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Preparing
your Classroom for International On-line Collaboration
Before
your classroom goes on-line and begins communicating with peers around
the world you may want to spend some time having students reflect on
some of the issues which may arise during their on-line collaboration.
Below
are some examples of activities you can facilitate to prepare students
for on-line collaboration. These activities are designed to address
issues such as:
- Definition of
Culture
- Formation of
Perceptions
- Nonverbal Communication
You might also want
to spend some time talking about appropriate use of online forums.
One iEARN School,
Edmonds Cyberschool, has even created an "iEARN
Buddy Support Contract" to help students in creating and posting
their messages to the iEARN forums.
Activities
The activities
below are readable through the Adobe
Acrobat Reader Program (free to download)
- Monster
Exchange- The students
will practice writing for an audience, for a real purpose. They will
see the way their writing is interpreted by others, and reflect on
the processes of writing, reading and interpreting.
- Cultural
Images Through Photographs-
Using photography students will capture an image or personality which
they feel represents an important aspect of their culture and discuss
their choice of a picture with classmates to understand difference
in cultural and/or personal values.
- Build
a Survey for the World-
This activity encourages the students to think about other cultures,
and builds initial interest and excitement.
- Telecommunicating-
Students will communicate with one another without seeing or hearing
each other; simulating communication via e-mail. The students will
then reflect on the experience and think about potential miscommunications
via email.
- Introducing
your classroom to the iEARN Community-
Constructing a welcome letter to introduce your classroom and project
ideas to the iEARN community
- Nacirema-
Students will examine how onešs own values, beliefs and previous experiences
affect the way they interpret the world.
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