Tag Archives: International VCs

How to find international partner classes

Today Neva Kelly, Horseheads Central School District, emailed me with a great question. How do I find a class in another country that wants to collaborate on such a project?

So I dug out the article I wrote for the upcoming fall MACUL journal. Here’s a summary/preview with links to the resources mentioned.

  1. Networking. Meet people where ever you can! Some places to start are the Keystone Conference, Megaconference and Megaconference Jr., and even NECC, especially the proposed SIG IVC meeting, June 28, 2005 4:45-6:15 EST. The more people you meet doing VC, the more connections you make and the more you share collaborations. I carefully save contact info for everyone who emails me and keep folders for states & countries where I know someone doing VC.
  2. Listservs. Both megaconference listservs have international classrooms on them. In fact on the megaconference websites you can find lists of participants. Just google their school, hunt around on their website, and you can usually find the VC contact person’s email address. I found the megaconference listservs more helpful for international contacts than the k12ivc and ed1vidconf listservs which seem to only have talkative US people on them. I’m sure there are others but they hardly ever say anything so you don’t get to meet them.
  3. My online class – Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections. That’s how I was able to arrange the Guatemala connection. In my August session I have a few people signed up again from Central & South America – so that might be another opportunity to network and meet via VC. There’s still room! 🙂
  4. Global Leap. Sign up for this and participate in some of their programs. That way you’ll meet people and participate in programs with other classes. They have a good directory too.
  5. International programs. Did you ever notice the specialty search on the BCISD Field Trip Database on the TWICE site? Notice the pink box on the right. You can search international programs. Also when participating in global programs such as those from Global Nomads and Global Education Motivators, you often connect with classes from other countries and therefore can meet and collect contacts that way.
  6. Online directories. I’ve been collecting some of these on the TWICE projects page on the right side of the page.

Anyone else have a suggestion for finding partner classes in other countries?

5th Grade Goes to Guatemala

Today Hollywood Elementary connected to four children in Guatemala. Students on both side shared what they like to do, their age and grade level, and their favorite activities. One student at Hollywood showed his pet guinea pig, Squeaks, which caused many giggles on both sides of the connection! After taking turns introducing themselves, kids at each side asked each other questions such as what is your favorite music, favorite sports, and favorite holidays.

One of the things that was hard for the Hollywood students to understand was how two of the kids in Guatemala don’t go to school. One boy works in the field with his father growing spinach, and the another girl works with her mother sewing and baking tortillas to sell. They asked several questions to understand the poverty. They also learned about the dresses that are worn to represent the various communities in Guatemala. Each town/community has it’s own special style of dress.

Students in Guatemala asked, What do you eat? What are your favorite colors? What kinds of jobs do people do there?

Students also planned to continue the conversation via email after the connection.

So… why should we connect to students in other places….? How else can students really understand cultures and how people live in different areas? How else will they gain an understanding of the world around them and realize the responsibilities that come with privilege?

Global Value of VC

Yesterday a colleague offered me a possible project collaboration with a country in Asia. Obviously to make it work, we have to address some time zone issues! It will definitely mean students coming in late for a videoconference on one or both ends of the videoconference. So then last evening as I was mowing, I began considering what kind of connection would make it worth getting up early for? or coming back to school in the evening for?

What would I want students to get from a collaborative exchange with students from another country?? I want them to understand what it’s like to live in another area. I want them to realize people have value from all different cultures, points of view, experiences. I want them to feel connected to the world around them – pulled out of their selfish little worlds and into an understanding of global issues. What kind of experience would help them gain this new understanding & empathy for others? I want them to have more than just tolerance of other cultures, but appreciation for the value that other points of view bring to an informed dialogue. Is that possible for high school students? is it possible for elementary students?

Maybe it is possible…. The Becta document on “What the research says about videoconferencing in teaching and learning” includes this:

Collaboration with schools where the pupils come from different cultures leads to the development of multicultural relationships and understanding, while enriching traditional activities (Cifuentes& Murphy 2000).

What type of collaborative events/projects/activities would result in the development of multicultural relationships and understanding? ….

Another angle to think about it is the curriculum….. certainly teachers at all participating schools have established curriculum to cover. The school is a K-12 school – so there are possibilities at each level. A simple “how do others live” type connection for K-3 ish? The Museum of TV & Radio has a great program called Around the World. Maybe we could do something similar comparing how others live? What is the same & what is different? Or what about writing/alphabet/simple reading for both schools… it would be fun to have students teach each other a few words and letters in the respective languages….

Many of our schools have global issues classes at the high school level. I’d love to see the students address a global issue. Something big. Difficult. Almost unsolvable. Poverty? They could find out about poverty issues in their own countries and share. Then each class could research another country’s poverty issues. What would be common among all four countries? What would be different? What solutions might students think of? Students could ask big questions about the issues….

For middle school I can’t help but think of my MysteryQuest program. If it weren’t for the timezones – what a blast to have a school presenting their actual location somewhere in Asia! Would the students figure it out by accent, skin color or dress? Would they suspect? or would they think it was just another very diverse class from New York City? The possibilities are intriguing! What would be their reaction when they found out? We’d definitely need a follow-up connection for students to ask each other questions and interact. They love that part!

Am I just really geeked by kids connecting to other kids?! Yes I am!!!