Where will we begin?

School begins for students on Monday, August 22.

There is a lot to do to welcome and get to know my students but I like to do this early.

• Students will use the amp ws "I am" to introduce themselves to me and to each other on the first day.  I will give them two days to finish their introduction.
• In the first two weeks of school we will use Shout It Out (a LAB activity), to help us learn more about their experiences.  Here are some prompts Kristin and I will use with our students before introducing the GC project.  LAB activities take less than 5 minutes for students to complete so we will be able to do several without disrupting our curriculum.
• asking them to share "About 'Iolani" - what they like, what they are proud of, what they wish, etc
• 'Name (and location) of a friend/relative who lives "far away"' - as a way to introduce our GC project.  This will give us all a sense of how long "our bridges" span across the globe.
• Where is the farthest you have travelled from home?
• HOW have you travelled?
• "What do you know about Norway/Hawaii?" followed by "What would you like to know about Norway/Hawaii?"
• In September 
• we will mail each other a mascot and include letters from our students describing the significance of the mascot - dress, etc.
• create a video
• share a map of the campus on NB - have students identify significant areas.

We agreed that we should keep the excitement going in the first month to create interest. After September we will see where we are and let our students' questions guide the project.

As teachers we are coming up with our own questions about each other's countries and culture.

• Last night my husband asked me if they eat a lot of fish in Norway.
• Kristin searched for a picture of 'Iolani School and asked if we have solar panels on our roofs.

We know we will learn a lot about each other's schools, cultures, and countries. 

I look forward to seeing pictures of the first snowfall in Norway or the pictures of the leaves changing colors.  What will my students be able to share?

Google Hangout

We scheduled a call for 9:30/21:30.  We were planning to use Messenger to video call but tried a Google Hangout so we could share desktops.

To schedule a Hangout (thanks, Rebecca Simon!):

• Calendar
• choose the day and time slot
• edit event (next to create)
  

• add video call
  

• add guests
• save
• send invitations

With 2 computers on, there was feedback and echoing.

Testing how to share..

Today, or last night for Amy, we tested whether we are able to share workspaces between our students. We had been tipped off by Lotta on how to do it. It posed some problems, mostly in terms of finding workspaces again in our Google Disk when we had shared it. BUT we managed.It is great having two computers available. Then I could see what happened when I logged in as a TestStudent. What we experienced today, made us think that we will wait with interaction in common workspaces until the amp-update in September. Then we hope that we can put all our students in the same "class" and set up groups across countries. Fingers crossed for that. We will probably begin with sharing a workspace in our own classes in which students present themselves or write what they know about the other country and what they want to know. • Amy and I can then share these worksheets with each other and open themon our SMARTboard in classr. My students can then see Amy students and what they know about Norway and what questions they have. Amy's students can get to know my students and what they know about Hawaii and what questions they have.

• If they have written what they know and what they wonder , we can make comments together in class and send workspaces back.

• Printing workspaces and put up in classroom.

Looking forward to this global collaboration and I like that it 's only two weeks until I meet my students again so that I can tell them about the project. 

I`m impressed by Amy who spent part of her night to work with me .

What we're considering . . .

We have decided to use SMART amp as the primary way of having our students interact and get to know each other.

We will also use LAB activities.

Types of questions/problems we can pose:

• converting temperature - this will become a real application of that textbook problem of converting fahrenheit to celsius
• converting and understanding units for distance and weight
• finding the "best" way to get from Hawaii to Norway - this came up in our discussion one day about how we would get to the other's home. Let our students figure this one out.  What does "best" mean?
• What time is sunrise/sunset?  HI is close to the equator and Norway is close to the North Pole. Do our students understand what this means?
• speed limit signs - saw a sign in Calgary "110." What does this mean?

Our first exchange could be a practice between teachers - Getting to Know You in an amp ws. We could then have our students do something similar.  Include a map.

Lotta Ramqvist has really been helpful (via Messenger) to help us understand how we will group our students in the same workspace across different domains.  Here's my understanding of how we can put our students in groups on the same workspace:

1. Teacher A creates ws and puts her students in groups.
2. Save to shared folder.  Everything is in the shared folder in Drive.  We have a folders called
1. Planning
2. Active ws
3. Completed ws
3. Teacher B opens each group and adds her student(s) who will work in that ws to that group.

I need to try this to see how to add students to a group.  Have never done that before. 

There will be an amp update coming in Sept (?) that will make adding students to the groups much simpler.

My first realization about how far apart we live came in my messages to Lotta today.  

• I sent her a message at 11:17am, not really expecting an answer until much later.  But she replied almost immediately.  
• We continued until 11:52am (23:52 in Sweden).  We said "good night," and I continued working throughout the day. 
• I had another question at 6:45pm (6:45 in Sweden) and she replied almost immediately!

Either the lady does not sleep much or we are truly halfway around the world!  Social media is amazing.  We are corresponding in real-time for FREE over wi-fi.  Another way Kristin and I will stay in touch is via FREE phone calls in Messenger.

 

How it all began

The 2016 SEE Summit is behind us now. This is an incredible week of PD sponsored by SMART Technologies at their Headquarters in Calgary, Alberta. Participants (SEEs) are showed demos of products in beta, the roadmap is revealed, and an exchange of ideas between the President, CTO, VP of Software Development, other Program Managers, and developers is ongoing.

Each day is packed with different activities and presentations by SEEs and SMART folks. One such session was a sharing by two peers (Lotta Ramqvist and Jorgen Holberg) on their global collaboration project with their special needs students using SMART amp and LAB.

Kristin Skage (Norway) and I got to know each other at last year's Summit because we had the unfortunate experience of arriving in Calgary after many hours of travel without our suitcases, which did not arrive for several days. We also both teach mathematics and eventually became Facebook friends after returning home. Over the past year we have enjoyed pictures and snippets into each others' lives.  As the Summit approached this year, we reminisced about our luggage mishap and made sure we packed extra clothes in our carry-ons. When we reunited in Calgary, I felt like I was seeing an old friend again! It's amazing what a common experience and social media can do to connect two people.

Kristin and I decided we wanted to try a global collaboration project with our students. Hers are in grade 7 and mine are in 8th grade.

Our purpose is to connect our students who live halfway around the world from each other. We want them to celebrate their differences, recognize their similiarities, and appreciate their uniqueness. Hopefully they will become as passionate about learning about each other's country and school system as we have. We don't intend to teach math but we will certainly use math in our exchanges.

We're both looking forward to this and will tell our story here.