Highlighting...International Collaborations

In This Issue

Videoconference for Hope
Changing Lives, Changing Attitudes

Videoconference for Hope

On Friday November 24th, from 8:30 in the morning until 8:00 at night, students from around the globe gathered at Queen Elizabeth High School, via Video Conference, to help raise awareness and funds for the building of the Godah Primary School for Girls and Boys, in Afghanistan. Twenty seven different schools, representing over 10,000 students from three different continents listened to speakers from international aid organizations, the United Nations, our troops in Afghanistan, and even a few of our own students. We listened to experts, debated issues, shared personal stories, sang, danced, and celebrated the opportunity we share to have an education, free of persecution and hardship.

Besides raising awareness for the plight of Children and Education in Afghanistan, the students sought to go farther. In light of the amazing opportunity they have for education in Western countries, the students set a goal of raising $10, 000 to contribute to the building of the Godah Primary School for Girls and Boys , in Afghanistan. To do this, they went out and asked individuals to contribute to their cause by sponsoring their participation in the conference. (For more information about the school and a video visit: http://www.us-arc.org/education_godah.asp.)

Participating schools were located in

• New York, New York
• Barry, Ontario, Canada
• St. Johns, NewFoundland Canada (over 3000 miles from Edmonton)
• London, England
• Kandahar, Afghanistan
• Twenty-three sites throughout the province of Alberta, Canada.

The Inspiration

  
The reason for this conference was to bring schools around the world together for a purpose, making a difference in the lives of Afghan girls. This conference proved that videoconferencing can extend beyond the curriculum and into the lives of real people.

The Background
Queen Elizabeth High School's involvement with Adopt Afghanistan began in September when they started planning their Remembrance Day ceremony. The school wanted to create a ceremony that would build a bridge between the past and the present, the textbook and real life, and their great-grandparents and their parents.

Outcomes
Our students felt that they made a difference in individuals’ lives, in a country half way around the world. For 24 hours, kids from around the world representing polarized socio-economic and geo-political backgrounds literally came face to face and proved that we aren’t as far apart as some would like us to believe.

Many of our students, teachers, and members of community and media were moved to tears, exhilarated by their realization that they were impacting the world and the lives of young girls in Afghanistan, and inspired by how those with whom they were conferencing already have impacted the lives of many less fortunate than themselves.

This project also spawned two other projects at different centers to raise money to support Godah Primary School for Girls and Boys: Buy-Brick, in which students each bought a brick of the school in Afghanistan, and Cans for Afghans, which raised money through collecting cans and bottles.

Students share
From students who participated in a session with refugees who now live in Canada:
"I had no idea anyone had to live like that. When one of the kids talked about how amazing it is to go to bed at night not fearing for his life, it just seemed real. This wasn’t some movie. He’s a real kid. I don’t it just seemed so real!"
- Student from Ontario

"When I asked girl about her family and she told us three of her family died in the war, I started to cry. I have a little brother and I can’t imagine him dying. I glad she’s safe in Canada."
- Student from England

"I totally want to do that when I grow up. I can’t believe he actually did those things. He came from Edmonton and is now changing the world. We have to get him back to the school again!"
- Student from Edmonton

Teachers share
" Thank you so much for organizing such an eye-opening event. My students were simply mesmerized be the technology at hand which can allow such connection with the world. Merci!"
- Teacher, Canmore, Alberta

"I just want to thank all of the organizers, participants and technical personnel for making today just an awesome experience for the staff and students at St. Joseph School. My 32 grade 5 kids were engaged for more than an hour this morning soaking up the experience. I saw grade 9 Junior high kids totally engaged for more than half an hour and some didn't even leave for lunch and gave up lunch break to take part in the session. I strongly believe this is the start of something awesome."
- Ken

"Thanks very much for allowing us to participate in your videoconference on Friday. It was excellent and also very exciting to be part of it. You must have put a lot of hard work into organizing the event. I hope that you got the weekend off! Please pass on our thanks to all who were involved at your end. The two student presenters were very professional. We would be very interested to receive any further information about your work to support education in Afghanistan."
- Rebecca

" Thank you to your entire team for being "brave" enough to organize today’s activities. It was a great opportunity to showcase some of our local students, but also a wonderful learning opportunity that reached different parts of the world. Your entire support team was great – helping us hook up when we were unable to do so. The presenting schools did a great job and I especially loved the featured student from Queen E and Rossalyn.

" My grade 6 class was a little disappointed that they were unable to interact in the morning (not sure why – I don’t think we were visible during the questions periods) but enjoyed the even none the less. They loved learning about Henna art and created some wonderful designs. (We cheated a little – I bought 20 make up pencils and they used these to create their designs. No mess and a quick clean up at the end!)

" Terry, I know that you put in many hours to make this happen so a BIG THANK YOU from Holyrood. I hope that Edmonton Public continues to pioneer the way and offer many more vc sessions for our students!"
- Suzanne

Lessons Learned
If you are considering creating a project of this magnitude, you will want to read Terry’s reflections below.

• At least 3 months are needed to plan an event like this. We brought it all together in 5 weeks. Way more time is needed!
• Create a team of at least 4 people.
• One for technicalities
• One for communications
• One for student prep
• One to make sure everything is happening
• Develop a webpage and set it up three months prior to the event.
• Students need to have more base knowledge.
• More preparation needs to be done on the behalf of the active sites.
• Prepare questions, read information, do research before the event so students have some pre-established link with the topics.
• We knew this coming in and tried to communicate it to the participating sites, but many still weren’t prepared.
• Material lists and instructions for specific sessions need to go out at least 2 weeks before.
• Be sure to follow-up to make sure preparations are taking place.
  

What’s Next?
There will be a second Videoconference for Hope in late October or early November, 2007.
Official partners will be announced in late March or early April.

Resources Available
To enable others to create a similar project, Terry has provided the following resources that may be used as templates:
      A Call for Participation
      Videoconference for Hope Schedule

CILC thanks Terry Godwaldt for enabling us to share this incredible success story with you.

Changing Lives, Changing Attitudes

John Blaser, Technology Specialist at Eastchester High School, NY and Mike Griffith, founder of Global-Leap (www.global-leap.org), are extremely adept at coordinating international videoconferencing collaborations. Following the success of a transatlantic event related to the Iraq crisis with United Kingdom Member of Parliament Clare Short in June 2003, they had numerous discussions about the possibilities of extending this type of collaboration and discussion to examine other very important issues more closely.

Not long after, John Blaser and Edye Caine, Social Studies Supervisor at Eastchester UFSD, Eastchester, NY, were talking about current events and at the horrors occurring around the world. They began to talk in-depth about how disappointing it was to realize that most of their high school students had little or no knowledge about genocide and human rights. The mandated curriculum is such that teachers, even those teaching global studies, do not feel that they can take the time to address these issues.

Taking Action
The threesome decided to take action. Using the Collaboration Center on the CILC website, they found other US schools interested in pursuing this issue. Meanwhile, Mike selected two of his most proactive UK schools. All were keen that the series of conferences would be more than just isolated videoconference meetings. The schools involved were expected to commit to the whole series of conferences. Teachers were to help the students continue the discussions before and after each videoconference and share their work, research, and thoughts through the use of online tools, such as VLEs and wikis. That was in the 2004-2005 school year.

The Third Year
Now in its third year, this project provided an opportunity for all the high school students to study genocide and human rights by collaborating through videoconferencing and online collaborative tools. Students from the four high schools participated in a series of 5 multipoint videoconferences, one on each of four genocides (Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan) and one culminating conference.

• Each genocide conference involved an expert who provided background information on that genocide, brought the students up-to-date on its current status and recent developments, and then answered students’ questions. The hour and 15 minute session was moderated by Mike Griffith, one of the project coordinators.
• In between the conferences, students, teachers, and the experts collaborated on-line in Wikispaces to share information and ideas.
• Students also created "action plans" to show how they would raise awareness of genocide and human rights.
• During the final conference the schools presented the plans, received feedback, and learned of opportunities to become involved in each other’s projects.

This six weeks project took place February through March 2007. At the time of this writing, students are still involved in creating their action plans and working online in the wiki. Schools involved this year were:

• Chosenhill High School, Gloucestershire, UK
• Eastchester High School, Eastchester, NY
• The Ridings High School, Bristol, UK
• Roy C. Ketcham High School, Wappinger’s Falls, NY

Changing Lives
This project had a visible impact on the students. From the onset of their research, they commented on how ashamed and embarrassed they were to admit how little they knew about these atrocities. One can easily see the impact on the students by following their discussions on the issues that arose in the conferences and exchanges on personal and cultural information expressed on the wiki.

The action projects created by the students reflect the level of motivation and inspiration generated by these experiences. For example, students at Eastchester High School have formed committees to plan and implement a Human Rights Week (April 16-21, 2007) at their school. The week will include several events including a

• school assembly featuring a Rwandan survivor.
• videoconference with Julia Spiegel of the International Crisis Group, an expert on the humanitarian situation in Darfu.
• power point presentation created by the students on genocide and human rights.
• movie matinee featuring the film "Sometimes in April."
• Pickle Ball tournament.

The funds raised from these events will be donated to ‘Doctors without Borders.’

In addition, students have created and continue to maintain their own website for the purpose of creating global awareness and disseminating information about the human condition. They have also banded together to form the school’s first Human Rights Club in order to continue to raise awareness and work toward making the world safe from genocide.

Changing Attitudes
The teachers involved in this project have witnessed the tremendous impact that these experiences have had on their students. They now readily acknowledge that involving the students directly in their learning helped them take ownership of their learning and created a permanent impact of the lessons learned.

The teachers now see that

• using technology responsibly to enhance the curriculum provides valuable opportunities for their students.
• current events are essential to understanding history.
• there is time for teaching such relevant and important topics.
• it is easy to infuse human rights into the global studies curriculum.

As a result of this project, the teachers themselves have also become more informed and aware of genocide and its effect on our global community.

Reflection
Based on the first two years of the project, the planners included a

• "meet and greet" conference with the students from all 4 schools to ‘break the ice’ allowing students to become familiar each other before they began collaborating through videoconferencing and wiki discussions.
• teacher planning conference prior to the start of the project to enable the sharing of the curriculum unit and to work out the specifics for the videoconference format, use of the wiki, etc.

New lessons learned by the project coordinators

• Lots of communication via email and telephone is necessary in order to keep the project ‘flowing.’ The coordinators spent significant time contacting and working with participants to address technical and procedural issues.
• After losing one of the genocide experts a little more than one week prior to the conference, it took a lot of scurrying to find an alternate and a replacement location. In the future, they will plan to have alternate experts ‘ready’ should a problem arise.

Success leads to…more projects!
This model can easily be expanded to other content areas and topics. In fact, a science teacher at Eastchester has already successfully engaged in a project on climate change.

Kudos to the following for making this project a success.

John Blaser who

• recruited and scheduled the experts and their videoconferences sites.
• coordinated the technology on the US side.
• handled communications with all the project participants.

• recruited and supported the UK schools.
• coordinated the technology on the UK side.
• coordinated the technology and testing with US University locations and the schools.
• served at moderator for each event.
• coordinated bridging for events with UKERNA for years one and two of the project.

• wrote the curriculum unit
• handled everything related to content
• set up and managed the wiki

Mike Goldstein, Videoconferencing Specialist at Eastchester, who coordinated the bridging for year three of the project.

Georgetown University and Ithaca College who sponsored the participation of the experts by donating their facilities and technical staff. The coordinators realize that without their help, this project would not have happened.

Appreciation
CILC wished to thank the project coordinators, John Blaser and Mike Griffith for sharing this project with us and you.

Contact Information:
John Blaser: email
Mike Griffith: email