Launch of New and Improved Site

Please click here to be redirected to an updated

and improved   ‘Handpicked Collaborative Projects’.

What’s New?

Projects Just Added:

Tell a Story in 5 Frames – Join Amanda Signal’s flickr group and be part of a safe online environment that allows children to create and tell a story in 5 frames as well as responding to the stories of others.

Are the organisms found in pond water the same all over the world? In this project students identify organisms in water samples and compare their findings with other projects participants from around the world. Project Time frame: Sept 10- Nov 28^th.

Great Book Stories – a wiki that allows students to access and create stories about their favourite books.

Holiday Card Exchange – a chance to share in holiday celebrations and learn more about countries from all over the world by exchanging cards. Project Time frame: December 2nd – 19^th

Pumpkin Seed 2008 – A good one for juniors. Have fun estimating pumpkin seeds with students from all over the globe.  3 day project – Oct. 29th-31st

What are the benefits of online projects?

(Taken from Visions of Online Projects Dance in My Head by Leni Donlan, 1998 )

What can participation in online projects do for you and your class?

• It can break the isolation of typical classrooms. You can reach out to people and to learning opportunities from all over the world.
• It can allow you and your students to experience people, places, and activities not available in other ways (for example, Mars … up close and personal!)
• It can make learning more enjoyable and engaging.
• It can put the student in the driver’s seat while teachers provide the “map” to the desired destination.
• It can allow you and your students to be mentored and to mentor others.
• It can encourage your students to provide service to your community and to those in need, near and far.
• It can allow you and your students to be active global citizens, participating in “history in the making.”
• It can provide relevant, real-life experiences for tomorrow’s citizens.
• It can level the playing field for adults, children, ethnic groups, gifted students, disabled learners, and people of different cultures and socio economic backgrounds.

Signs of Success

• Obviously excited learners.
• Comments and notes from parents.
• Heightened interest in the topic and in related topics.
• Sense of empowerment as children feel they are part of a bigger picture.
• Tangible sense of global connectedness.
• Ability to deepen and broaden classroom studies through network resources (information and people).
• New friends for your students from all over the world
• Children arriving early and staying late to participate.

Home Grown Projects

Get started with collaborative projects by adapting some of the ideas in the ‘home -grown’ section: Ideas include: email exchanges, collaborative stories in wikispaces …

Got something to add? Email me rjensen@waikato.ac.nz or post direct to the wiki.

One for the Juniors

Voices of the World is a global project that unites children’s voices from around the world. Each month a challenge that combines the use of voice and ICT is set by Mrs Toner in Scotland. They are all on holiday at the moment so new challenges have stopped for now.

Each challenge is designed to overcome language barriers so that children can develop an appreciation of different languages, accents and dialects.

These challenges are particularly suitable for junior children.

Previous challenges, which provide a good spring-board for our own ideas, have included:

• Create an animated character using voki and record the following text:“ Hello we are the (school) from (location) and you are listening to Voices of the World.”
• Create an Animoto with images to represent your country and audio of children singing your national anthem or local song. Yah !!! – It was great to see NZ represented in this one by Rachel Boyd and her class at Nelson Central School
• Use the comment tool on voice thread to say each of the words in the main voice thread in your own language.
• Create a photo-story representing numbers 1 – 10 in your own language

Check out the library of challenges and examples.

What’s New ?

Books Go Global – Multi-media Book Reviews

Prince Caspian – C.S. Lewis- Exploring the Text

Get Off My Back – Maths Investigation

Kids for Kenya – Inquiry – Why Can’t We All Go To School?

Instructables – Multi-Media How-To’s

Public Vote – Doodle for Google

Check out the creativity from US students as they embarked on the challenge of designing a new doodle for google. Involve your students by getting them to vote for their favourite (you can vote for one doodle per grade group). Voting closes on the 18^th May.

Unfortunately this competition was not open to NZ students:(

Feature Project

Collaborate with Olympic athletes to set daily challenges and take part in a simulated Olympic journey.  This NZ project, for year 3 and 4’s, is aimed at getting children, active, having fun and involved in the upcoming Olympic games.

Every child who participates will receive a free pedometer and a chance to represent NZ at the Beijing Olympic Games.

To get started, register your school at :  http://www.mygreatestfeat.org/register.php 

Online  registration for your school closes at midday on April 18th, 2008.

The  ‘My Greatest Feat’ programme begins  Monday 21st July.

Criteria for Quality Projects

All projects included in this site have been critiqued using the following guidelines, developed by Judi Harris:

Curriculum: Is the project relevant to both students’ lives and the NZ Curriculum?

Goals and Expectations: Have the goals and expectations of the project been clearly defined?

Thinking Skills: Does the project promote higher level cognitive skill, such as reasoning, analysis, problem- solving and reflection? Does it promote creative or divergent thinking?

Individual Accountability: Is there individual accountability to the extent where students come away feeling that they contributed to a valuable part of the project?

Challenge: Is the project challenging yet within each student’s range of abilities?

Assessment: Is student assessment, process, skills, and product, authentic?

Feasibility: How ‘user-friendly’ is the project? Is it simple to enrol in? Are support materials available? Is there a cost attached? Is it current?