Olympics: Connecting with Athletes

Another important part of our Olympics inquiry has been learning about Canadian Olympic athletes.  Students were really excited to hear that locally-trained figure skaters, Paige Lawrence & Rudi Swiegers, would be going to the Olympics.  This was our first athlete connection in this Olympics inquiry, so we spent some time "getting to know" these athletes.  We checked out their Twitter account, watched videos of their qualifying performances and found out as much as we could about them.  Students requested that we send them questions on Twitter and we were thrilled when Rudi & Paige replied!  The students now refer to Rudi & Paige on a first-name basis and ask me daily "Can we watch some videos of Rudi and Paige?" or "Can we send Rudi and Paige a Tweet?"   The power of social media to connect us to others is incredible!  Since we're such big fans of Rudi & Paige, I've started watching for newspaper articles, videos and online material that relates to their Olympic journey and I've been saving them on my Olympics Diigo list to share with my class!

We've also made connections with some other athletes.  Mr. Obach (my husband and fellow teacher) sent us a link on Twitter that explained Hayley Wickenheiser would carry the Canadian flag at the Olympics.  Students really understood that carrying the flag would be a special job and my students were excited to find her on Twitter and send a Tweet congratulating her!  Mrs. Caldwell and the Oak Lake Kindergartens had made connections of their own with athlete Mellissa Hollingsworth and Tweeted us a video interview to watch. We are really excited to continue learning about Olympic athletes!