My Journey through your Eyes.

Since September the children at Woodford and Meadowbank have been working on a joint project. The aim was to explore the journeys they made and learn more about each others world as well as the collaborative aspect of the task. The project started with the children recording audio logs of a journey they had made and these were then emailed to our partners in Plymouth or Auckland, where the children listened to them and made notes about the journey. The next stage was to use these notes and search for images which could be used to illustrate each journey. The audio files and images were collated and edited in Movie Maker to create a short film, " My Journey through your Eyes". Examples of the finished films are here for all to see. Enjoy!

The students at Meadowbank have been working on the audio files that the students at Woodford have sent to us. Here are our interpretations, so far. We have had some trouble with some things, we had to research what a pastie is and what or where Bodmin is! We all assume that we all know the same things, I am sure that we have spoken about places and things that you at Woodford have not the faintest clue about. This is interesting and maybe we need to be more careful how we explain things in the future. We need to paint pictures with words, so that we can all understand each other. This project has been very exciting and has thrown up all kinds of issues based on assumptions!

Lessons around the World!

The last couple of week have seen some really exciting developments in the links between staff and children at Woodford Junior and Meadowbank Primary. Here at Woodford the Year 4 children have been taught by the IT Director of Meadowbank, David Kinane! How, you may ask is this possible? 11,000 miles between us and a thirteen hour time difference. The power of technology and ever increasing Web 2.0 tools meant that those miles and hours disappeared in cyber space! A Skrbl board for demonstrating and communicating, a webcam, a microphone and a free video call via Skype enabled David to teach the children how to use vector graphics program Inkscape.



During the first sessions the children were "shy" and did not communicate with their New Zealand Teacher, however the second sessions saw such inhibitions disappear and dialogue taking place.



The lesson created great interest here, with the local newpaper printing an article, as well as a small note in a national paper the following day. Governors, staff and Local Authority representatives were all amazed at how the children took the lesson in their stride.

They (the students) seem to just accept there is someone teaching them that is half way around the world and 13 hours ahead - I find it absolutely amazing - must be my age!! (Jill Bailley International Development officer for Plymouth)

We hope that is the beginning of many such lessons. Helen Hardie is already looking forward to teaching in New Zealand in 2008.

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The slideshow above reaveals the interaction between David and the Woodford children as well as the spiders they created under his instruction. We hope to publish those here once they are completed! Arachnophobes look away!

The videos below captured some of the sessions from the Woodford ICT Suite.