I explored the two sites listed above for global cooperation between students for my LOTE classes. The first site, iearn.org is in its 20th year of operation on the web. On this site, classrooms from different countries around the world can collaborate on projects, and communicate with one another, sharing differences and commonalities. Students can learn with the world, not just about it. While browsing the site, I came upon different project ideas that I would be able to use in the classroom. A pair of classrooms collaborated for a project sharing recipes from their native cultures. As I am currently teaching a food unit with my 8th grade Spanish classes, I thought this was an interesting project to conduct. I could collaborate with a Spanish speaking country; my students would be able to share their favorite recipes with the Spanish speaking students, while the other classroom would be able to share their own favorite recipes from that specific country. After the sharing process was complete, each class could prepare each recipe, maybe even make a video of this process to post on the web. In the last mod for class, I explored voicethread.com where my students could add images and videos to the site in order to make a gallery portfolio of their work. They could use voicethread.com to post the video and/or pictures they create while they are completing their projects. Then each classroom can reflect on the food making process and the final product. In comparison to the other site I explored, iearn is more classroom/group based, rather than individually based.
Epals.com is a site students can use to communicate with their own pen pal through the internet. On this site, classrooms from around the world can collaborate with one another, however epals focuses more on individual students sharing information with other individual students from different cultures. This site has been in operation for 12 years, and emphasizes the success of its monitored accounts to promote student safety when using the web as an educational tool. This site has access to monitored blogs and emails for students, teachers and administrators. In December 2006, epals was voted "best blog for education" by professionals. Like iearn.org, epals strives for global awareness through communication amongst students from different cultures. In my Spanish classrooms, I would use epals for blogging and sending emails with students from classrooms in Spanish speaking countries. There is also a spot on the site where teachers can chat with other teachers from around the globe, sharing ideas and providing feedback to one another.
The basic goal of each site is to promote global communication with our students, so they can learn about the world without having to travel away from their computers. It is a way for educators to promote respect and tolerance of people from around the world through sharing and communicating on the web.
1 comment:
Sara,
What good reviews of these sites and how you could incorporate them into your teaching. I think the use of Voicethread could work very well with an iearn project. You'll only know the advantages and the problems associated with any of the tools by givng them a try. It might be good to start with a small group of students and then to expand to other classes when you have worked out how best to use the tools. Good luck!
Dr. Burgos
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