Field Trip, Videos, and Wikis

Last month Gold Hill 4th graders spent two nights at Barrier Island, an environmental camp on Seabrook Island, SC. Included in the three days of classes were lessons and activities about early Native Americans. Students learned about the history and culture of Cusabo tribes along the rivers and the coast of SC. In other classes, students learned about regional plants and animals, their adaptations and how Native American tribes respectfully lived among and used their natural resources.

We incorporated lessons learned into our On theTrail of the First People Project led by Karen Kleigman in NY at MidLink Magazine. Karen's organization of the project offered many new technology choices. The detailed instructions made this highly collaborative project easy to follow.

We set up a videoconference with Adam Dugger's class in NY- Hi y'all! During the Q& A it was evident that ALL students were amazed at the weather difference (unusually warm December in SC), the wide sandy shores, the frequency of bottle-nosed dolphin sitings, the palmetto trees in the maritime forest, the huge horseshoe crabs, and sleeping in cabins on the beach!

Back at school, our students created videos with Photostory3, a free download from Microsoft. Per Karen's instructions, I uploaded an example of student work on Google Video (Beta). I had a gmail account so this part went quickly.


Also with Photostory3/Google video I added a video documenting how we started using wikispaces.

See these videos and the project wiki for more information of starting wikis and other projects at your school. Better yet...go see see Karen Kleigman's presentation at FETC 2008

Authentic Audience

We have first hand experience with the many faces of authentic audience. Fourth grade research projects have brought about audiences in our classroom, down the hallway, up the highways, and across the oceans. Student classwork is seen by many more eyes than just their teacher (with a red pen). Their research,writing and voices are being shared with partners, other classes, on the web, and through video conferences.
Let me explain. Students are researching and using web 2.0 tools (which are different from web 1.0 by creating for the web with more collaboration and interactivity).

If you have used a webcam then you know what it is like to have a video conference. We have had varying degrees of success with live conferencing. This week one of my 4th grade groups had a video conference with a partner class in New York (with Karen Kliegman, Noel Forte, and Adam Dugger)while using Skype. Although we have had “video guest speakers” this was our first time with two classes together. After a few technical snags, we got the hang of it and had fun with Q and A's.

Today we experimented with a newer video conference service http://oovoo.com/ between two classrooms in our own building. This service was suggested by Karen Kleigman (Trail of the First People Project). ooVoo looks very modern and we can see both cameras on our screen while we talk together. Fourth grade students were searching for pictures to use from http://www.pics4learning.com/index.php to go with their Native American project. Video conference participants traded tips and information about their research. They gave good tips on pictures that they found for the regions they were studying. Research groups from different classrooms teamed with each other. From their conversations I can say that our students were great examples for authentic audience and collaboration.

For the next phase, student groups will choose how they want to combine their previous research and the pictures for the Native American project. Choices are PowerPoint, Photostory3, or learn how to create projects in Voicethread. All of these can be put into wiki pages that some of the students are sharing with our partners in Australia and in New York. I am looking forward to the products of our journey with Web 2.o tools.