National borders are no match for the reach of online technologies, as demonstrated by a host of collaborative projects that use web-based platforms to link US students with their peers abroad.
THE CONTRAST BETWEEN the videos couldn't be more different. In one, a group of uniformly dressed eighth-graders lines up in the Bar-Lev Junior High School gymnasium in Kfar-Saba, Israel, doing Israeli dances. In the other, a high school girl in a Washington, DC, classroom smiles into the camera and calls out, "Hey, wassup? This is Ballou Senior High School....We got to show you how we dance!" Then, to the syncopated rhythms of go-go music, a handful of kids get onto the floor and move around in a boogie called "Beat Your Feet."But that contrast was the point. Two teachers-- English teacher Hagit Goldstein in Israel and Spanish teacher Allison Baugher in the US-- were connecting students through an online classroom network called ePals so their two classes could express their unique cultures and learn about music and dance specific to other parts of the world. The service, which is free to users, provides secure e-mail that enables students to communicate one-on-one with each other, blogging capabilities, and a function called Classroom Match that allows teachers to post or participate in activities with other classes.
The possibilities for international classroom collaboration in projects such as this one have never been more promising. Internet access is nearly ubiquitous in US schools, and online collaborative tools-- Skype, Google Docs, Ning, Facebook, TeacherTube, blogs, e-mail, chat rooms-- are more abundant than ever, rendering borders and barriers inconsequential.
Baugher says she signed up for ePals during the last couple of weeks of the 2008-2009 year, just before the beginning of summer break. In the midst of doing a unit on Latin music, teaching her class dances, instruments, and music styles, she sent out a message to other teachers on the site, hoping to find ways for her kids to practice Spanish.
"Then it occurred to me that this would be a good opportunity for them to express their dance culture," Baugher says. They made a couple of videos, which she posted to the ePals projects forum with a note: "This is how we dance in DC." That post elicited a response from Goldstein with a link to the video of her eighth-grade students doing their national dance.
Meanwhile, Goldstein's students on the other side of the globe were excited to watch their peers in action, Baugher adds. "They were familiar with that type of dance, however, by another name: hip hop."
CARE's Virtual Field Trips: An online avenue for students to take multiday tours of multiple countries.
ePals: Multilingual e-mail, blogging, and projects to connect classes around the world.
Global Stock Market Simulation Challenge: Students can hone skills as trading managers for global investments.
iEARN: A multilingual site for schools and youth organizations interested in participating in collaborative projects.
TakingITGlobal: An online community that addresses international issues for students from ages 13 to 30.
The exchange of videos led to a brief online conversation in the discussion forum between students in the two classes. The posts to ePals are moderated and there's a seven-hour difference in time zones between the two locations, so the correspondence didn't happen in real time. Students gave their comments to their teachers, who posted them to the site, then awaited a response.
In spite of the stilted mode of operation in her first ePals project, Baugher values the service for the connections it can help her make and the new vistas it brings to her students. "Many of my students haven't traveled far out of DC," she says. "Working in the type of school I work in, I don't have the opportunity to bring them out into the world. But the technology resources allow me to bring the world into the classroom, even if it's just looking at e-mails or pictures from other students.
"It doesn't need to be face-to-face communication. You don't need to be talking about anything important, just learning about the fact that children in other schools go to class at night or go home at lunch or that they eat something different, or that everyone has a different way of doing things."
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