May 30 2009
The Best Ways To Find Other Classes For Joint Online Projects
Over the past two years, I’ve been involved (off-and-on) with an International Sister Classes Project involving teenage Intermediate ESL/EFL classes around the world. We’ve had a blog where students have shared online presentations, like Voice Threads, and commented on them back-and-forth.
It’s been a good experience for the students and for me. Let me know if you have an Intermediate English class of students between the ages of 12 and 20 and might be interested in participating in the fall. It would be a very low-pressure relationship — I would envision classes posting VoiceThreads (or similar tools) like we’ve done in the past, and students then exchanging comments.
I thought it might be useful to share other examples of joint “sister class” projects, and of places where teachers can connect with other classes. I just didn’t have it in me today to write much of a description about each one, but they’re all worth a visit.
Here are my picks for The Best Ways To Find Other Classes For Joint Online Projects:
Without a doubt, I’d start in two places:
One is by reading Kim Cofino’s blog post A Step-by-Step Guide to Global Collaborations, viewing her slideshare presentation Connecting Across Continents, and reviewing the resources she has posted on her wiki.
The other would be to read Sue Waters’ post Looking For Global Projects For Your Students? Sue highlights a couple of exciting collaborative projects, including Bringing Us Together, a project that she and Sue Wyatt have begun; and Silvia Tolisano’s Around The World With 80 Schools project.
Here are some others worth checking-out, too:
iLearn says it is “the world’s largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the world.”
Taking It Global offers connections around the world, plus many more resources.
Global Education Collaborative
People to People International’s School and Classroom Program
EFL Classroom 2.0 — Classroom Connecting
Here’s a good blog post, including additional resources, on connecting to other classrooms. It’s by Julie Lindsey.
The U.S. Department of Education also has an extensive list of collaborative projects.
You can read a little more about some of these sites in the comments section of the Dangerously Irrelevant post titled Help wanted: Sites that connect classrooms across the globe?
As always, feedback is welcome.
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3 responses so far
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Thanks so much for sharing my post Larry! This is a great list of resources for teachers to explore!
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[...] been compiled by several websites which I have found discussing this subject. The two best are by Larry Ferlazzo and by Scott [...]
Not to toot our own horn that much but I think Project Peace should make a list! Teachers/students can easily make and share a peace song with the downloadable materials. Many teachers from around the world have already made amazing videos – http://projectpeace.ning.com I’m going to promote this more in the near future, a really great way to share classrooms and connect students globally.
I’ll also mention we have thousands of teachers from every country on the globe (or at least 148) on EFL Classroom 2.0. Make friends and connect your classes. Many teachers already have….
David
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