Global Read Aloud Connections

I've been participating for many years, but the Global Read Aloud remains one of my favourite learning activites of the year! The idea is that classrooms around the world read the same book on the same schedule and then make connections with partner classes in a different location to learn and share. I believe these connections are the most powerful part of the project!

This year in Park West School Division, a number of classes participated in the Global Read Aloud and made connections in various ways. Our students have sent postcards digitally or on paper, made Padlet posts online to discuss the book, participated in video discussion on Flip and met online via video conferencing to talk about the books and learn about each other.

One class got to experience an extra-special connection this week!

Ms. Courchene’s Grade 5 class had the incredible opportunity connect with their Global Read Aloud partner classes in New York to meet author Jarrett Lerner online for a Q&A session!

The students in both locations read A Work in Progress by Jarrett Lerner and connected online via Padlet throughout the 6 weeks of the Global Read Aloud to discuss the book. We were so excited when our partners in New York asked if we'd like to join their video call with the author!

The Grade 5s in each location created some great questions to find out more about the author and the process of creating the book.  We had watched some of Jarrett Lerner's Behind the Scenes videos about the book and used that information to revise and improve our questions.  We wanted to ask questions that he hadn't already answered in his videos or on his blog. 

I am super proud of the thoughtful questions that the Grade 5s created!  Students were brave about speaking up to ask the questions they'd planned and it was very interesting for all of us to hear Jarrett's answers.  

To put in perspective what a unique opportunity this is: I’ve been participating in Global Read Aloud since 2014 (with my own class and then with other classes as a tech coach) and this is the first time I’ve ever had the chance to meet a GRA author!  What a special experience!

Digital Publishing with Decker Colony Students

In my role as Literacy with ICT Teacher Leader for PWSD, I am fortunate to work in lots of great classrooms.   One class that I have worked with recently is Mr. Elias Wipf's Grade 7-9 ELA class at Decker Colony School.   This group of students decided to tackle a special writing project this year.   Their goal was to collaboratively write short stories and publish them digitally.   Their books are now available online and they have printed a copy for their school library.   The quality of their work is absolutely exceptional, so I'd encourage you to check out the books using the links below!

The Fish Said by Grace and Carrie Waldner

The 3 Little Swines by Daniel and Alex Waldner

Unsuspecting by Renae Wipf, Tamar Waldner, Adelheid Waldner and Natalya Waldner 

I have already written quite a bit about publishing digital books on this blog.  If you are interested in digital book creation, you can read more about the process in this post. You can also check out this post to see some more samples and read about why I think students should publish their writing.  A few things to note about the Decker Grades 7-9 books:

• Collaboration:  Students worked with their grade-level peers to write the stories.  They used a shared document (Google Doc) to write collaboratively.
• Planning: In addition to planning their stories, students also used a storyboard to plan the layout of their books.   Developing a storyboard allowed students to plan the illustrations they would need.   Having the storyboards helped students put their text and artwork together in the digital book by following the plan for which pages would contain text and which pages would contain illustrations. 
• Artwork:  The artwork included in these books is excellent!  The students developed their illustrations on paper and a combination of photographing and colour scanning was used to digitize the photos.  
• Revision: The shared documents made ongoing revision easier.   Students and teachers could read, re-read, edit and revise.  The writing in these books was revised and refined a number of times based on peer editing and teacher editing.   

Global Read Aloud is Going Strong!

In my role as LwICT Teacher Leader for PWSD, one of the projects that I am supporting is Global Read Aloud.  Global Read Aloud is a wonderful global reading project started by Pernille Ripp.  Pernille's vision was to use one book to connect the world and, with over 2 million students involved this year, I think her project has done just that.   Students and teachers in PWSD are connecting with classes in other countries to share and learn.  This project aligns well with our PWSD goals; I have witnessed many great examples of "providing innovative learning opportunities" and "bringing the world to our students".  I will share below a few examples of how students and teachers in PWSD are connecting and collaborating for Global Read Aloud (GRA).

Mystery Skype 
Some classes have met their GRA partners through a Mystery Skype call.   Each class asks yes or no questions to determine where the other class is located (think 20 questions, but with a world map).   I was part of one of these calls and I heard grade 3/4 students asking questions like "Do you live in the United States?  Is your school in British Columbia?  Is your town south of Brandon, MB?"  Mystery Skype is a great way to build communication skills, apply mapping skills and learn about other people and places.

 
Book Discussions - Gone Global (or National or inter-city!)
Thanks to tools like Skype and Google Hangouts, our students are able to participate in book discussions with learners in other locations.  Many of our PWSD classrooms have had the chance to discuss their GRA book with a partner class in another province or country.   Through these discussions, students often hear new perspectives.  Students practice communication skills and learn how to collaborate using technology.  There are also opportunities for students to learn about other cultures, traditions and communities as learners are typically eager to get to know the partners that they will be learning with.

Mr. Langlois and his class at Waywayseecappo Community School meet their GRA partner class in Ohio for a book discussion. 

Collaborative Learning 
Students and teachers are using a variety of tools to support collaboration and cooperation between classes.  One example is having students from different classes respond to a discussion question or prompt using Padlet or FlipGrid.   These tools provide an option for posting online so that students can share their ideas with a wider audience and also gain from reading or viewing others' ideas.  Having students' ideas viewed by an "audience" outside of the classroom often motivates students to share their best work - whether it is a written response or a video response. 

Grade 7/8 students in Miniota share ideas with other classes by writing responses on a Padlet board

Twitter Chats 
Each week, a GRA class somewhere in the world leads a slow chat on Twitter for each book.   The class posts discussion questions using a hashtag and other participating classes from around the globe respond with their answers.  Again, students have the opportunity to share their ideas with a wide audience and they can read/view others' responses.  If you want to check out an example, search #GRAWild3 on Twitter.

Grade 8 students in Binscarth respond to Twitter chat questions about The Wild Robot

Postcard Exchange
Some classes have written postcards for their partner class or even set up pen pal exchanges.   The postcards are often designed by students and some have even included a QR code with a link to more information about the class, school or community.  

2017 Polar Bear Walk: A Retelling

To conclude  our polar bear project, we did some reflecting and summarizing after we held our WWF Polar Bear Walk at Brandon University.  We met on Skype with the OLCS Kindergartens who collaborated with us on this project.  We discussed the project and made a to do list of next steps for the project.  Our list included things like writing thank you cards to those who helped us and sharing the work from our project.  We also made a goal for each class to create something to showcase and reflect on the project.  The kindergartens decided to create a video.  Our grade 1 class chose to write a retelling about the project, since that is a text-type that we have been working on this year.  We worked together to collaboratively author the book, using photographs from the project as our pictures.

2017 Microsoft Education Exchange

I was thrilled to be selected to attend the 2017 Microsoft Education Exchange (E2) as a Microsoft Expert Educator Fellow.  The conference was hosted in Canada for the first time, with the venue being the classy Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, Ontario.  240 educators representing 83 different countries were in attendance.  It was a whirlwind of learning, sharing and networking.  

One of the highlights of this event was getting to know other educators. Team Canada included many talented and passionate teachers.  I really enjoyed working with all of them.  It was especially exciting to connect with some educators I have "known virtually" through social media, webinars and the Microsoft Educator Community.  Jim Pedrech and Ian Fogarty are two Canadian teachers who do great work with their students.  I've been hearing about their work for years and I finally got to meet them at E2!  I also had the chance to meet #WHOtoYOU leader Kaylyn Dorland, who I've connected with virtually in the last two years.  It was great to meet her face-to-face and I enjoyed touring her school, Queen of Heaven Elementary School, in Milton, ON.  There are many other educators from around the world that I was excited to meet and work with, but I'll refrain from writing a long list here...

Top: with Ian Fogarty, Middle: with Jim Pedrech, Bottom: with Kaylyn Dorland & Lia DeCicco-Remu

I coached an awesome collaborative group of ladies that were recognized for their work in the educator challenge.  This group was challenged to pitch an idea that would delocalize learning.  They were awarded second runner up in their category at the awards ceremony.  

Group 1: Susana (Costa Rica), Mary Catherine (USA), Meg (Canada), Jeanne (USA, Peta (Australia)

Engaging keynote speakers shared messages about education and Expert Educator Fellows shared breakout sessions on each day of the conference.   Hearing about the awesome work going on in classrooms around the world is so incredibly inspiring.  At the same time, this experience also makes me think about how much more we can do to transform education, inspire teachers and empower students!

Team Canada arriving at the awards gala.  Photo courtesy of Microsoft in Education.