Julene Reed suggests in her article, Global Collaboration and Learning, that “Digital Storybooks" are one way that “Students can capture the essence of their lives.” With that in mind, I have been trying to find a way to help my small group of students get interested in using iPads for composing text. Part of my rational is to get the kids used to the flat touch keyboard of the iPad, so that they can efficiently use this tool to meet writing requirements in the classroom. The other part of my reasoning is that we have been doing a lot of what I call heavy writing, meaning essay writing or writing in response to assigned reading. They’re not having fun, and I can see the words “I hate writing” creasing into their foreheads as they concentrate on forming letters to meet the demands of their 6th grade curriculum.
I located an iPad app called 99 Words that allows students to co-author a progressive story. In order to build a relationship with the two fifth graders and three 6th graders attending a rural K-6 school in Trout Creek Montana, my students in Shrewsbury Massachusetts can choose a genre with my support, and then start a story. Each of the 5 students participating from my small group class will write a chapter, which can consists of anywhere from 1 to 99 words. When they have finished, they pass the story to their Montana classmate to compose the next chapter of 1 to 99 words. When 10 chapters have been written, the book is ready to publish and share.
I would like to have some sort of videoconference, read-aloud session where each student meets their co-author partner via Skype, and then they read their story together chapter by chapter.
I know that Trout Creek, Montana does not seem like a huge stretch when we are talking about “global education” and “global citizenship,” but there is a vast socio-economic and cultural chasm between this small school and community to the one my own students live in. For example they have a total of five 5th and 6th graders while my current school has close to 1,000. The number of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch at the Trout Creek Montana School is 61% and at my current school is 10%. Trout Creek’s median household income is $33,724, while Shrewsbury’s is more than double at $81,643. One possible advantage their school has over ours is that their total per pupil expenditure is $15,845, while ours is $10,235.
There are many winter days that students cannot get to school because they live so far off the beaten track that it takes days for them to dig themselves out. They do not have a large peer group to challenge them or to choose from for friends. Several of the children live off the grid and use combinations of alternative energies to preserve food, warm water, and to stay warm. There are families that have lived there for 17 or more years without indoor plumbing and on-demand hot water. There is not cell phone service until you are a good 15 miles out of Trout Creek, but there is free Wi-Fi access at the Naughty Pine Saloon (I posted a Moodle discussion for EDIM-501 from the parking lot this summer☺
One of the biggest deciding factors for me in wanting to link with students at this school is to widen the social-cultural network for both sets of students. I knew a family that lived in that area. They were so far back that they could not get their kids into town to go to school, so they homeschooled. The web tools available to many families who must, or who choose to homeschool today, were not available. As the children got older, one went away to Missoula to go to college, but quit after 1 year. The other child enrolled for high school, but could not handle the experience either. It was not the academics. They had eaten every book that came their way, they invented and built all kinds of contraptions, and they had amazing number process skills, and they passed their state tests. It came down to a social disconnect. Neither young person could relate well in the larger society, and when they did not understand the expectations and had their first real social mishaps, they killed themselves. They did this within a few years of each other. It was heartbreaking, and I keep wondering if there was something that could have been done in their younger years to better prepare them.
Hopefully after the initial story writing and video-conferencing we can keep the relationships going. I know that my students would benefit from learning about alternative energies, inventing to survive, and they would learn to respect their partners for the individual talents and skills that they have acquired from their parents and their unique experiences.
I would hope though, that we are not the only ones gaining something. I would like to think that our Montana student partners would benefit from using online collaborative tools like 99 Words and Skype, and that they would see this as an opportunity to build relationships outside of their community.
I located an iPad app called 99 Words that allows students to co-author a progressive story. In order to build a relationship with the two fifth graders and three 6th graders attending a rural K-6 school in Trout Creek Montana, my students in Shrewsbury Massachusetts can choose a genre with my support, and then start a story. Each of the 5 students participating from my small group class will write a chapter, which can consists of anywhere from 1 to 99 words. When they have finished, they pass the story to their Montana classmate to compose the next chapter of 1 to 99 words. When 10 chapters have been written, the book is ready to publish and share.
I would like to have some sort of videoconference, read-aloud session where each student meets their co-author partner via Skype, and then they read their story together chapter by chapter.
I know that Trout Creek, Montana does not seem like a huge stretch when we are talking about “global education” and “global citizenship,” but there is a vast socio-economic and cultural chasm between this small school and community to the one my own students live in. For example they have a total of five 5th and 6th graders while my current school has close to 1,000. The number of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch at the Trout Creek Montana School is 61% and at my current school is 10%. Trout Creek’s median household income is $33,724, while Shrewsbury’s is more than double at $81,643. One possible advantage their school has over ours is that their total per pupil expenditure is $15,845, while ours is $10,235.
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| Trout Creek, MT---March 1, 2011 |
There are many winter days that students cannot get to school because they live so far off the beaten track that it takes days for them to dig themselves out. They do not have a large peer group to challenge them or to choose from for friends. Several of the children live off the grid and use combinations of alternative energies to preserve food, warm water, and to stay warm. There are families that have lived there for 17 or more years without indoor plumbing and on-demand hot water. There is not cell phone service until you are a good 15 miles out of Trout Creek, but there is free Wi-Fi access at the Naughty Pine Saloon (I posted a Moodle discussion for EDIM-501 from the parking lot this summer☺
One of the biggest deciding factors for me in wanting to link with students at this school is to widen the social-cultural network for both sets of students. I knew a family that lived in that area. They were so far back that they could not get their kids into town to go to school, so they homeschooled. The web tools available to many families who must, or who choose to homeschool today, were not available. As the children got older, one went away to Missoula to go to college, but quit after 1 year. The other child enrolled for high school, but could not handle the experience either. It was not the academics. They had eaten every book that came their way, they invented and built all kinds of contraptions, and they had amazing number process skills, and they passed their state tests. It came down to a social disconnect. Neither young person could relate well in the larger society, and when they did not understand the expectations and had their first real social mishaps, they killed themselves. They did this within a few years of each other. It was heartbreaking, and I keep wondering if there was something that could have been done in their younger years to better prepare them.
Hopefully after the initial story writing and video-conferencing we can keep the relationships going. I know that my students would benefit from learning about alternative energies, inventing to survive, and they would learn to respect their partners for the individual talents and skills that they have acquired from their parents and their unique experiences.
I would hope though, that we are not the only ones gaining something. I would like to think that our Montana student partners would benefit from using online collaborative tools like 99 Words and Skype, and that they would see this as an opportunity to build relationships outside of their community.
Reed, J. (undated). Global collaboration and learning. Retrieved March 27, 2011 from EDTECH Focus on K-12
Web site: http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/events/updates/global-collaboration-and-learning.html.
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