to those communities around the world…this is when it comes in handy to have a network of willing and able people literally AROUND THE WORLD! I was off to send a twitter alert to my PLN.

Cry for Help to my PLN

I received instantly responses. We will have Jews born or currently residing in different countries/continents being interviewed by our students. At this point we have Jews from 12 countries and seven continents who have agreed to be interviewed (Canada, USA, Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina, Denmark, England, Scotland, South Africa, Israel, China, Australia) plus two people stationed (currently or in the past) in the Antarctica.

Here is the initial e-mail, describing the project, sent out to these contacts:

The 6th graders at the Martin J Gottlieb Day School in Jacksonville, Florida/USA are starting to research for a Jewish History Fair. They will be looking at different Jewish communities around the world.
Students will research with books and via the internet to develop questions that they want to ask Jews who are living on different countries and continents. We want them to interview with /through different media. Some interviews will be face to face here in town, but we would also like to give them the opportunity to conduct interviews via skype, email and twitter in order to strengthen information and media literacy.
One of our main objectives is for students to see commonalities among different communities.

Would you be interested in participating and willing to be interviewed? We would send questions ahead of time, if the interview is conducted via Skype or twitter? This won’t happen until close to the beginning of December.
Please get in contact with me, so I can answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you so much in advance!

After I received confirmation of their willingness to participate as an interviewee, they were then asked to send us a short biography:

We are continuing to work and prepare with our students for the Jewish History Fair: Jewish Communities Around the World. Thank you for agreeing to participate as an Interviewee.
As students are formulating interview questions, they would benefit from having a short biography from you, describing your background and involvement as a Jew in the country you were born in or are currently residing.
The bio only has to be a few short sentence to give our students just a little background.

Our projected time line to work with the students is as follows:

1. Introduction to project
2. Introduction to different media, students will be interviewing. Talk about required etiquette of different media…differences…similarities…
3. Student introduced to biographies of interviewees
4. Assign Students an interviewee/country/continent
5. Students will research background information that will help them form an notion of the community interviewee has grown up/is residing
6. Students will develop questions for the interviewees that will be send ahead of time
7. Setting up up date and medium of interview to be conducted
8. Students will interview
9. Students will connect the information gathered to create their own understanding of Jewish communities, especially commonalities, around the world.
10. Students decide in what shape and form their will demonstrate what they learned.
11. Students will produce final product to be displayed with globe and History Fair.

I am getting very excited to observe students and their research outcome as the actual interviews are being conducted. I wonder what media students will prefer and get the most out of? I wonder if certain student personalities/learning styles will naturally gravitate towards one or another media?