Global networks flatten classroom walls

As we enter the conceptual age, characterised by collaboration, communication and connectivity, education mustembrace some of the wonderful web 2.0 tools that can enhance learning and create powerful learning outcomes for our digital students.

Hawkesdale P-12 College is a small preparatory to year 12 College set in rural Western Victoria, a 3½ hour drive by car from Melbourne. Students are rarely exposed to other cultures. The advent of web2.0 tools - blogs, wikis, nings and videoconferencing tools - has changed that. Partnerships have been set up with teachers in schools around the globe, including United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Korea, New Zealand, Thailand and Palestine. A recent comment on a post on my blog stated that ‘We are using the internet for the purpose that it was intended’.

All students in years four to ten have individual blogs. Years 9 and 10 regularly cross-post with a school in Connecticut, USA. Turns are taken for either the teacher or a student to write prompt requiring responses via blog posts, and then comments. Our students have learned of an auntie who has to continually watch her young daughter as a black bear regularly visits their backyard, and that gangs and violence are prevalent. The US students have learned that we are just like them – wearing hoodies and eating similar foods (not ants!).

Live blogging has allowed our students to chat in real time. The scene involves 18 students in the computer lab at 10am in Hawkesdale; the Connecticut teacher, Mr Paul Bogush, in his home and a dozen of his students in their homes, at 8pm, their time. Coveritalive allows him to moderate all comments before they are published on the live blog. Questions are asked via chat and then responded to. Yackpack (an online walkie talkie type option) enables him to talk to his students and guide them. We have learned so much about each other - and all in the USA students’ home time!

Grade 6 students have shared an online voicethread with a school in the UK and Bangkok, where they had to verbally comment on ‘what they are looking forward to’ when moving to the next level of school, either secondary or intermediate; ‘what they are nervous about’ and finally, ‘what they have in common’ with students around the globe. There is no real difference at all – most had the same fears and sense of excitement.

Google applications have been used to share a live survey form on the number of entertainment gadgets, for example, cell phones, mp3 players, computers, televisions, and so on, found on average, in student households. Our partner teacher, from her home in Florida, watched the results immediately embed in the Google spreadsheet.  She chatted to us via the Google sheet and data show in our computer lab. A school in Palestine also participated. My students set up their own spreadsheets using the shared, online results.  Once formulas were inserted, the results were graphed and then embedded in their blog.

However, some of the most powerful learning outcomes have been achieved in the area of videoconferencing. A connection was made with Korea, at the end of last year. Skype (VOiP) was used, predominantly to give teenage Korean students an opportunity to improve their English. Questions were set up prior to the videoconference by students in both schools. Each class asked questions and responded. By the end of the week, a year 10 boy found a blue-tongued lizard at school. It was held up to the small web camera and Korean students could see the blue tongue lashing in and out. One of the standard questions had been ‘What is your favourite food?’. A common response was a ‘meat pie with sauce’ -  a food very difficult to describe. However, having witnessed the power of that camera, a meat pie was produced from our canteen and placed in front of the camera.

Soon, there was a game of cricket being demonstrated in our library. The Korean students, in turn, showed us their uniform and their mobile phones (much to the envy of our students). Their camera was taken to the window to show us freshly falling snow. To complete this amazing picture, we saw a Korean worker sweeping the snow from the front doorstep of their school. (Our students were about to go swimming in an outdoor pool!). This connection motivated Korean students to improve their English and our students to learn about their culture. Our contact, Gail Casey, from Geelong, who was teaching English as a second language in Korea, has since returned home. We are currently in the process of establishing connections with another school in Korea.

Students in years 4 to 7 have been part of the global 1001 tales project.  Students write a tale, for their global contacts to read, review and evaluate. Tales are edited twice and then finalised using a wiki. Mr Jeff Whipple from Fredericson, Canada, used Skype, his laptop and bridgit conferencing software tools to come into our library via the IWB and teach us about the project and wikis. Year 8 students at his school were studying Oceana, Pacifica and Australia. To return the favour, I was asked to teach them about our culture, school, community and the farm I live on. It was 10pm at night and 115 Canadian students were congregated in their theatre at 8:45am (their time). Nerves were calmed when the technology proved to be stable (although my voice dropped in and out a little using Skype). A shared PowerPoint presentation of photos of Australia was shared via a wiki. Questions from students for the webcast were set up on a bulletin board on the teacher’s Facebook to give me a focus. Their class wiki enabled me to see the resources used. Students gave me immediate feedback via Facebook. Here are some of their comments:

• ‘It was incredible.’
  ‘It’s just so different from what is normal here. I probably would of never found any of that out if it wasn’t for that presentation!’
• ‘That was so cool! It was real awesome of the cool things I (and everyone) learned, I think I’m gonna do some research on more later…’
• ‘I really liked the fact that we were actually talking to her. not just in email. I thought all the pictures she showed were pretty sweet. also, I thought it was cool how we are used to different surroundings and habitats . . . yes, we don’t say put your bookbag in the boot . . . I still find it awesome, though. I love Australia so much! (not to mention their accents!)’
• ‘Global connections give real learning in real time in a manner that students will connect with and relate to from their digital environments.’

Global connections and technology allows learning in real time in a manner that our digital students relate to.  Powerful learning outcomes. The full impact of such technological use and potential powerful learning outcomes are only now being explored and discovered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms Anne Mirtschin is a teacher at Hawkesdale P-12 College (preparatory to year 12), a small rural school in the western district of country Victoria, in south-eastern Australia.

 

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