Bringing the globe intoYour Classroom

Anne MirtschinHawkesdale P12 Collegemirtschin@gmail.comhttp://murcha.wordpress.com

Hawkesdale P12 College – a small rural prep-year 12 school

Connect, communicate, collaborate, create

Look at the beautiful sunset over my backyard. We had a severe drought this year. Our cows lost a lot of weight while the drought was on. My dad was awfully busy trying to keep water and hay up to them. Since the downpour of rain, they are in much better condition.

We have a mountain in our backyard called Mt Buggery. It is really a volcanic tumulus and has 2 trees - a dead pine tree and a young pine tree on top.

Flick, year 8 blog post

Comments!!!Your “backyard” is beautiful! Thank you for

sharing it with the world. Lori, CaliforniaThank you so much for sharing your

backyard. When we all share like this, it makes our world just a little smaller and better.

She Wolf

West Java EarthquakeSeptember 8th

• 7.3 richter scale• 64 deaths, 37 people missing, and 27,630

people displaced in nine districts in West Java and one in Central Java.

• Approximately 54,231 houses were damaged in 12 districts in West Java and one district in Central Java.

Speaking directly with earthquake victims 12 hours after the occurrrence using skype

Australian food – the meat pie with sauce

Students from Malaysia show national costumes

Students from Malaysia ‘wow’ us with street dancing rendition

Year 12 Mandarin LOTE student (distance education) talks to Malaysian student in Chinese using skype

Some benefits• Students as experts• Peer to peer mentoring• Authentic audience• Self directed learning• Project Based Learning• Performing beyond personal comfort zones• Many, many teachable moments• Engagement• Catering for all learning styles• Multi literacies• Using the digital technologies that students are born into

Social software in the classroom...What does it feel like, sound like, look like?

• Excitement• Fun• Noise/silence/laughter• Beyond class walls• Team teaching• Group work – virtual teams• Personal Learning networks - across the globe

Impact for teaching/learning

• New digital literacies- communication- attention- media- Organizational- remix technically, reuse ethically, identity

creation and management, evaluation of sources , spam/phish detection

asynchronous connections

• Blogging. • Wikis• Nings• Google applications• Online Mailing lists

http://flurogreen.globalstudent.org.au

http:skippy.globalstudent.org.au

Blogs

• globalstudent/globalteacher• Wordpress• blogger • blogmeister• edublogs

Steph’s independent post prompt

I’ll ask the world a question (that’s you) and you answer itwhats your favorite movie and why?

So wrote a grade 5 girl, independently, as her own post prompt

She got 15 replies from countries including the UK, Israel, NZ and USA

• There are plenty of illegal immigrants in australia and each day many are sent home. illegal immigrants tend to have a non valid visa. some people who come here dont have a visa at all. Illegal immigrants come from all over the world. what happens to all of the illegal immigrants once they have been found out is they get relocated back to the country they came from.

Melissa // Oct 18th 2008 at 2:30 pm • That is what happens here in the United States as well. Visas are

really a big part of it because visas take a long time to get, and then people just come illegally. Where are the illegal immigrants that come to Australia from?

Juliet Pham // Oct 18th 2008 at 5:21 pm • How do you feel about the fact that the illegal immigrants are

relocated? Do you believe that it’s fair? I don’t think that it is. I really think that it would depend on the reason. Are the immigrants doing any harm really? That’s pretty interesting that Australia does have illegal immigrants because I never thought a place like Australia would because of the fact that it doesn’t have any countries near it or any land bridges.

Travis Bugge // Oct 18th 2008 at 5:21 pm • how do they get there? are they snuck on a plane or something? fur

us, its pretty much peole crossing the border, or swimming over here. which part of austrailia do they go to?

Uses for VoicethreadUses for Voicethreadwww.voicethread.com• Storytelling• Reflections• Reporting on extracurricula activities• Global projectsSee example Another example

VoiceVideoTextImages

Wikis

• Wikispaces• Wetpaint • Pbworld

• Hello i am Kelly, from Australia!!!..i will answer these questions for you!!!

Question 1: How many meals a day are eaten in Australia? (Example: United States usually has 3 meals a day, although current days, people tend to eat any number of meals.)

kelly says: we have 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch and tea) but we do have snacks in between these meals(morning tea and afternoon tea).

In further detail, what are the types of meals you have? Such as, is breakfast a hot or cold meal? Or is it either? From what I've learned about Germany, usually their lunch is the hot meal of the day, and they usually have the one hot meal, where breakfast and dinner tend to be a cold meal. In the United States, Dinner tends to be the hot meal.

Question 2: Are video games very popular, or, if not, what activities do most people do in their free time?

kelly says: video games are fairly popular here, yes. Other than sitting infront of the television/computer all day, a lot of people play sports,go shopping or just hang around with friends. (well thats what i do anyway!!)

(I cannot think of a further expansion for this question)

Question 3: How are the people in Australia? Are most friendly? Wide variety? Location dependent?

kelly says: well most of us are friendly, we are all pretty loud and outgoing people. But just like everywhere else we have some shy people. And just out of interest.. what do you mean by location dependent??

Students as experts:- Year 9/10 students answer questions from USA so students could develop Australian travel posters

Flatclassroom wiki -http://flatclassroomswikispaces.com

http://netgened.wikispaces.com

onafrica

A comment - onafricaTrevor Shaw saidat 8:51 am on Apr 28, 2009

I think it's really interesting that a school from the US and a school from Australia (both of which were colonized by the British and heavily settled by the Dutch) are working on this together. I wonder what perspectives about colonization the two groups of students will discover that they might share in common and what perspectives might distinguish them. In what ways might former colonies in Africa differ from places like the US and Australia?

nings

Nings • social networking,• blogging, • forums, • discussions, • Multimedia:- images, videos, music• Virtual teamwork• Global projects

Let’s walk a ninghttp://netgened.grownupdigital.com/

Digital movie stills on Semantic Aware Appications

Awards Ceremony

This is a flatclassroom!

The Flatclassroomproject

• wiki (http://flatclassroom09-2.flatclassroomproject.org/and ning (http://flatclassroomproject.ning.com/)

• Netgened wiki (http://netgened.wikispaces.com/)

• Digiteen wiki (http://digiteen09-2.flatclassroomproject.org/)

Google Applications

Google groups and other applications• sheet, • forms, • document, • presentation etc• Google calender• igoogle

Synchronous connections• Liveblogging http://www,coveritlive.com • Videoconferencing www.skype.com • DiscoverE virtual classroom software. • virtual classroom http://www.elluminate.com and DiscoverE• Back channels eg http://www.chatzy.com and http://www.tinychat.com• http://www.twitter.com• Google applications• Bridgit conferencing software which comes with Interactive White Boards• www.flickr.com an online image sharing site• Virtual worlds – reactiongrid in Open Sim• superclubsPLUS – “facebook” for the young, safe environment• Voicethreads - podcasting collaboratively with pizzazz

Live blogging http://www.coveritlive.com

Moderated chat that allows polls, image and music uploads etc

• School connections • conference reporting and other live sessions• live events for staff• Surveys

Videoconferencing

• Skype• MS Communicator• Elluminate• MSN• Flash meeting etc

Uses of videoconferencing

• Access Expert speakers• Global communications• Global ‘show ‘n tell’• Improve cultural awareness• Encouraging collaboration• Developing real time communication skills• Conducting interviews• Enhance distance learning etc

Dddddddddddddddddddd

Skype and slideshare to teach students from Canada about • Australia and Culture• School• Community• farm

Student from Canada asks questionHow it all looked back in Canada

Student feedback• That was soo cool! it was real awesome of the cool things i (and everyone)

learned, I think i'm gonna do some research on more later... • i really liked the fact that we were actually talking to her. not just in email. i

thought all the pictures she showed were pretty sweet. also, i thought it was cool how we are used to different surroundings and habbits.. yes, we dont say put your bookbag in the boot... i still find it awsome, though. i love australia so much! (not to mention thier accents!)

• i loved her accent. when she said RIGHT-O ! hahaha ! • It was incredible,

Its just so different from what is normal here. I probably would of never found any of that out if it wasn't for that presentation!

• that was an EXCELENT, presentation. I LOVED IT.it was very interesting, and i think that getting to learn chineseis a very diffrent thing then what we learn here. THANK-YOU SO MUCH. :D

• i dont really understand why they learn chinese... i dont really think that makes much sense

• we wanted to know what bubble taps were.

Sharing objects that are symbolic of our countries

A linkup with a school in Russia

Grades 3 to 7 listen to students from Singapore talke about racial harmony

Keynote speaker – uni lecturer from Doha, Qatar, speaks to students at Qatar Academy and Hawkesdale P12 College about citizenship journalism.

Listening to the citizenship journalism address

Skyping Endang from Indonesia in the batik markets

Interviewing Professionals -an English project

Online debating

Debating online

The virtual classroomLearning about musical instruments from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

www.pingmusic.com.au

Using elluminate- virtual classroom software

Using elluminateVirtual classroom

Advantages of Virtual Classrooms

• students are in their own ’space’, feel important and have a chance to be ‘heard’ as cannot be achieved in the normal classroom.

• students are able to interact in real time with the lesson and they are no longer passive listeners. They use chat, emoticons, etc and offer feedback to the musicians as they are playing. We have had to set up a code of conduct for the chat , after a number of issues.

• students can ask questions at any stage and these questions will be answered.

• they immediately tell you if they do not Students have the chance and feel comfortable with expressing their opinions and needs.

• can invite global participants in, or other interested parties, so that they too can witness the class in action eg sponsors, benefactors, software developers, policy makers etc.

See my post on elluminate

DiscoverE• DiscoverE virtual classroom software. • Uses low bandwidth and has basic tools for

classroom use – chat, audio, video, whiteboard, webtours

A true global classroom – a student from Hawkesdale, two from China, two from Bangkok and one from USA are taught by an optician about the eye, using discoverE virtual classroom software.

Antarctica linkup

Virtual worlds

• Quest Atlantis – for primary students

• Second life – tertiary/secondary

• OpenSim- secondary

Social networking

For students• SuperclubsPLUS• Gold Star café• Nings

Using Twitter• teachable moments • research and quick answers to questions on all

manner of topics • Learning of world events as they occur in real

time• sharing work, blog posts • establishing student networks etc

• jplaman@murcha I think every student should begin building a PLN. Twitter happens to be the first thing I turn to in the morning to learn.

• emapey2@murcha Greetings from Uruguay , in South America • mbarrow@murcha Greetings from England. It is 40 minutes past midnight here and I should

be asleep rather than twittering. Hope you’re having fun • edueyeview@murcha Love Twitter! Hello from coastal Maine, US. Welcome to the

conversation! • lnitsche@murcha Hello from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania USA where is felt like spring

today at about 65F • damian613@murcha Hello from Perkasie, PA, USA! It’s about 8:30pm here and 13 degrees C. • classroomqueen@murcha Hello from a very, very cold Regina, SK, Canada. It’s warmed up to

-21C or -35C with windchill. This am it was -47C with windchill. • Inpi@murcha Hello from Portugal! It’s 22 past midnight here, I can’t introduce my

students!!! • nzchrissy@murcha Hello fabulous students in Victoria from Bangkok Thailand where it is very

hot at the moment • chetty@murcha Hi Vic. Nice to meet u. I’ve just realised we can use iGoogle + twitter app to

tweet from NSW. What are you working on? • jeffwhipple@murcha a chilly evening to you and your students from New Brunswick on the

east coast of Canada…twitter is about connecting and learning • MelissaShultz@murcha Greetings from America via twitter! I love AUS! Especially those

Collingwood Pies!! • KarenJan@murcha Greetings from Boston, MA, USA

What if the students were studying climates, or Portugal or Thai cultures etc? Imagine the real time response that could be gleaned from Twitter colleagues and self directed learning that might occur.

ajep@murcha learning games to change the world http://tinyurl.com/bh4nvm

Notable quotes• Building the bridges of today that the society of tomorrow will

walk across. (Vicki Davis, co-creator of flatclassroom projects)• Isn’t it amazing what students will do when teachers get out of

the way. (Estie Cueller, flat classroom teacher)• The kids asked too many questions and didnt let Jean

Pennycook (Antarctica) finish her talk!• Would you please be able to bring a kangaroo into your

classroom for our videoconference? (request from Russia)• Can you please wear your national costumes for the skype

videoconference?• My students have never seen a computer, could you please

help me teach them about computers

Contact Me• mirtschin@gmail.com• Skype: anne.mirtschin• Twitter/plurk id: murcha• Teacher blog: http://murcha.wordpress.com• Class blogs: http://murch.globalteacher.org.auhttp://backyard.globalstudent.org.au• Delicious and diigo: murcho/murcha