In this session of the project students learn about different tools like Edmodo, Voki, and VoiceThread that allow them to connect, collaborate and share information within their groups and also among different groups.
To kick off the project, the class was divided into six groups. Each group created a "handshake" to introduce their country to the others students in the project. This was a great opportunity for the students to learn about researching, designing - using Google drawing, analyzing, exploring, collaborating, taking ownership in their work and sharing their information. In this process they also learned about the copyright and recognizing the other people’s work and giving credit to the owner. The six groups that comprise of three or four students each decide who would take the following roles: Research Assistant Helps find information to include in the handshake Project Manager Must have strong leadership skills and be able to pull the group together and keep everyone on topic Media Specialist Helps find images to use in the slide that represent Nepal Tech Specialist Oversees the design and technical creation and sharing of the slide Here are all six drawing slide that were created: The students voted as a class which one should be sent to other participants. Here is the winner slide in jigsaw puzzle. Do you think the other participating students will be able to guess our country? Here are some of the clips of students working on their project: Here are all the six puzzles created by our fourth grade students: Teacher reflection:
This is the second year our school is participating in the Flat Classroom “A week in the life” project. Keeping in view the age of the students, time constraints, workload and resources it was decided that only the fourth grade students would participate in this project. The students were excited and eager to start the project. As they started to create their drawing slide for the class handshake they showed great research, design, collaboration and leadership skills. The students also enjoyed solving other countries' handshake puzzles and were eager to learn about other schools and students around the world. This year only the grade four students participated in the Flat Classroom “Week in the Life” project.
In the introduction class the fourth graders learned basic overview about the project – the objectives of the project, expectations and who are involved in the project. The students also learned about the three essential questions, which they have to answer in this project. The questions are: 1. What are the similarities and differences among children around the world? 2. How can we connect with each other through our commonalities? 3. How does your geography and where you live impact your topic? At the end of the class sample projects from the last year were displayed for the students. This gave the students opportunity to better plan their own project. In this project more than 250 students are participating from different countries - like Canada, India, China, and different parts of the United States. |