Student Reflections on our Elementary Flat Classroom Project

February 12, 2011 at 10:34 am | Posted in 21st Century, Collaboration, Global Collaboration | 1 Comment

Yesterday my third grade students and I reviewed our journey during the A Week in the Life project. I then asked them to answer a few questions in writing, and here are their responses:

What did you learn that surprised you?

• I was surprised that there are different things in other countries
• That we can Skype with people half-way around the world.
• That working in groups you get more ideas.
• That kids in the other countries call soccer, soccer.
• Learning to use edmodo
• That working in groups makes more thinking (ideas) than one person
• I didn’t know that we could chat through a website (Edmodo)
• That we actually made a movie and we really saw each other on Skype.
• There are many kinds of clothes and languages
• There are different and common things in each country
• The different homes and transportation
• That we have a lot of things in common
• I was surprised how much brainstorming and using laptops
• I did not know how to use Edmodo

What did you enjoy about the project?

• That we Skyped with some other schools and communicated with each other
• Communicating with partners in other countries
• What I liked best was the brainstorming.
• Skyping with kids in the USA and Edmodo.
• I enjoyed making the video and picking the pictures.
• I liked Skyping the other schools
• Writing all our ideas down
• I enjoyed working with my team and for the project and chatting through Edmodo
• Edmodo
• I enjoyed that nobody felt left out
• I enjoyed doing Edmodo
• That I can know how another country is like and I can picture it in my mind
• Learning about different countries
• I enjoyed everything like Edmodo and the videos
• That we got to use laptops a lot
• I enjoyed doing Edmodo.com
• We learned about other kids and countries

What did you find challenging?

• It was a little bit hard to work together with my team because it was hard to decide something.
• Agreeing who gets to do what in my class group.
• When we were finding pictures
• Brainstorming
• Typing long and short words
• I found that when we had to make a video it had a lot of steps.
• Typing
• To get pictures and lots of ideas
• We had to choose what to share about what we have in Prague and also we had to type a bunch of information.
• Working with the team
• It was hard to choose the pictures
• I found challenging how we were all going to agree on stuff (within class group)
• Putting similarities and differences in groups (on the wiki)

What do you have in common with students in other schools?

• Most games are the same. The library is a little bit different.
• We all go to schools where the language we speak at the school if English.
• We all have recess and we all wear clothes that look alike.
• We both celebrate birthdays and get presents.
• We learn the same world languages as the school in Maine
• We both have computers, art, music, library, reading, math, writing, and a lot of specials. Most of our specials are the same.
• Computers, no pets in schools, boys and girls, like sports
• We want to know each other and share about our countries with each other.
• Sometimes cars, apartments, trains, buses and many more
• The kids in China were in the Gathering performing like us (regular school assembly and Chinese New Year assembly performances)
• We are all still learning

How is our day to day life different from students in other schools?

• We have different holidays, like in the the USA you get a day off for Thanksgiving , not in Prague.
• The climate is different, the clothes, the houses and the foods.
• Prague doesn’t celebrate Halloween but the USA does.
• Because the environment around us and the students in other schools are different.
• The time zones because when we end, they start
• In our schools, example in China, when we are finishing school they are just starting school. The same with the school in the US.
• The seasons
• We have International Day and special days like Jersey Day and Pajama Day
• We have different times and we also have different schedules in school
• We have different times and different weather
• Kids in Maine and Illinois start school when we finish school
• Well when we are leaving school they are entering school
• We may have different things going on during the day

Do you have ideas for us to stay in touch with other kids in the project?

• Skype, email, facebook, video chat
• We can Skype, email, call, Edmodo, keep doing A Week in the Life, pictures, videos, and voicethread
• We can Skype each other
• We should Skype each other and use Edmodo
• We could Skype each other once in a while
• By chatting together on Edmodo. Call each other on Skype when they’re awake (in school.)
• Edmodo, Skype
• By Skype, Edmodo, gmail, Facebook
• We can often Skype at school and we can email each other. Also, we can use Edmodo more.
• Use Skype more often
• Skype more, use Edmodo
• We could Skype, Edmodo, email, things like that. Oh yeah, and write of course, send pictures, videos.
• To communicate on Skype or Edmodo or school’s email

I was grinning as I read and compiled their responses, pleased to see the diverse learning and enjoyment during the project. Clearly Edmodo and Skype communications were highlights and there is a desire to continue communications. One of my favorite comments was, “We are all still learning.” in the category of commonalities. There was so much learned and accomplished both by students and teachers and within classes and between classes. I plan to write my reflections in the coming week. We will also record comments for the project reflection Voicethread on the project wiki next week.