Onlineconnections

[Anthony Armstrong]

Jennifer Dorman and I are planning a collaborative project between her class in Pennsylvania and my class here in South Korea. We Skyped a few weeks ago and came up with a project idea. We still have to fine tune the structure of it, but this is pretty much the general idea.


Obj: Create a South Korea tourism webpage , or wiki, in which the layout and design of the project is managed by Ms. Doorman's class and the pictures, video, and information to be included in the project is provided by my students here in Korea.

Rather than thinking of our students as "classes" for this project, they will be thought of as businesses/companies. Ms. Doorman's company will outsource all of the needed pictures and video that are going to be included in this project to the students in my class, or 'company,' here in Korea. Once our 'company' receives that 'order' its employees [students] will go out and fill it. Students will have to communicate and collaborate well as well as establish deadlines so the project can continually move forward.

The following list is an early brainstorm of the tools both companies could use to construct this project:

http://www.flickr.com/ or http://picasaweb.google.com/ = for posting photos
http://bubbl.us/ = for brainstorming and mind mapping
http://www.diigo.com/ = for bookmarking and annotating
http://www.slideshare.net/ = for posting slide show presentations
http://voicethread.com/ = for merging images with audio files (podcast-style)
http://www.eyespot.com/ = for editing video
http://web.splashcast.net/catalog/search.aspx = for aggregating all our videos into one player (alternative to YouTube custom players)
http://docs.google.com/ = for working together on shared documents (like scripts)

Possible problems:

Students in Korea not being able to keep up with the demand of students in America due to the larger number of students participating in Ms. Doorman's class as opposed to Mr. Armstrong's class. A possible solution may be recruiting additional classes at K.I.S. to join in.

Completing this project in the short time frame that Ms. Doorman has her students for. I will have the same group of students all year. Ms. Doorman's students will not.

Remembering to keep our first attempt at this simple.

[Anthony Armstrong]

Possible topics for the students to research:

Language, money, clothing, cultural buildings, religion, customs & etiquette, transportation, entertainment, directions, education.

Outstanding Questions:

How will the students place their orders? Do we want to create a standard order form for the kids to use, or just let the students figure out their own method for communicating and collaborating on ideas to get things done?

Do we want to break the tasks for the creation of this project into smaller groups that would contain of mixture of American & Korean students. These students would form a group Ning within the Onlineconnections Ning site and could focus on just one topic such as language, money, or cultural etiquette.

Can bubbl.us be embeded into a wiki?

[Mandie]

This sounds like a really great collaborative project. I look forward to seeing the results of it.

[Jennifer Dorman]

Here is what we are developing in terms of project specifics:

http://snipurl.com/1w4ib

[Anthony Armstrong]

Here are some "Preparing for Life Abroad" websites we might be able to use for added thoughts and ideas.

Transitions Abroad.com
Preparing for Life Abroad
Going Abroad: Where to Begin