Creating Classrooms Without Walls

Creating Classrooms Without Walls : Creating Classrooms Without Walls Eighteenth Annual Conference on Literacy Dr. Ludmilla Smirnova

Slide 2 : WHY This talk?

Slide 3 : Two Virtual Projects Spring and Fall of 2010

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A little bit of History… : A little bit of History…

Slide 6 : A bit MORE about History… 6:45

Slide 7 : Language Connections

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Assignments : Assignments

Projects : Projects

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Slide 12 : Fruitful Results…

Slide 13 : 1,086

Slide 14 : 89

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Slide 16 : TOOLS Used

Slide 17 : Project Participants S 14-24

Slide 18 : VoiceThread Greetings and Outcomes

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Slide 20 : International writing Exchange

Slide 21 : Japan IWE Participants of 2010 Canada San Diego, USA Sylvie Decoux Paris, France MSMC, USA Ruth Vilmi

Slide 22 : IWE Project’s Home --- IT4ALL

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Slide 26 : Summary of Project Experience and TIPS Join International Social networks and make some friends Stay in touch with them and build up relationships to make project plans Join some Free webinars, workshops Teaching/learning communities to participate in the intercultural activities, events The more practice partners you have the more likely you will have productive international projects Volunteer to prepare and lead some online events to practice moderating/facilitating sills See contacts if they are online and message, tweet, ping them to see if they can talk

Slide 27 : Summary of Success Building trust Social and collaborative skills Improved learning Students coming more engaged and involved in learning Some connections and learning extend beyond the boundaries of the course Learners intentionally trying their best Brings meaningfulness in learning (language, tools, methods of communication and collaboration) Students learn useful technological skills without pressure Relationships improved with students among students Some challenges turned to opportunities

Slide 28 : Summary of Challenges Technical or administrative hassles * Accounts * Access to the closed learning systems * Time conflicts * Hard to monitor what everybody is doing Lack of student buy-in due to fear or confusion Keeping social life separate from studies or work Disappearing of tools (Goosgle Wave, Free Ning, google group features, etc.) Differences in curricular and schedules, Cultural differences Differences in pedagogy

Slide 29 : Summary of Project Administration and Pedagogy Regular meetings of the project facilitators using web conference tools – Skype, gtalk, gdocs, Learn/share exchange online tools/technology and resources Co-creation of content Feedback and comments using blogging, forums Practice work/project exhibits Combine asynchronous and synchronous communication Build and maintain community Public product – better product Just in-time assessment and facilitation

Slide 30 : Where and How to find Partners PLN --- TappedIn, LinkedIn, Twitter, Plurk Open World Project

Slide 31 : Global SchoolNet

Slide 32 : Flat Classroom

Slide 33 : Skype in the Classroom