a virtual exchange between our class, and a partner class overseas. For my 20 Canadian munchkins, we found a partner group in East Borneo, Indonesia. Both classes have created an imaginary friend, who attends our partner school. (For the curious, our imaginary friend is a little girl named Ella. She is 6 years old, she has blond hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. Her gender and name were decided by vote. Her age and appearance were drawn at random.) We use Twitter to ask research questions of our partners, and the answers allow us to write stories documenting our imaginary friend's experience in another country. Each child has a journal for the project, where they record things they have learned. It being kindergarten, the recording mostly takes the form of drawings. The children dictate text to go with their drawings, and then copy that text onto their pages. We are working on a Prezi presentation to share our learning with parents and other classes. We have made a video to teach our "Indonesia friends" about snow and how to get dressed for recess when it is very cold.
When my team conceived of this project, I knew it was going to be cool. As mentioned in my previous post about Twitter in kindergarten, I love love LOVE that my students are building real connections with other children their own age. This project brought it to another level, by pushing them to imagine themselves in a completely different setting. (As we graph the often FIFTY degree difference in our daily temperatures, I often imagine MYSELF in a completely different setting, too!) I knew that this project was going to take us in unexpected directions, and there is no doubt that it has.
Andrew Tucker on 11 Jul 11These facts are very interesting and I had no idea that this was the case! These statistics prove that we, as teaching professionals, cannot ignore the impact that social networking has on the kids that we will be teaching. They are going to be using these tools and using them a lot, so we should reach them on their level.
Daphne O'Donnell on 11 Jul 11I'm surprised by the fact of 50% of students talk online about hw. Honestly, I thought it would be less than that.
Facebook is such a widely used social networking tool, I think you would be very hard-pressed to find someone who does not know how to use it. Kids can be steered in the direction of using it for educational and introspection purposes which they probably didn't consider. I love the idea of creating a page for a book character.
I think there is a ton of potential for Facebook to be used in the classroom but like Daphne said, could it lead to overexposure or to unwanted sites/people/ideas that are out there? Maybe somehow setting up very private settings would work best for teacher-student collaboration.
Wiki based on statistics and information supporting use of social networking, and internet use in education. Although a little dated (2006) it's clear to see how things have progressed as expected through today. "Did you know 2.0" is a video worth the time.
