As of today, I think as generations are coming along they lack the desire to pick up the newspaper and read what is going on on the outside world or anything global. How can we make it a more exciting experience for younger children to be interested learning about another part of the world?
In this article, a group of fifth graders known as the "109'ers" had the opportunity to take multiple cyberadventures with a documentary photojournalists, Doug Clevenger. After a month of studying the Artic and keeping in touch with Doug and his assignments, the students were able to create a classroom blog they posted two times a week. They used a program called "ULead", excel, the Internet, and other software to keep track of all the information they were receiving. They were able to make presentations and get information to record as they continued with this research of the Artic. One neat thing I liked was that the students got to meet other students from the village of Tuktoyaktuk.
I believe that this was a great way to expose students to the global community. It does open a different modes of learning and the use of technology. I would definitely use something like this in my classroom. A "grade-level" blog seems appropriate to have at a school. Students will be more engaged at an experience like this. Being able to chat and asking questions to people from a different part of the world is a great way to collect data, create graphs or presentations on what they have learned. Nothing is ever repetitive, because there is so much more to find out about somewhere else other than your surroundings.
It's great that the students got to meet other students from a different part of the world. This sounds like a really great assignment for the students. It may have been more interesting to them being able to feel a personal connection with the guy making the cyberadventures. A great way to implement technology in the classroom.
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