Across the World – a Russian Connection Лист1

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It is 12 months ago, that Ekaterina Zhdanova and I used skype to connect our classrooms from Soglasie School in Ekaterinburg, Eastern Russia and Hawkesdale P12 College from South Eastern Australia. This amazing connection put students from our remote rural school in Australia, on to the Russian television news. This television broadcast depicted our star feature – a  blue tongue lizard and demonstrated students spreading vegemite on toast, our Australian paper curency etc. The Russian students treated us with traditional dancing, their babushka dolls, heritage artwork etc.

Communication slowed as Australian schools went on their 5 week summer break. Then at the beginning of term 4 this year, we skyped again with our classes. The Russian students were learning about Australia and had quite a few questions to ask us. Unfortunately, with timezone difficulties there was only a 10-15 minute cross over time for synchronous connections.

However, the two schools are now working  together on a wiki, Acrosstheworld, discussing the differences and similarities between the two schools/communities and countries. Several google sheets have been set up – one on Let’s Compare our Environments. Vokis have been used by students and embedded in a table, to introduce themselves.

These links have also been added to the wiki, so please take a look as we are proud of what we are doing and achieving:-

1. Skype linkups for 2008 and for 2009.
2. School life
3. My class
4. Extracurricula activities
5. School lunch
6. Foreign language lessons
7. Sports lessons
8. Special spaces - using wallwisher - sticky notes on a graffiti type board.
9. Our countries – Australia
10. Russia

The software used to share asynchronously has been the wiki, wallwisher and google docs. animoto, picasa have been used to create the slideshows and image presentations.

Personal highlights

• Great to work with a dedicated teacher who is  keen and experienced in using interactive technology with her classes and who teaches secondary classes.
• Amazing to learn about the differences and similarities between the two schools on an almost daily basis
• It is inspiring and highly motivating to be able to share digital skills, share  ideas and collaborate.
• Further cements the relationship formed through the videocoferencing and adds richness to our virtual connectedness.

Taking a laptop shopping

Gorgeous Indonesian batik dress

A cluster of small, rural Prep – year 12 schools has received a Country Education Project grant to research individualised learning. As part of this project, representatives from each of the schools, visited our school to view a presentation on how Hawkesdale P12 College connects, communicates and collaborates  to and with other classrooms and students, within Victoria and  across the globe.

To give realistic experiences I had organised for my dear efriend Lorraine Leo to speak to the group for 5-10 mins from Boston, USA.  Lorraine showed the group some photos of Boston and her classroom, using discoverE, the virtual classroom software. Some staff members came up to the library interactive white board to experiment with speaking live with the audio tools and using the whiteboard tools.  It was soon our morning tea break.

After morning tea, I had organized for Andrew Rogers from Beeac PS, a small rural school to linkup with us on MS Communicator. Unfortunately, we got as far as several text comments in the chat and then the server went down. However, as I spoke about skype and its use, I noticed that Endang from Indonesia was actually online. A quick message, revealed that she was prepared to talk to us. The video call linkup worked, and to our surprise, she was not at school, but at the batik markets in Pekalongan.  It was the first day of the ramadan, so there was no school.

So, we spent a pleasant 5 mins or so looking at the batik markets, the batik sellers, the activity on the street etc. That was rather special as it showed how teachable moments can occur. The rest of the morning was spent at looking at the other tools that can be used in both synchronous or asynchronous time for connecting, communicating and creating.

Learning outcomes

1. Test, test and always test before going live with a group. (The group arrived 45 mins early, so I did not have time to test, and Lorraine’s photos did now display properly but ended up looking like a jigsaw puzzle, which could have been due to our connection)
2. Make use of teachable moments, wherever possible. (eg Endang and her laptop)
3. Ask my twitter colleagues, at the beginning to get them to say ‘hello, where they are from and what they see as benefits of twitter”. I asked at the end and of course, the long list that replied was not noted as it takes a while for people on twitter to respond.
4. Know the software before you demonstrate. I have not used MS Communicator for some time, the new format is quite different and we had issues with the server.

Singapore interviews via skype

Interview over skype

Several months ago, I was asked to take part in an interview project for English. Grade 5 and 6 students were to interview a professional about their career and ask a number of questions about that career.  For example:-

• Why did you take up this career?
• What are the challenging aspects of this career? etc

However, the students came from a school in Singapore and I was actually at a conference at Deakin University in Geelong. Not wanting to disappoint the students, I had organised for wireless internet connection with Deakin Uni in their management centre. Due to technical difficulties, I only just got online in time. However, once on the delivery went smoothly. Skype was the videoconferencing platform. I tried to use the chat as much as possilbe, as accents are always difficult to adjust to. At least they could read my notes or chat for verification. These students were young and not used to the Aussie accent. To their credit they spoke confidently, capably and well. Once the interview was completed, students would write up reports.

Some of the other professionals interviewed included:- the Director of Progam development at the National Volunteer and Philathropy Centre, a nurse, an engineer, a barista from Starbucks and a poet from NZ.

The success of the project meant that Aini’s class had to  present in front of the entire school. The class  hoped to inspire the pupils to be like the people they featured and then try to tie in with their school values.

Learning outcomes for me:-

• Need to use text chat as well as audio when responding to questions in the online interview for full comprehension.
• However, typing on the keyboard  made a lot of noise, ( I was recorded the session) and may have interfered with them hearing me clearly.
• Always, always test the equipment ahead of time to allow for the technical hitches that will occur.
• If skype loses audio or video, it is best to hang up and ring back. We had to do this once.
• Experiencing the tyranny of distance and feeling of helplessness at times, when working with a class of students, who were unknown to me and knowing that sometimes Aini was out of the classroom.
• Being part of another wonderful online experience.

Street Dancing in Skype

street dancing

Malay costumes

How different it is to see the more mature students of our schools link up together on videoconferencing. The conversations hold greater content and depth. The demonstrations are more complex, realistic and therefore the learning deeper.  Zainuddin and I both teach computer studies to year 11 at the same time on a Thursday.

As it was our first linkup, we decided to simply share cultures in a form of show and tell. But this time, the show and tell took on the form of full demonstrations.

Watching Malaysia we saw:-

• Demonstrations of their traditional drink (Teh tarik) and how to make it
• A traditional game and how to actually play it (involved marbles and a wooden playing structure - congkak
• Their traditional costumes for the Malay and the Chinese cultures, including their evening or ‘best’ dress
• We were also treated to viewing the various ways of tying sarongs.

 

Demonstrating from Hawkesdale we:

• Showed ‘footy’ and how to handball and kick it
• Demonstrated cricket and how to play it
• Displayed an aussie meat pie, talked about the contents, showed the addition of sauce
• Vegemite

 But, it was the grand finale from Malaysia that was the absolute highlight. They treated us to a demonstration of street dancing. We looked on with amazement and wonder as they danced to the music that our students love to listen to and the style of dancing that we would love to learn.

Highlights

• Working with a country who learn English and speak it well
• Watching demonstrations, not just listening to a speaker
• One of my students who usually ‘hides’ in the corner and refuses to come up and speak over the microphone and skype, actually going way outside his comfort zone and taking part this time.

Street dancing

Learning outcomes

• Trying to adjust to each other’s accents
• Manipulating the camera and mic for maximum and effective connection .
• Experiencing the full value of demonstrations
• Wishing that we had been more organized with a better display of Australiana as the Malays had put so much time and effort into theirs

Possible future connections

• Could the Malay students teach mine how to street dance
• Can we share what we are learning in ICT and use peer to peer mentoring?
• Could we effectively team teach?
• Are we both following a similar course outline?

Skyping Bridgit

Glancing through my emails, I noticed that there was an opportunity to do smart board training through virtual sessions. This sounded too good to miss as we live 3 1/2 hours from our captial city where most professional development activities take place. So, our school  was registered and the bridgit conferencing software downloaded onto the library smartboard. Several staff indicated interest in attending over the 7 week period, despite our school having a mix of Smart boards and Team boards.

Last week was the first session. As I had to catch a train to Melbourne, I quickly logged on following the instructions, but unfortunatley, the audio for the session had to come through a conference call and not through the smartboard. Yikes!!! Now what! The phone was in the library office a long distance from the smart board. Then, I remembered the credit on my skype account, so I quickly logged onto skype and called the conference line.

Skype worked a treat. The audio was perfect and the session went seamlessly

Tonight, was the second session. The first 10 mins were spent working through all the frantic questions and calming nervous first timers. Much to our amusement and the consternation of the tutor,   schools  forgot to mute their speaker, so we could all hear the background conversations. At one stage we all heard the ‘on hold ‘ music from one school as they placed their phone ‘on hold’.  Midway into the session, we could hear a hungry dog barking and waiting to be fed.

However, the session was wonderful. The audio was clear. Our instructor from NSW kept moving through his slides in a professional and efficient manner and pulled up the internet at one stage. Five teachers from our school sat around the interactive white board and learnt a lot from the session. Another powerful learning application using  a combination of online tools for professional development.

What I learnt:-

• Always have the mic muted when not talking to the tutor.
• There is always a solution if you are determined to make it work.

Classical Music – a common interest

On the last day of the MS Innovative Teachers Regional conference, I got up at the usual time and went down for breakfast. I could not see any of the conference participants that I had befriended, so I sat alone. Next to me, was another lone person. He introduced himself to me as Zainuddin and I discovered that he was from Malaysia. His English was excellent, so we struck up a friendship and said that we would work on projects together, once back home.
Our school teaches mandarin Chinese as the LOTE subject. At year 12, we have only one student learning the subject completing it by correspondence or external studies. Upon speaking to Zainuddin, my Malaysian contact, I discovered that his school had a large contingent of Chinese students who spoke mandarin. Our principal has been trying to establish further connections with our sister school in Beijing, but the firewall in China presents many challenges and difficuluties. So, ‘thinking outside the square’, Zainuddin helped me match one of his students with our year 12 girl. After several weeks of interuptions and difficulites in finding a common meeting time, we finally came online last night, using skype rather than msn as our conferencing platform.
Zainuddin and I decided to go online with them for the first few sessions until they became comfortable with each other. After a very slow start where the Malaysian student entered Chinese characters for our girl to respond to and as she did not have a keyboard or software for Chinese characters, it took a while to give an answer, they soon started further conversations. After one hour the girls were chatting away about music, their love of classical music, the fact that they both played piano and which styles of classical music they enjoyed most. Surely, the connections that the internet allows in such a scenario are amongst the most powerful in improving learning outcomes for students. It is hoped that these two students will maintain the friendship and work to improve both English and Chinese for each of them.
Challenges
- the microphone of the Malaysian student did not work
-finding a suitable day and time
-enabling the girls to feel comfortable with each other
What worked well
-the fact that Zainuddin and I came online with the girls to allow them to push outside their comfort zones.
-despite the mic and therefore audio not working, the chat worked well anyway. It is a non threatening means of communication until confidence is gained.
-Zainuddin and I maintained a conversation in msn whilst keeping an eye on the girls (they did not know this)
-We used google translator to interpret the words that they used.
-the Malaysian student could speak both English, Chinese and Malay really well
-pushes the standards of my students to a much higher level.
Learning outcomes
-placing two mature students together from two cultures works far more readily than with younger students.
-it is good to just start with text chat and as confidence increases introduce the microphone or audio
-Both girls started with non identifying avatars but the Malaysian girl soon added her photo and then wanted to know if our girl had a photo. So, students obviously like to see what they would look like face to face and see the real identity of the person they are communicating with.
-girls quickly became comfortable enough with each other to say that they did not understand, forcing the other to try a different tact.

Racial Harmony Day in Singapore

Students from Singapore show their costumes

Chinese costumes

Tuesday 21^st July was “Racial Harmony Day’ in Singapore.  My e-colleague Aini, who I met on classroom2.0 and I connected via video conferencing on the weekend. Aini asked if we would like to see her students in their national costumes which they wore to school as part of Racial Harmony Day. Delighted, I agreed.

Our grade 2 to 4 students and year 7 students gathered in the library and listened to the grade 5s from Singapore speak about ‘what racial harmony means to them.’ They spoke confidently and fluently in clear English. Students who were dressed in traditional costume came up to the web camera and showed us the Malay, Indian and Chinese traditional costumes. These are the three main cultures in Singapore. We heard of their traditional games and the other activities that were taking place on this day. The parents were holding food stalls in the canteen.

We viewed photos of the recent national parades which took place on National Day last week and witnessed their celebrations. Skype was used for this webcast and the audio and video were quite clear from our end. However, our audio was not clear in Singapore.

Aini had used her laptop when we first tested, but then set up external speakers so that her class of 47 students could hear. Skype seems to require tweaking when a new setup is used so it was necessary to goto tools>audio setup and choose the external speakers.

On Wednesday, my year 8 students were to show the class in Singapore images of our school and area. To our dismay, the latest version of skype was not on the library interactive white board. Therefore it was impossible to share our screen through skype. A quick reshuffle, meant that we quickly found objects eg meat pie and sauce and toy koala that played “Waltzing Matilda” were placed up to the web camera.

Learning outcomes

Increased Knowledge

• Learnt that Singapore has 4 cultures
• Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian
• Costumes and correct names
• Importance of lions in Singapore and their impact in the parade
• Defence forces – age entry, compulsory, 2 years
• Viewed the location of the new Disneyworld site

Communication skills

• the need for clear diction and correct positioning of both web camera and microphone.
• Students must be skilled up in these areas

What do India, Indonesia and Ukraine have in common?

 Answer:-Citizens who have  a desire to practise and improve  spoken and written English. Several nights ago,  I got a request on skype to accept a contact from John Warnken. His accompanying note said that he wanted to discuss teaching English in Indonesia. I am always careful about adding contacts but felt this sounded okay. Last night, he made contact with me on skype and told me his amazing story of how he had taught English to many, many Chinese and other cultures and countries by using skype – initiatlly using chat and then when confidence increased by using audio and the spoken word. He was teaching70-90 year olds how to use skype, when a request  came up on skype to add a Chinese citizen as a contact. He agreed, turned on the video camera and the ‘magic’ began. The elderly citizens witnessed first hand the power of skype and continued on with other connections to Chinese, helping them improve their English.

He then joined italki where he met an Indonesian teacher of English. She has her own laptop unusual in rural Indonesia) One day whilst Endangie was in the classroom, John was on skype.  She turned on her web camera allowing John to talk to the students who went wild with excitement. Not only could they speak English with an American but they could see him. This led John to being part of a radio show in the village (200,000 residents) where the mayor and the superintendent phoned in to the radio station to thank him for what he was doing. Soon people were sending sms and ringing in to talk to him on the radio. (skype was used for the linkup)

He then linked me with the Indonesian teacher on skype that same night and we had a three way conversation. My accent presented problems but we still conversed. Tonight Endang chatted to me using text and then asked if I would like to talk to her and her friend. He was a student from India. So the three of us started talking to each other. They were confident and asked many questions, so eager to learn about each other and improve their English. Soon another request came form another university student. He was from  Ukraine. I learnt so much in that short time about the other countries, their ambitions and their burning desire to connect and communicate.

Highlights

• first hand experience of the power of the internet for instant networking and connections
• experiencing first hand the sheer desire and tenacity of other cultures wishing to learn English and being able to work how, using their technological skills
• Learning that one of the participants could speak 4 languages and wanted to learn more, using this technique and that they had many e-colleagues in many, many countries
• learning first hand about life in their countries

Problems

• myAustralian accent is rather ‘foreign’ to them and took some adjusting
• keeping time limits to the online, realtime connections

Potential problems

• keeping the reigns on this potential ‘viral’ connections which could ’snowball’ beyond what I can cope with. I thought I was talking to and Indonesian teacher and within 15 minutes was talking to two other global citizens all eager to connect and stay connected.

Solutions

• use the functions of skype to indicate ‘do not disturb’, ‘ away’ etc or being blunt and honest and saying when I am too busy to talk. Chat, maybe but not talk

Mad Mondays

Mondays are crazy or mad days for me, as I teach every possible lesson ie 6 periods for the day. After lunch, I have the Ping music project, where I have the two year 7 groups combined. The students who have attended our school since primary school are conversant in technology use and web2.0 tools, but 1/3 of them are new to us this year, and have limited or basic expertise. This means that I need to be super organized and cater for all skill levels. Before each class, I list on a tick sheet what the students need to complete for the double session, with spare activities at the end to challenge those students who complete their work quickly.

Today, was not so ‘mad’, in fact so many interesting developments took place. In period 1, my year 11 class experimented with xtranormal One of our students completed the movie and it successfully embedded in his blog. Perod 2 was year 11 accounting and as the cd that comes with the text did not have the correct case study, I had to quickly think of an excercise that  students who had finished their work could work on. Budgeting was our theme, so students worked on an xtranormal movie to explain the concepts of budgeting.

Scheduled for the pod and working with my year 12 class for Information Technology Applications, we had a fascinating lesson today. Studying virtual teams as part of their set coursework, I set up a data projector and speakers to show them some of the  virtual teams that I work with. First site was twitter. People quickly responded from various countries and many of them from Australia. One interesting response came from @susanwrites who is an author.  @susanwrites @murcha Hello to year 12 students from an author in California. 7pm in the evening here, it’s still light out and perfect spring weather.

When I explained that we were studying virtual teams, Susan responded with:- “You and your students might want to check out freshbrain.org It’s all virtual – technology, leraning and fun, kids 13-18 ” Before I could blink, students in my class who did not have a twitter account, were registering. Next minute this tweet came up on the white board:-774melbourneCFA launches http://www.cfaconnect.net.au/ 

One of my students said to me that she was part of the pilot program for this project. How amazing was that, that the tweet came up at the very time we were online! It must give her satisfaction in that the ground work has now contributed to this launch and she was part of it. Plus, she heard of the launch as soon as the media release went out.

Then came my double year 7 class after lunch. I had  been rung up that morning to ask whether we could videoconference with some student teachers in Parkville, Melbourne and as Ajax was with them (our Ping organiser) we used this session. This is the first time that we have used skype or videoconferencing with another party in Australia!! As we were in the computer lab, my facilities are limited. I used my laptop and its inbuilt camera. It was placed on an old printer that was placed on a table at the front. This would allow a view of the classroom for those who were participating.

External speakers and a usb mic were used for a start but we had to revert to a headset and its mic. My laptop worked on wireless internet which was not quite strong enough to keep both videos going. So, we turned the video on for the people who were talking. Again, I was amazed, that the most challenging of students volunteered to come up to the microphone and talk to their skype audience. These students often struggle with written media and literacy but confidently speak to an unknown audience. Questions were asked and a number of students went to the web camera to speak about where they live and what they enjoyed about Ping.

The rest of the double lesson was used for writing a story without pictures and words. Julie Lindsay from Qatar academy is working with the same topic ,as her students have WWW – a week without walls. Some students are off to Italy, London and Turkay. Those students who remain behind are completing an alternative program which includes music sessions in the lab. Julie’s students will also produce ’stories without pictures and words’, featuring Middle Eastern instruments. The best will be uploaded onto the Ping blog for us to share.  My students will try and compose a story with an Australian influence – where they live, their favourite holiday destination, the outback etc How exciting is that?

All eyes on the flatclassroom conference

A flatclassroom f2f

 Words cannot begin to describe the amazing experiences that we had whilst in Doha, Qatar, in January 2009 for the flatclassroom conference.

However, as part of  my reflections,  I will take  a  look at it through my eyes in respect to:-

• Students
  

  VickiDavis with Omani students

• teachers
• travellers
• leaders
• parents

 Eyes upon the students

We left amidst some angst as to the Gaza situation in Israel. (Parents had been concerned about going to the Middle East anyway, even before this situation eventuated!)  Many would see it as a high risk undertaking. The three girls from my class had not been out of Australia before. Summer school holidays meant that we had to do all our communicating online . Once at the airport, the girls soon learnt the routine of passports, security, laptops, immigration control etc. After a journey totalling more than 28 hours, we arrived  in Doha, Qatar and were transported into another ‘world’ -  a land that was white, featuring middle Eastern style buildings, crazy traffic, constant building activity  and white sand everywhere. The girls were immediately impressed.

The first days were spent shadowing students around the Qatar Academy, helping with conference administration, packing the showbags  and helping  teach a grade 5 class how how to use voicethreads etc. The girls gradually became familiar with the massive, magnificent school buildings and due to friendly host families, settled in well. The school itself, had a full range of cultures, creeds and nationalities. This is in stark contrast to our school where we have a monoculture of Anglo Saxons.

How wonderful it was to see them mixing with these different groups. When the conference started, there were students from many countries. They met their Omani and American classmates from the flatclassroom project of 2008. The Omani students were, of course dressed in traditional dishdasha and kommah, the African boys attired in suits, the girls from Africa in more formal gear, the Qatari girls in hijabs and the Pakistani girls in their traditional dress. Accents had to be closely listened to, so that we understood what was said. When Carly was introduced at one stage, she was immediately called ‘Cauliflower” Some names we could not even attempt to pronounce and I simply called the students from Oman “Boys!” when I need to catch their attention.

The skype session with Tom Friedman was rather amazing. He wanted the students to ask him questions, which I thought was taking a huge risk. What would they ask? Would enough ask questions to fill in the time? Surprisingly,  students young and old, from all countries represented came up to the microphone and asked some amazing and incredibly mature questions.  Tom  responded immediately and appeared to have no difficulty with the many and varied accents.

When the conference commenced, my girls were grouped with students from other countries to work on a project involving an issue common to all of them eg  poverty, racism etc One of my girls, was placed in a group where the common language was Arabic. So, the Arabic had to be translated back into English for her. Another group had English as their most common language but google translator was used to translate  into Arabic for the Qatari student in the group. On the second day of the conference, a presentation had to be made by student groups, to all conference

Tarzy's group

participants. The aim was to try to convince the audience to vote their project in, to become  the next flatclassroom project for 2009. One of my girls said that she had never been “so scared in all her life.” Yet, she got up and spoke with confidence and played her role admirably to the assembled crowd. Another, had her mother

Presentation time

online until 1am in Australian time, helping her to cope with her nerves and stomach butterflies. All students were pushed well beyond their comfort zones, at so many times, during their stay.

We learnt about the importance of gift giving in some cultures. The students from Oman gave all schools involved small gift and provided tasty sweet Omani treats to try at the end of the conference. The conference showbags also bore evidence of Qatari customary gift giving with printed tshirts, usb drive, a coffee mug etc inside

Despite the differences, there were so many similarities amongst the students – the same passions, interests, needs and goals!

Eyes upon the teachers

How absolutely wonderful  it was to see the students who had been  involved in the flatclassroom project 2008, face to face. These included the boys from Oman and the students from two different schools in USA.  It was also great to see them all mixing comfortably and gaining a deeper understanding of the different cultures. Yet underneath this difference, were common interests, pursuits,  emotions, problems, goals and ideals.

The highlights for me were working with Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, the founders of the flatclassroom projects. These  two women work so well together, yet have only met 5 times face to face.  The powerful outcomes of their work are testimony to their successful collaboration and virtual teamwork.  Estie Cuellar from Texas and Salim Al-Busaidi from Oman were two teachers who I worked with in the flatclassroom project in 2008 and it was so good to connect with them face to face. Whilst in an elluminate staff meeting,  Salim encouraged us to come to Qatar, as in his words “we are a safe country”. Any fears that I had harboured were dispelled by this statement. I loved meeting face to face some of my other  twitter friends –  Anne Baird from Australia and Paul McMahon, an Australian in Hong Kong, Heather Davis, a  Canadian in Beijing and Jeff Utecht from Bangkok. Then there were the new connections with Chris Chater from Paris (whose work with online music is admirable), Soniiya  Jahangir from Pakistan and two teachers from India, teaching in Saudi Arabia and George Haines from New York. Ray who was such a kind host to us and Jill Boulanger and  Beverley Stubbs from Qatar Academy ensured that we were comfortable and welcomed at the school. The list could go on but I will stop there.

Watching my students grow in confidence and push themselves beyond all boundaries was a source of great pride. To see them have a go and present publicly to such a varied but distinguished audience, was quite uplifting. We were also  so proud to celebrate Australia Day in Qatar.

During the conference, I spent time in the ISTE sessions which challenged us regarding the leadership role that educationalists should take on in the digital age.  The conference event was made possible by the support of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) with Don Knezek (CEO) and Lynn Nolan (Senior Strategic Initiatives Officer) coming to Qatar to lead workshops. The elective sessions using online music sites and google applications with Chris Chater and Paul McMahon, respectively, were practical, highly useful and inspiring.

On the last day, teachers were mixed in groups with educaionalists from other countries, with a student project manager, a problem based project, complete with skill challenges and time pressure.  We had to  pitch our outcome at each of the groups. By this stage, I knew just how the students must have felt.

Eyes upon the leaders

The organization was superb. Julie Lindsay worked long and hard hours behind the scenes securing sponsorship, organizing facilitators, students, teachers, programs, showbags, catering, facilities, visas, the tech team  etc.  Vicki Davis facilitated the student summit sessions. These were based on “Project Based Learning” and  empowering students with great learning outcomes.  They learnt to connect, communicate and create together. Their skills in using web2.0 tools were improved substantially with the expertise of Vicki Davis. A producer from Hollywood, tutored the students  in film making and using music under the guidance of Chris Chater from Paris. Digital citizenship and netiquette were constantly reinforced and learnt through experiencing. It was inspirational to see the students  presenting  with competence and confidence,  to the large audience, as a result of their summit collaboration.  Thank you to Julie and Vicki, our flatclassroom co-founders and the other facilitators for your great work.

Eyes upon the parents

One of the really interesting outcomes of this experience, was the involvement of parents. This was something unplanned  and unforseen, but ended up playing a key role in our connectedness. As we were on school holidays the majority of planning and communication had to be made online,. The girls had set up membership to the flatconference ning and wiki prior to departure. Before they left, the girls became ‘the experts’, helping their parents to register for the ning , join our school group and showed  them how to write messages, comments and blog posts. This meant that parents experienced the conference with us. Photos and videos were uploaded daily, with blog posts written when possible. Parents commented regularly on all our pages and activities. They were able to watch the sessions that were webcast and one parent stayed up until 1am to watch her daughter make her presentation.  They even joined in on the chatzy  back channel and could see the commentary going on behind the scenes. We received photos of the Australia Day breakfast, held in Hawkesdale as part of the Australia Day celebrations, an hour after it finished, as one set of parents had uploaded them to the ning. They became part of our learning network.

Eyes upon the travellers

We were fortunate to arrive in Qatar three days earlier. Julie took on the extra workload of organizing accommodation for us with Qatar Academy staff. By the time the conference started, we felt quite comfortable and at home at the school. Students shadowed their host students around at school and experienced a typical school day in Doha. The hospitality of our hosts was wonderful. They were kind, caring and sharing.

For four or five nights, we stayed at the Gloria hotel in Doha. This was situated in the old town within walking distance of the souqs and the Islamic Art museum. The hotel was beautifully furbished, attentive to the needs of its guests and provided wireless internet connection (which kept us all connected to those back home)

Two or three buses picked us up from the hotel door and took us to the Qatar Academy for the conference or other activities. This was a great chance to socialize, listen to the student chatter, enjoy some laughs and talk about our experiences.  I shall never forget that last night on the bus, with students from Australia, USA and Ethiopia and Kenya, singing their national anthems with pride, gusto and emotion! Then they sang songs that they all knew, one being “If I could fly” which seemed to be so appropriate.

There was a good balance of sight seeing tied in to the conference. As this country is quite different to the home country of many of the visitors, it was great to be able to have time set aside for us to do some touring. It also gave us all a chance to mix and get to know each other in a more casual atmosphere.

Ray played the patient, caring  host and took us to the souqs (when it rained), the half day desert tour to the inland sea, the corniche and the Islamic Art museum. The Sunday evening was spent at the souks again where we all scattered in various directions to find something to eat and souveneirs to purchase. The stalls selling hunting falcons were most intriguing. Anne Baird, Paul McMahon, Ray and I enjoyed a wonderful Arabic meal of dipping sauces, hommus, traditional chicken and rice dishes and fresh, warmed, unleavened breads.

The conference meals were varied and tasty. There was always a choice of dishes. The dinner on the Saturday evening , set in a formal atmosphere with the HSBC guest speaker was a fitting end to the first day of the conference. The buffet bar of the school canteen was always appealing. The weather was pleasant as it was winter time.

The final night was spent at Villagio in the new town. This is an ultra modern shopping complex, with painted skys on the roof, the best in fashionable shops,  a canal complete with gondolas providing rides for interested parties, an ice skating rink and the usual Western fast food chains.

Eyes on the sponsors

There were many sponsors involved and we cannot thank them enough - the chief one being the HSBC who sponsored the conference whilst in Qatar.  One of their representative spoke to us at the formal dinner. The Qatar Academy provided the venue, staff and other incidentals. For us personally, ACE radio helped to sponsor my students in their travel and our local Hawkesdale and District Action Committee also donated some money.

Eyes that are now opened!

How proud we were, to be Australian, when Australia Day fell on the last day of the conference! However, we came home with American tinged accents!

This was a truly amazing, life changing experience that will equip us for the flat world that of ourfuture.  We can now state that we have experienced the impact that the digital age will have in  a flat world. Thank you to all involved!

Crossposted

Footnote:   Skills learnt – understanding and working with different cultures, netiquette, digital citizenship skills, communication skills in an online environment, the use of many different web2.0 tools, how to collaborate and work in a virtual team, risk taking, pushing outside personal comfort zones, real life pressures of time commitments/project management and how to create effective products for online use and a global audience. How to live, work and play in a globally connected world!