CONNECTING
Connecting with the wider world
CONNECTIVISM: Being able to connect and collaborate for both teachers and students is of huge importance. With technology today we can bring the outside world into your classrooms.
Just click on the icon below to find out more about some of the various projects. |
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Below are some tools to connect both to parents and ways to connect to the global community.
Connecting with parents and other communities
BLOGS |
Blogging is built right into Weebly and it extremely easy to access and post, either from a computer or an iPad/iPhone using the Weebly app. Click HERE to see some things to avoid when starting a class blog.
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CLASS MESSENGER |
From Scholastic: If I was in the classroom, I would definitely try this app to push information to parents and students...all from your smart phone or computer. Click HERE for reasons why to use Messenger rather than Twitter.
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iEARN |
Facilitate collaborative partnerships between classrooms, students, communities, and educational partners around the globe. These projects use ICT to help students work together to accomplish meaningful tasks, solve problems, and learn new perspectives from their peers. Creative processes that allow for a grassroots style of learning and questioning enrich students’ critical thinking skills. What better way to learn about such difficult subjects as war, natural disasters, child soldiers, and segregated education than from other students who are involved? They learn with the world rather than just about the world.
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MY HERO |
The mission of The MY HERO Project is to use media, art and technology to celebrate the best of humanity.
MY HERO empowers people of all ages to realize their own potential to effect positive change in the world. At the My Hero website, students can publish essays about their heroes for a global audience. Entire classes can also participate in the project within a formal global “Learning Circle” of six to eight classes from countries all over the world. |
ART MILES MURAL PROJECT |
The Art Miles Mural Project is a passionate and colourful movement combining the efforts of children and adults worldwide to promote global peace and harmoney through mural art.
A collaborative global project that helps geographically distant K–12 classes learn about a specific aspect of each other’s country |
FLAT CLASSROOM PROJECT |
One of the main goals of the project is to 'flatten' or lower the classroom walls so that instead of each class working isolated and alone, 2 or more classes are joined virtually to become one large classroom. The project is designed to develop cultural understanding, skills with Web 2.0 and other software, experience in global collaboration and online learning, awareness of what it means to live and work in a flat world.
While apparently very rewarding, teachers will need to plan far in advance as this takes some serious organisation. Click HERE for more details. |