Non Nobis Solum (Not for ourselves alone)

I have spent a good deal of time recently reflecting on how I reached this point in my teaching and learning career. My experience with using computers as a social tool can be traced back to 1987 when I briefly filled in for a secretary at the Computing Office of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario Canada. The computers in the office were tied in to the university network system that connected universities from around the country and the world. I discovered the wonderful world of instant messaging with those who were thousands of miles away and spent many hours chatting this way to my husband's brother and friends at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Little did I suspect that my teenagers would someday be almost addicted to this form of communication! I was "hooked" all the way back then to the power of connected computer communication.

1990-1999

Much of my experience in the decade between 1990 and 1999 was teaching English as a second language to international students on university campuses in three different cities in Canada. It was through the relationships with these students that I developed a strong passion for what can be learned by exposure to other cultures. My own world view about politics, economics, education and global issues was stretched and changed through exposure to learners from many different parts of the world. This certainly planted the seed of my later interest in online cross-cultural collaboration.

1999-2006

Our family has had at least one computer in the house for almost twenty years now due to my husband’s occupation in computer engineering. We were one of the first to have Internet and then high speed Internet. Thus, when I returned to full-time high school classroom teaching in 1999, I had a familiarity with computer and Internet tools. The school where I was working had just installed a modern computer lab so I enjoyed developing course material that integrated computer skills. Two years later, I decided to enhance my computer skills by taking a year’s subscription to the Connected University online professional development courses for teachers. The courses were delivered entirely online and it was there that I learned what it was to be a distance education learner.

Back to School for Me!

Often for my courses, we had to work collaboratively with teachers from all over the world. Many of the assignments took the form of project-based learning which provided an excellent model for my own teaching instruction. Not too much later, in 2002, I had become so interested in how technology could support learning that I made the big decision to begin graduate studies at a part-time level in Educational Technology at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. Some of my courses were delivered in part online and one of my favourite courses was Distance Education for the Developing Nations. In this course, we had to, in an online environment, collaboratively design several online courses for nations that were not as technologically rich in resources. My partners and I created online instructional materials for schools in the Arctic region, Costa Rica, and the University of Baghdad, Iraq. Although these were only simulated courses and never implemented, it provided me with a great experience in having to work collaboratively at a distance with a partner that was at times not as productive or cooperative as I would have liked. In order to fulfill the criteria for the M.A. programme, I chose to pursue the thesis topic of online collaborative learning for high school students in a blended environment. I had used the Nicenet conferencing environment for communication between students within my own classes and between schools with whom we were matched for a student exchange, so I chose to use Nicenet as the online learning environment for my thesis action research study. I attempted to design a course unit that would promote self-monitoring and metacognition skills with my students using the online environment as the course delivery host for communication and collaboration. Twenty-eight of my students took part in this study which took place over about six months. I would later present some of my relevant observations about this study at the American Educational Research Association conference in 2005.

International Collaborative Online Learning - The Beginning - 2003-04

In 2003, just as I was beginning to create my unit for the self-monitoring study, I came across the Global Virtual Classroom web design contest by the Give Something Back Foundation and decided to register our school for this six-month long ambitious project. Because at that time I taught several computer studies courses over three grade levels, I decided to invite only volunteers to work on the GVC team. About 25 students agreed to participate. We were very blessed to be matched with Waterford-Mott High School in Michigan, and Neveh Channah High School, in Israel. Barbara McArthur from Waterford-Mott was our team leader for that project. Reuven Werber was the teacher representing Neveh Channah. Barbara had had much experience with the GVC contest and she was a terrific model for me as she insisted on weekly meetings for the teachers, the setting of weekly goals and updates, and a high degree of accountability. I learned a great deal from both Barb and Reuven over our time together. They remain good friends with whom I chat regularly. In spite of the fact that this was one of the most demanding projects on which I have worked, the pride and satisfaction that it created for my students far outweighed any of the negative aspects. Even now, my former students tell me that it was one of their best memories of their high school experience. The project provided them with a cross-cultural experience, formation of additional ICT skills in an authentic experience and an opportunity to improve written communication skills.

Later Projects - 2004-05

I changed schools the following year, but was able to continue my participation with the GVC contest. For the 2004-05 GVC project, my new school, Lower Canada College, was matched with a schools in The Netherlands and Arizona. We decided that with my experience I would be the best qualified to be team leader. For this project, I involved my grade 7 English class. Unfortunately, the teacher from The Netherlands was not comfortable with ICT skills and was not able to motivate his students to participate at the level our team required, so eventually dropped out after a frustrating four months. My partner from Arizona, Shaun Creighton, was amazing both as a teacher of computer studies and as a collaborating partner. We met weekly, set goals, and motivated our students to work hard.

During that year as well, Reuven Werber approached me to work on a collaborative literature project with his school sponsored by the State of Israel Ministry of Education. Beginning in October of 2004, my grade 10 English class was matched with a class at Neveh Channah in order to share our literature and cultures. Again we used Nicenet to facilitate communication. We later used a more visible online forum where the students could provide feedback to each others’ project material which had been put on webpages.

These productive collaborations with such excellent matching teachers motivated me to continue seeking out collaborative projects. The students at my new school had been very receptive to the international projects and thoroughly engaged in the process of sharing information and collaborating on a final goal. When my grade 7 students won $250 in the web design contest, they had no shortage of ideas of where to spend it - not on themselves, but on various charities. We voted on one charity and donated the money to an organization in southern Africa that provides support for families affected by AIDS. This was one more way in which my students could demonstrate true global citizenship.

Later Projects - 2004-05

For this academic year, I agreed to take on two matches for my two Grade 10 English classes for this same literature project. One of my classes was matched again with Neveh Channah while the other match was with Rabin High School near Tel Aviv, Israel. In spite of my experience with online collaborative learning across cultures and with this project in particular, one of my projects did not go well and was not as positive an experience as the others.

As well, this year I again have one of my grade 7 classes participating on a GVC team for the web design contest. We have been matched this year with a school in Kuwait and a school in Sarasota, Florida. In October of 2005, I was approached by an ICT teacher from New Zealand who had heard of me from a NZ educator who had been at my AERA presentation a few months earlier. Karen Fahy asked if one of my classes would collaborate with one of their ICT classes on a project. It was a short two-month long project and unique for me because it was my first project that was not being overseen by another organization. The control and direction of the project was entirely in the hands of the teachers. This presented its own challenges and advantages.

Earlier in the summer of 2005, Reuven and I began to look for alternative learning environments to support our project. I recalled hearing about moodle (modular, object-oriented dynamic learning environment) which is open source learning management system software. After looking it over, I decided to give it a try and install it on my server. Reuven and I played with it for a few weeks before school began, and then held our breath when it went “live” and the students began to log in and use the environment. To our great delight, the moodle has been a very stable and safe place for our students to meet, communicate and collaborate. All four of my online collaborative projects have been supported by this moodle environment in the last seven months.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

Below you will find a list of the projects that have been a large part of my life in the last three years. Partnerships were forged, friendships were made, and collaborative products were created. My students have never failed to amaze me with their creativity, initiative and productivity. From my own observations and from their own testimonials and feedback, it is clear that these exchanges have impacted their lives in many positive ways. The sense of empowerment that the projects brought to the students has been remarkable. Latent gifts and talents of the students that would never have come to light in a classroom setting were brought out and displayed to the world through the Internet.

Progression Through Time:The Digital Age of Technology

2003-2004 Grand Prize award for Global Virtual Classroom Web Design Contest- partners with Reuven Werber of Neveh Channah, Israel and Barbara McArthur of Waterford-Mott High School in Michigan

Timeline and Participants

This collaborative project began in October 2003 with 25 participants from my school at the time, Emmanuel Christian School in Montréal, and 15 participants each from Neveh Channah in Israel and Waterford-Mott High School in Michigan.

Goals of the Project:

The goal of the project is to have students collaboratively create an educational website using ICT skills. All research for the project must be documented and cited. As well, the students are permitted to use original graphics, photos and artwork or seek permission from the original creators or photographers. This proved to be quite a challenge but the students took this criteria very seriously and we either produced our own graphic artwork or actively sought permission.

Description of Process:

For this project, we first had to brainstorm ideas for the website topic. Brainstorming and then voting on a choice for the topic can be quite a time-consuming activity, but our leader Barb insisted that we have a choice early on in the exchange because much work had to be done later. We eventually agreed upon the choice of providing a history of digital technology on our website. At this point, I was introduced, through Barbara, to the idea of using a storyline to actively engage the user of our website. Rather than just putting content onto a website, the storyline provides a fictional narrative that makes the website visitor more actively engaged with the content and becoming a voyeur to the stories of the inhabitants of the fictional building that was created for our website. Initially, the web user entered a building, walked up to an elevator and entered it and then chose which floor of the building they were going to visit. Each floor had a different theme to explore, such as medical offices, apartments, and the garage of the building. Within each of these themes, the pertinent history of the digital technology was presented and explored. This approach was an excellent integration of many elements of information, story-writing, and research. Each of the floors’ themes also had a survey area where the results to our own survey concerning the theme were presented. The surveys were conducted by all of the schools’ students and then the results were broken down by country responses. The overall tasks of web design, research collection, information conclusions were divided between the school team members who worked collaboratively.

The students exchanged gift packages during the time of the collaboration and grew to know each other. We even had an opportunity to use a webcam one morning and have a live discussion with our partners in Israel and Michigan. This was a thrilling moment for my students who had not experienced this type of opportunity before.

Technologies Used

The students used Nicenet, the Internet Classroom Assistant, as their communication and collaboration system.The teachers used icq or msn to instant message each other through the meetings. The meetings could be quite long – sometimes up to 2 hours. Toward the end of our collaboration, we tried out Skype and found the audio conferencing to be a tool that could greatly expedite our meetings.

Behind the Scenes

We worked very hard for this project to develop a “Behind the Scenes” part of the website. This provided the users with a montly timeline breakdown for our project, an introduction to the students involved, and some of the students’ feedback from the participation. As well, we teachers collaboratively shared a letter of appreciation to the students to commend them for their hard work.

 

From Our Lockers Into the World - GVC Team 20

2004-2005 – Third Prize Award for Global Virtual Classroom Web Design Contest- partners with Shaun Creighton from Santan School in Arizona.

Timeline and Participants

This project began in October of 2004. Initially, there were three schools involved but one school eventually dropped out. Eighteen of my students participated and Shaun had fifteen students from his school.

Goals and Description of the Project

Between these two GVC projects, I changed schools from Emmanuel Christian School to Lower Canada College. My new school, LCC, is a university prep school that is rich in technology resources. I tried to harness the potential of these tools as much as possible for this next project. My eighteen students were in grade 7 English for this project, while Shaun’s students were grade 8 web design students. Initially, there was a third school that was working on this project, but for reasons that remain unclear, the school finally dropped out. The age of the students from this third school was older than our two schools and so perhaps there was significantly less “buy-in” commitment on the part of the students from the third school. It is really important to have students involved that do “buy-in” and are excited and enthusiastic about participating in such a cross-cultural endeavour. Shaun was a terrific partner with much talent with web and flash design. His students were very dedicated to the project and worked hard on their task for their teams.

Once again, we tried to build a storyline approach to our website. This year’s theme was “From Our Lockers into the World” in which users could explore our world through items in our lockers. The web user would walk up to the locker, it would open, and then the user could select an object in the locker that was linked to a certain theme. For example, if the user clicked on the lunchbag, this permitted the user to explore facts concerning nutrition, look at cultural recipes we provided, and we also conducted interviews with different people in our lives to present as part of website themes.

The students are built-in experts about what is in their lockers so it was very easy for them to provide content. Their imaginative contributions to the site made it a very rewarding project for them overall.

Technologies Used

Once again, the students used Nicenet as their communication environment. Shaun and I met weekly using an web conferencing area, Talking Communities, where a room had been set up for us to use by the GVC administrators. The Talking communities’ environment permitted us to use audio features as well as instant messaging which greatly expedited our time together. My students used video cameras to conduct their interviews and then later edited them for the webpages by using Windows Movie Maker. I used an online learning rubric to assess their contributions to the projects.

International Collaborative Literature Project 2004-05

2004-2005 International Collab. Lit. Project with Neveh Channah, Israel – partners with Melissa Weglein (teacher) and Reuven Werber (educational technology coordinator)

Timeline and Participants

This project began in October 2004 and was completed in March 2005. For this project, twenty-three of my grade 10 English students were involved in this exchange. Melissa’s students were also in grade 10. My students were mixed gender – LCC is a coed school – while Neveh Channah is an all girls’ school. The collaborative literature project is a brainchild of the Israeli Pedagogical Network for Collaborative Learning which is under the umbrella of the Israeli State Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture.

Goals and Description of the Project

As both teachers had to cover poetry in our curriculum, we decided to choose the genre of popular music lyrics from our culture as the literature which we would explore and present to the other school.

We made a short video for the class from Neveh Channah and sent them a package. We also received a package from them early on in our exchange. We explored what made the culture of Canada unique through a “chalk talk” exercise on the interactive Smartboard in my classroom. Teenagers love their music so the plan to use music lyrics was popular. My students worked together in small teams to collect their information and write about the lyrics of the songs they chose and how the lyrics represent Canadian Culture. Each group also had to write a brief description of their perspective of Canadian history. This challenged them to try and recall the information from their course in Canadian History the year before! The students were assessed on their writing skills and again I used the online learning rubric to evaluate their performance.

Technologies Used

The teachers met through web videoconferences in order to plan the stages and themes of the project. The students initially used Nicenet to make their introductions and exchange information about themselves. Later, we switched to a public forum so their interactions and responses to the literature could be viewed. A small video capture of one of our webcam conferences for this project can be viewed here.

Feedback from one of my students:

Utilizing the Internet forum provided to us by our teachers, we were able to communicate, and experience a culture different to our own. We learnt the history of Israel, and the Holy Land; Jerusalem, we shared poems and lyrics from our favorite songs, and we were able to respond, interjecting our own opinions. This experience proved to be both enjoyable, and enlightening; we were introduced to new philosophies and ways of life. – Elliot C.

International Collaborative Literature Project 2005-06

2005-2006 International Collab. Lit. Proj. with Neveh Channah, Israel – partners with Leorah Addi (teacher) and Reuven Werber (educational technology coordinator)

Timeline and Participants

This year, we decided to work with the genre of short stories. We began in late September of 2005. I have 23 gr. 10 English students participating and Leorah has twenty students. We are not entirely finished this project yet; however, my students’ website work is completed. The next stage will begin in the next month when our students read over the web materials and respond to each others’ work.

Goals and Description of the Project

This project used a cooperative learning approach. That is, the students worked in groups with peers from their own school to create materials that would later be presented to the students from the other school. The students would then interact and respond to the products in the moodle LMS. Again this year, the project was managed by the Israeli Pedagogical Network for Collaborative Learning.

Leorahh from Neveh Channah created an assignment and an assessment rubric for her students. I also created her specifications for the assignment as well as an assessment rubric that was distributed to the students and posted in the FirstClass course area.

Leorah, Reuven and I met on several occasions during July and August of 2005. It was decided that short stories would be used for this year's project. Leorah chose "The Name" by Aharon Megged for the Neveh Channah students to read and present to the LCC students. I chose "The Hockey Sweater" by Roch Carrier, which is a beloved children's story that is also a parable of the two solitudes of French and English cultures in Canada and in Québec in particular. I wanted a second story and found "Everyone Talks Loudly in Chinatown" by Anne Jew; however, the students suggested "David", a famous Canadian poem featuring two teenage hikers who face a tragedy while hiking in the Canadian Rockies. The students were asked to vote for their choice in the LMS and explain and justify their choice. The responses were so impressive for both pieces of literature that we decided to present both pieces to the girls in Israel.

The students made their introductions to each other in late September and early October.

In mid-October, tragedy struck the community of Neveh Channah and Etzion Bloc when Palestinian terrorists opened fire and killed three young people in a drive-by shooting. It was the first act of terrorism since the Gaza withdrawal. The students from LCC reacted and responded with deep sympathy for their new friends in Israel. For the Canadian students, it was an authentic learning experience to be personally touched by an event that took place thousands of miles from their own country.

Technologies Used:

Once again, the teachers met over the summer of 2005 using a webcam for a videoconference meeting. The students used the moodle environment - the LCC LMS to communicate and collaborate. Reuven and I had not been pleased with the online conference areas we had used in the past and tested a few others available for educational uses. As an experiment, we tried out the moodle software which was put on my web server. It worked even better than expected and supported our learning goals very well.

Student Feedback from the projects

International Collaborative Literature Project 2005-06

2005-2006 International Collab. Lit. Proj. with Rabin High School, Israel – partners with Nellie Deutsch (teacher)

Timeline and Participants

We began the collaborative project in late September of 2005 and completed it in early February of 2006. LCC had 23 students participating and Rabin has 28 students participating. This project was also managed by the Israeli Pedagogical Network for Collaborative Learning.

Goals and Description of the Project

I also partnered with a second school this year for the same IPNCL project. My match was with Rabin High School in Tel Mond, Israel and my teaching partner was Nellie Deutsch. Our students worked collaboratively on teams made up of both schools to complete a WebQuest project on the novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry. A collaborative learning approach was used for this project.

Nellie and I met in early September to discuss their approach to this project. Nellie had created a webquest based The Giver, by Lois Lowry, for her students the year before. This short novel explores the concepts of utopia and societal expectations which fit in quite well with LCC's grade 10 English course theme of self-maturation and independence. The assignment for each team can be found on the webquest website as well as the rubrics used for assessment.

The students introduced themselves in the LMS in October and responded to the satirical essay Nacirema as a way of exploring viewpoint and cultural differences.

While our students initially seemed to enjoy the social exchange back and forth between schools and students, they experienced a great deal of difficulty coping with the degree of collaboration that this project required. Both sets of students were frustrated at times when team members did not respond to requests for help or when there was a significant time lag between responses. This was discouraging for them and affected the amount of trust that is necessary when relying on other team members to complete tasks. Because of time issues, I finally had to gather my students’ work and email it to the other teacher for her students to collect and work with rather than wait any longer for students to either take responsibility for group work or respond to requests for help. I have spent a good deal of time reflecting and trying to analyze why things did not go well with this particular exchange; however, overall it was a probably quite a few factors that contributed to its lack of success. One major factor that I observed had also emerged in my own thesis research. Academically successfully students who have mastered our current system of education are not always comfortable switching approaches to learning especially when it comes to using technology as a tool to communicate and collaborate. It is difficult for them to trust in the abilities of someone they have not really met face-to-face. At times these students felt threatened and lacked the motivation to try and overcome the hurdles that this kind of communication could raise. This has been an immense learning experience for us and I hope my students and I will benefit from it in the future.

Technologies Used

Nellie and I communicated through Skype, Talking Communities and Google Talk. In early January, we were also able to arrange a one-hour online synchronous conference called hotconference between the two sets of classes using audio and an interactive whiteboard. Nellie had created a PowerPoint presentation and we presented the assignment to both classes simultaneously in real time. This way the students could ask questions of each other and of the teachers.

Global Classroom Project: Canada and New Zealand

Oct. – Dec. 2005 - Global Partnership with New Zealand - Karen Fahy from Cashmere High School in Christchurch, New Zealand

Goals and Participants

This project was initiated by Karen Fahy of Cashmere High School in Christchurch, NZ. The goal of the project was to have her students who were studying web design, use our grade 7 English class as clients for whom they were designing webpages. The twenty-one LCC students posed questions about life in New Zealand and other such topics to the Cashmere students so the twenty-five Cashmere students could effectively design webpages which would contain the required information. This was a very short project in duration because NZ students break for summer in early December.

Our students were broken into groups in order to facilitate better communication with each other. Later, each of the groups of LCC students were given videocameras and asked to go around the school and videotape what life was like for us in Canada at our school. I was very impressed with the footage they took of school life. Most of them were excellent hosts showing off our school to our guests. Some of those videos can be seen on the website mentioned above.

Technologies Used

Karen and I used Skype, Google Chat and Talking Communities to communicate for our audio meetings. The moodle LCC LMS was used by the students as the environment they used to communicate with each other.

Mystery Stories - GVC Team 12

2005-06 – GVC Team 12 – partnering with David Hellam at Kuwait English School in Kuwait and Donna DeSena at School-in-the-Park in Sarasota, Florida

Timeline and Participants

My grade 7 English class of 18 students has been working with about 12 students each from Kuwait and Sarasota since mid-October 2005. We agreed early on that wanted a project that was rich in language arts skills and that focused on literature. By late November, we decided that our students would write interactive mystery stories for the website this year. We chose to have the students collaboratively write four different mystery stories, one team per story. Although the contest requires us to use Nicenet to communicate, in order to facilitate the writing process we created four wikis from the wiki module in moodle and have been using the moodle area to create these mystery stories. The contest end date is late March so our collaboration is just getting into full swing as we are trying to assemble the stories for the webpages.The students seem to enjoy using the wiki spaces to write their stories. We have had well over 50 versions of the stories and the process is continuing.

Technologies Used

I am the team leader for the group this year again and have insisted on weekly meetings for the teachers using the Talking Communities conference area. Although the Kuwaiti part of our team has experienced various setbacks this year due to the politics of Kuwait, David is usually at our meetings and often must resort to just instant messaging. The students are using Nicenet for their communication and the moodle LMS for their creation of their wiki mystery stories.

The greatest three things needed in the world today are cooperation, unity and understanding. - Anonymous

Technology tools:

The collaborative project with which I have participated has either used Nicenet online conferencing tool or the moodle that was set up on my server this past year. Both environments do a great job at providing communication spaces for students to communicate asynchronously. The advantages of the moodle over Nicenet are that it permits students to create personal profiles including photos; it permits the creation of online self-marking quizzes; it facilitates surveys and choices; it has a calendar feature that can be personalized; and it has a sleeker, more attractive interface for the user. The students had no difficulty navigating through the moodle and seemed to enjoy using it.

It is quite easy nowadays to use audio conference software in order to facilitate real-time synchronous discussions and meetings. My partners and I have used Skype, Google Talk, MSN, and Talking Communities in order to facilitate communication between us. For me, it is infinitely preferable to using instant messaging. Although it was difficult at times to speak with those in New Zealand because they are still on a dial-up connection, for the most part, audio conferences have presented few issues.

Promotion of collaboration:

Now that we have stable and safe environments for our students to communicate easily either asynchronously or in real-time, facilitating effective collaboration is a much more challenging issue. I always first introduce my students to the principles of good netiquette behaviour and remind them of our school’s acceptable use policies. Even if students are writing from home, they are still representing their class, school and country. Also, moderation is needed within the environments. If the students need to be drawn out to clarify their ideas, I try to go in and challenge them to present their ideas more effectively or, often, to think more critically about the issues. Praise and encouragement always go a long way as well. Students need to be affirmed and validated for their expressed ideas.

 

MELS in Québec

First, let me state that the cultural context in which I live is one where English is the minority language. The Ministère de l’Éducation, Loisirs, et Sports du Québec is in the midst of curricular reform and has not yet released its new criteria for middle and high school subjects. The emphasis for its recent curricular reform for elementary school students has included recommendations for a high degree of project-based learning, authentic learning and portfolio assessments, and a stress on differentiated learning styles.

The Value of Integrated Projects

Initially, when I began participating in collaborative online learning projects, I was teaching several courses to the same students. This permitted me to design projects which would integrate computer studies, introduction to technology, English and biology. I very much enjoyed doing that because it provided the students with rich, authentic learning experiences that would stretch their skills in a number of areas in one project. It provided me with more class time, as well, in order to provide adequate time for the students to carry out their projects and for me to give face-to-face feedback.

Teaching One Subject Area

Now I am in a more challenging environment where I teach only English. At my school, we are required to integrate technology whenever appropriate and we have rich resources to do so. While I strongly believe that we should be providing learning opportunities for our students for multiple literacies (i.e. written, spoken, highly visual, spatial, linguistic, and iconic/signistic), it is sometimes difficult to convince our school administrators and parents of the value of these newer digital literacies.

However, the course description for the courses I currently teach include these criteria which fit very nicely into the collaborative literature projects:

• Responds to themes and style in literature
• Learns to synthesize materials, thoughts, and ideas by reading and writing various styles of writing
• Is able to vary one’s writing skills by attempting different styles of writing
• Edits and assesses own work and that of peers
• Close reading of texts
• Communicates both orally and in writing, using subject-appropriate style/syntax and specific vocabulary
• Articulates ideas in a clear organized structure for a variety of contexts and audiences
• Respects the community and environment
• Listens actively
• Conducts a discussion without dominating or interrupting
• Respects members of LCC community

• Separates the person from the argument during discussions
• Works cooperatively in groups to formulate presentations
• Develops a consensus among members of a team
• Solves problems using teamwork
• Learns the value of teamwork in producing better solutions

I have found that these collaborative projects have allowed learners who may be ordinarily academically challenged in our regular classrooms to shine and grow. In fact, I have found that it has been the students who are most traditionally learning challenged who are the most enthusiastic and excited about this kind of learning opportunity! As well, these collaborative projects are usually team-driven which permits students to participate at the areas in which they have the most success (i.e. by providing artwork or design and layout).

Assessment of student projects is necessary for feedback and improvement. The beauty of online communication is that one has a record of it to return to easily time and again. I go over the rubric(s) I use for assessment during class time so that I know that they are aware of what is required of them.

This rubric was created for the collaborative literature project 2005-06. It was especially important to me that critical thinking and skills in literary analysis be evaluated. These are the timeless skill sets that we can offer to our students participating in these kinds of projects. This rubric, created for this year's international collaborative literature project is an example of such assessment.

I had created a rubric for online participation first for my thesis study about collaborative online learning which was later used for most of the projects. This online participation rubric is my own creation after spending time searching for such rubrics and researching what necessary components it should contain. To me, it still represents the best model of a rubric for this purpose. I have willingly shared it with many educators in the last few years.

As well, for many of the projects, I ask the students to provide reflective feedback at the end of the project.

No man is an island, entire of itself - John Donne

For me, this is one of the areas that is the most difficult to assess some of which can never or should be evaluated. These outcomes cover the area of virtuous living and global citizenship.

One of the most touching moments for me took place this past year. We were just getting to know our partners in Israel in mid-October. The nation of Israel had just been through a very trying time as the Israelis withdrew from Gaza and other areas as a concession to peace with the Palestinians. This was a very emotional issue for the Israelis. I had explained this to my students earlier and had also explained that some Israelis felt only a deep sense of betrayal by their government and we explored what that might feel like. Our own Québeçois culture is one of tenuous compromise between the French and English and we are in the minority group. One of my students is from a Mohawk Native Canadian background and remembers well our own recent crisis of the government reclaiming Native land. On a day that I could not be at school due to illness, I received word that a terrorist attack – a drive-by shooting of three innocent victims - had taken place in the very Israeli community with which we were matched. It was the first attack since the Gaza withdrawal; it was just a sickening feeling to know what my friends in Israel must be going through. I knew that my students would be taken to the computer lab that day to work on the project, so I left them a message to read about the attack on the links I provided and I asked them to create a message expressing their sympathy to their new friends in Israel. Their messages were unbelievably sincere and touching. I was so proud of them and impressed with their abilities to reach outside themselves to express their grief and sorrow.

Some examples:

After reading this news article, I was shocked and ashamed. Shock at the fact that there are people who would kill other people to sow fear and terror. Shame that human beings could do this to other human beings. It feels to me that some people are becoming inured to all of the attacks occuring around the world, and I was afraid I was becoming one of them. However, now that this has happened near where you, our correspondents, live, I feel a greater connection to what has happened. - Michael Thehoriwathe D.

First and foremost the events that take place in and around Israel are acts of cowardice acts of terrorism. The event that took place in the Etzion Bloc is a tragedy to all whom live or have a connection to that area. I cannot believe how brave all of you are. To live with such and honour and bravery, and to show the terrorists that you do not fear them. To everyone in your community, parents, children, teachers and students, you demonstrate incredible bravery and tenacity. – Sonny M.

Student reflections and feedback on the collaborative literature project:

Throughout the course of this project, I learned and developed a friendship with a group of girls in Israel. I sort of got a first hand view of the tragedies in Israel. Next year, when I’m in Israel for the March of the Living maybe I will be able to organize a meeting with all of the people from Nevah Chanah. Another advantage of having this project was the technology; I became more familiar with technology, in particular web design. I learned how to design a template. This project is one that I will not forget. - Jonathan E.

This project gave me a taste of what it was like to live in Israel. Both groups exchanged information about what life was in their country. It also taught me not to take life for granted. I enjoy a very safe environment here, but the danger in Israel is a lot greater and we saw that with the sniper story. This project really opened my eyes and taught me to appreciate life a lot more. Both groups learned a lot from each other and I recommend that this project remains in the grade 10 curriculum. - Eric A.

More students' feedback from the 2005-2006 project

Teachers' Feedback from the 2005-2006 project

Students' feedback from GVC Project 2003-04

Testimonials from students and former students

I have often told my administrators and others that my participation in these international online collaborative projects has been the best form of professional development that I have ever experienced. The teachers with whom I have collaborated freely shared their areas of expertise with me and some of them continue to pass on articles, links, resources, and advice to me. Having friends around the world like them is the best filter of the really good stuff!

Working with teachers from around the world also gives me a glimpse into trends and patterns of education. This has been valuable as I can pass on this information to my own administrators and fellow teachers. It has also provided me with an edge to understanding technology and its impact on education and learners. This knowledge has enabled me to go forward within my own teaching career. At my school, I am recognized as a “mentor-in-training” for our technology initiative. As well, I have recently been asked to provide technology training to my fellow teachers as we are a school that is moving to the laptop model next year.

Non Nobis Solum (Not for ourselves alone)

This Latin saying is our school motto at Lower Canada College and it has often struck me how very apropos it is for online collaborative learning. At the very heart of collaborative learning is the philosophy that we are bettered through working together; that our product will be greater than the sum of its parts. I have found this to be very true as I have worked with a number of excellent teachers and students. It has been my pleasure to work with those who truly excel in their profession of teaching and who believe in the abilities of their students.

Online collaboration with other teachers is tough work. Sometimes the hours are long and one must always be checking their email to be on hand for their teaching partners if a special need arises. Sometimes there are cultural misunderstandings that need to be worked out. Sometimes one must challenge their partner with tough issues. Open and frequent communication is very important. It is tough to have to say to your partner that one of their students is being perceived in a negative fashion because of their online behaviour.

As tough as it is though, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Usually I am able to work out any problems I have had with my partners and I have had to learn to the fine art of diplomatic wording of emails. And I can only imagine how many times my partners have had to do the same with me!

I have also learned recently that not all students appreciate being involved in an online collaborative learning project. Some see it as “too much technology” and are easily frustrated with the lack of instant communication that online forums cannot provide. Students today, especially in the developed nations, are so accustomed to the instant gratification of instant messaging that they do not see value in the asynchronous formats. I have found that it is usually the academically successful students who do not value or appreciate the multiple literacy and global citizenship skills that these projects offer. It is a challenge to overcome these students’ resistance to these kinds of projects. I hope that I will be able to better communicate the learning goals and advantages of online collaborative learning to my next set of learners who are reticent participants.

In order to promote my projects and the advantages of online collaborative learning, I have made the following presentations:

April 2005 – presentation at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) on my thesis work of online collaborative learning for high school students using a blended approach

April 2005 – presentation of the International Collaborative Literature Project at Springboards Language Arts Conference held at McGill University (see the video presentation)

October 2005 – presentation of “Personal Displays of Connection” to 80 faculty members at Lower Canada College. This presentation explored the various online learning environments which exist and offered appropriate usages for each.

Sept.2005 – Feb. 2006 – regular presentations of technology implementation at Mentors-in-Training monthly meetings

Dec. 2005 – presentation of Global Classroom Project: Canada and New Zealand for graduate course in Social Computing at Concordia University

Feb. 2006 – web poster presentation at Illinois Online Conference :

Feb. 2006 – presentation of International Collaborative Literature Project at Canada-wide IT Directors mini-conference :

As well, I have recently been asked to help with LCC staff technology training. Informally, I am often asked to help mentor teachers who require help with technology tools and online communication. None of which I have mentioned is included as part of my official job description; it is my pleasure to provide these examples of additional support as a way of helping out my educational community.

We are fortunate at our school to have FirstClass as our communication server. This enables students to easily email for help or clarification on their school work. FirstClass also acts as a repository of information as it permits us to upload documents and files for storage and shared use. This has helped out incredibly this past year for several of our projects. My students know they can email me for help outside of class time and I will be quick to reply. This also permits me to challenge my students to better their performance outside of regular class time.

I now know enough about how to easily create a webpage or edit a video, so I have shared the basics to these skills to my students especially when we are working on a project. Our school has several well-equipped computer labs as well as a laptop cart. We also have smartboards in our classrooms. I am able to model how I want my students to use an environment or how to use a piece of software on the smartboard and then either move them to the computer lab or use the laptop cart so they can continue on their own. At that point, if they still need help, I can move around and help them individually at their computer.

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated - John Donne

Thesis - Pioneering Online Collaborative Learning for high school students using a blended approach

As I am putting the finishing touches to my thesis which is about online collaborative learning, I want very much to include a list of strategies that I have found to be successful and provide practical tips and advice for other teachers.

Supervising Teacher role

Between October and December of 2005, I had the privilege of being a supervising teacher to a student teacher, Julie Bown, from McGill University. With her exposure to four of my projects, she has caught the vision of the power of online collaborative learning and has said that she will actively seek out similar opportunities for her students when she has a class of her own. Julie was an invaluable aid during her time with me and did some of her own marvelous work in creating a webquest and facilitating project-based learning activities.

Inspiration for others

One of my fellow grad students at Concordia University, Sara Iatauro, is also a classroom teacher watched as I participated with the GVC contest between 2003-04 and decided to participate herself in last year's contest. She was quite excited when her team placed second overall and her students were just thrilled.

Another way in which I share my experiences and discoveries with others is through my blog, Musings. For over eight months now, I have created blog entries in which I explore current trends of educational thought and research as well as new social computing tools that I think have educational merit. I also blogged extensively at the Laptop Institute Conference last year in Memphis. It has been a wonderful artifact to share with my colleagues and others as it is rich in linked resources and presentations.

This past week has been very busy for me as I made three presentations (a record for me!) on collaborative online learning. Two of the presentations were to my fellow staff members at Lower Canada College. The word is getting out about some of my projects and teachers are now informally asking me about how moodle or a blog can help them in their teaching practices.

 

The Global SchoolNet offers an impressive set of resources and collaborative opportunities for teachers. I wish I had heard of this organization some time ago as it provides such rich support for those of us who are working so hard in this area.

As I reflect on which direction to take with future online collaborative learning projects, I have been challenged to explore projects which will explore global issues that impact so many of us around the world. These would include such topics as global warming and environmental issues, third-world development and empowerment, the digital divide and education for all. These are the areas that I would like to see my students grapple with and through which improve their critical thinking and problem-solving skills with collaborative partners in other cultures. It is so important for our young people to think outside themselves and see a way in which they can contribute to a better world for all of us.

While the GSN Tool list includes many good resources, some new social computing tools could be included in it, particularly for those looking for cheap or free alternatives. For that list, I would certainly recommend the open source software moodle which has been the backbone to my projects this year. As one who does not code or program, moodle has been very easy to use and administrate. The moodle software provides a safe and stable environment for students to collaborate and exchange documents. A server is required to host it, but this is usually not a difficult thing to arrange.

Some other tools that should be included:

Audacity - freeware for audio editing - very easy to use!

Irfan View (PC) - utility

Graphic converter (mac)

The Gimp - like Photoshop - open source

NVu - open source WYSIWYG web design program

Quia - Online quiz maker

Hot Potatoes - free quiz maker for educators for online use - integrates well with moodle

podcast maker

archive.org - for free creative commons music

blogmeister - free safe educational blogging environment provided by David Warlick

As I explore all the corners of the GSN website with its various opportunities, I look forward to discovering appropriate media- and content-rich opportunities for future exchanges with schools from around the world.