International Fun

Last semester, in my first placement, I began a project. A project that involves around 20 students from my school electronically communicating with around 20 students in another country. Much to my surprise, this simple pen-pal idea has blossomed into a steamroller that is currently pulled over to the side of the road.

Not entirely my fault, there are some legal signatures needed in order to proceed. And those documents need signed by the parents of the students in another country. And they are currently on a 2 week break from school.

As the new arrangement, blackboard, is set up for international communication between these two classes (one blackboard site for both classes, schools, and countries!) the students continue to write back and forth to eachother.

I have to be honest in that I feel a little guilty. I started a project that I knew would have to continue after I left the placement. I set something up that someone else has to finish. I, however, would like to remain as active as possible, but without being in the room I have to just loosen the reigns a tad and back off.

1 step. 2 steps. 3 steps.

This will be great. This set up will be great. The new medium of discussion will open doors for international communication on a whole new level. Curriculum related chats, blogs about experiences, wikipages of resources, collaborations for international projects... the possibilities are endless.

As I meet with the teacher of the class this week about possible leads into discussion, and as we compare curriculum plans, we will be planning discussion board topics to facilitate this cross-communication between classes. We will be determining if there is a project we can set up using both classes that wouldn't be too straining on the teachers and students. We are planning fun.

All of it with objectives. Amazing. Stay tuned.