Firstly you will notice that the title of this post starts with ‘3 Series…’ Here at technoLOTE that simply means that there will be a series of 3 posts relating to one particular topic. Each post will extend on the previous related post with more ideas and resources. Coming up in the 3 Series on Collaboration - international collaboration (finding partner classrooms) and collaborative project ideas (how easy it can be!).
So, the part one of the first ever technoLOTE 3 series is about using web conferencing with skype to improve cultural awareness and conversational skills.
Last term my Grade 5 class had some regular Skype web cam conferences with 4 Chinese students at a school about half an hour away. What started out as some casual chats turned into an assessable project for a student teacher at Deakin Uni. Anna, who is Chinese herself, went in to the primary school in Warrnambool every Monday and helped the Chinese students with their spoken English while they chatted to me and the small group of students I had there for each session. It was a great way for her students to practice their conversational English and it was a great opportunity for my students to ask questions about life in China. My students also used some simple Chinese phrases - much to the delight of our virtual Chinese classmates!
I started this wiki using Wetpaint for the sessions and got my students to record what it was they chatted to the Chinese kids about. My kids were horrified to hear that you start school at 8:30 in China, finish at 4:30 and have heaps of homework every night! The Chinese kids said they thought school here was much more relaxed. My kids also found out that there were some similarites - they all like McDonalds, The Simpsons and football. Who’d have thought!
We are hoping to arrange a time that the Chinese students in Warrnambool can come and visit our school. It was just great to watch these kids talk to, laugh at and make friends with each other virtually!
One of the things I would work on for next time around would be to make sure students on both ends are well prepared as far as questions go. I found that too often I was prompting my students because they couldn’t think of things to say. I think this could have been avoided by a meeting before each link up to avoid too many long silences!
As you can see from these photos, our experience was greatly enhanced by the fabulous SMART board that we have in the Chinese classroom.
For more on classroom collaboration you might like to read Voices of the World Twinkle Away, Do You Sing What I Sing?, or A Virtual Tour at Midnight!
or listen to the first episode of the technoLOTE podcast - Classroom Collaboration the Ning Way.
[...] Jess McCulloch from Australia shares a introduction to a chinese character lesson. We also chat about topics ranging from mac or pc, to a very interesting collaboration project. [...]