I've enlisted a few of my students to participate in the Horizon Project. The Horizon Project is a large-scale global collaboration project involving students from around the world. The Project was inspired by Thomas Friedman's influential book, The World is Flat, published in 2005. It's cool that a few of my students have the chance to participate in such a large project.
The second issue of our new digital literary magazine, Space, is officially out. Huge props to PABLO for designing the site and creating all the page logos! In our second issue, we have students from Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Utah, Georgia, New York City, Massachusetts, Maryland, and even a student from South Korea. (Thanks Soojin!)
We've used the new Youth Twitter Network to promote Space. Youth Twitter is a new site that allows students and teachers to communicate with one another about what they're up to in the classroom. Students "submit" their digital creations by posting url's to their work on Youth Twitter. We then take all the url's and put them into Space.
A few months ago, I wrote this post about our global collaborative story my students and I started titled, @manyvoices, using Twitter.com. Over 100 students in six different countries contributed to our project. Students from the USA, Canada, England, Qatar, China, and Thailand helped us with this project.
My students and I started a new digital literary magazine called space. In our first issue, we've collected digital art, animation, music, poetry, prose and short stories from middle school students in Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts.
We plan to publish several editions of space throughout the rest of this school year. We also will experiment with different formats for space. We may use Google Page Creator for the next issue.
It's still hard to believe that 677 students from around the world took part in our Many Voices for Darfur project. My students and I started the project a month ago with Wendy Drexler's 3rd graders in Florida to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide taking place in Darfur. The project was a huge success. 677 k-12 students visited the Many Voices for Darfur blog in two days and left respectful, thoughtful, well-written comments. Students from different locations also created a variety of Darfur multi-media projects leading up to the event. (special thanks to The Blurb!)
This is a great example of showing students the power of using the web for social action. It also was a good opportunity to talk about commenting online on an important issue with the appropriate tone and language. Students expressed a wide variety of opinions. However, they are all respectful, even when disagreeing with one another. Wendy Drexler and I moderated every comment before it was posted online. We didn't have to reject a single comment. I think that is remarkable, and clearly shows that teachers can trust students to publish online responsibly.
Last week, we printed all 677 comments for a Darfur hallway exhibit outside my classroom. The comments and large Darfur signs we created will be a constant reminder to us for the rest of the year that although our project is over, the genocide is not.
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.Elie Wiesel
In a way, we decided to take sides when we launched Many Voices for Darfur, a global collaboration project. Wendy Drexler and I asked our students an unsettling question: What is our responsibility to help end the genocide in Darfur? The answer we came up we with: spreading awareness.
So for 48 hours, starting at midnight EST on March 6th, many student voices will be collected in the name of those suffering in Darfur. We are asking k-12 students around the world to visit our Many Voices for Darfur blog and leave thoughtful, well-written comments. It is our hope that hundreds or even thousands of students will come together to help raise awareness about the first genocide of the 21st century.
Want to get involved? It's incredibly easy to participate. Students simply visit the Many Voices for Darfur blog during the 48 hours and leave comments addressing one of the prompts listed on the homepage. For more detailed instructions, visit our Many Voices for Darfur Wiki. To learn more about Darfur, check out our Resources Wiki Page.
Mr. Moses, a teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, made a short YouTube video describing the project for his students. He makes a request for multi-media projects that students could share and link to starting on March 6th.
Our Exploding Walls Project was an experiment in breaking through the walls of the traditional classroom. My students created content with the explicit purpose of sharing it with a larger audience. For this project, students used Google Docs, Google Page Creator, Edublogs, Animoto, andVoicethread. All of these tools are free.
I collected all the student project links and published them using a Google docs page title, "The Exploding Walls Project."
We shot the video using a $100.00 Flip Video Camera . We found the background explosion sounds used in the video at The Freesound Project. Here are direct links to the sounds we used to create our video:
If you want students to read, you have to provide them with reading material they are genuinely interested in. After two grant requests and one car wash, Mr. Stelzner, Ms. Pilgrim, me, and 14 of our 8th grade students met today at lunch over pizza to kick off our new Urban Fiction book club. We're meeting once a week during lunch to informally discuss the books the students have chosen to read.
It's really exciting watching middle school students eagerly choose from an assortment of new books. Hopefully, this is just the beginning. We'd like to expand our book club next year to include other genres middle schoolers connect with.
