We've spent the last few sessions trying to form connections. Students are encouraged to connect within their small groups in Edmodo around their various topics. Teachers monitor these groups and try to keep the discussions flowing. Sometimes the students get off topic and don't follow the general guidelines we established in the beginning. When this happens, as it did for a group of our students, we turned it into a learning experience for the students and held a class discussion about appropriate online communication and commenting.
Speaking of commenting, we watched this great video about leaving quality comments and then practiced commenting on others' posts within Edmodo.
Speaking of commenting, we watched this great video about leaving quality comments and then practiced commenting on others' posts within Edmodo.
Now that we are three-quarters of the way through this project, we wanted the students to make a more solid connection geographically with the schools on our team. This happened really happened yet. Since there are 800 students participating in several schools, students are formed into small groups. We've found they have had a hard time connecting with the actual schools we are partnered with. We solved the "handshake" from each particular school, wrote down something that we learned, used Google search to look for more information as needed, and then shared with the class what we had found. The highlight was looking on Google Maps to see where the school is located. Some even had the Street View enabled and students became very excited to see the actual school and its neighborhood. Here's a map of the schools participating in this project:
View AWL 13-1 in a larger map