Literature Review
http://www.epals.com/project-detail.php?id=5f722243-f353-4cf1-bf97-93cffa8b73da
- This project is about 3rd graders communicating with other kids around the world. The teacher wants the students to collaborate on a variety of projects, such as, author studies, geography, and citizenship. These students will communicate with others through email. It is similar to our project because the students will be writing and commenting on each other’s writing. This project also has the kids look at the culture of the students they are working with. This is very similar to our project because we are focusing on traditions. Even though our students (in our pilot and first-year project) live close to each other, the family traditions may be different based on their family background.
- This project involves students ages 9-10 in the UK. These students are interested in learning about the culture of other schools, routines, hobbies, food, etc. This project involves communicating through Skype. Our project is about sharing different cultures, but we want our students to communicate through blogs. The teacher for this project doesn’t have a very detailed plan yet but really wants her students to communicate with others about their culture.
- This project is called The Way We Are. Students ages 8-13 in Indonesia want to communicate with students in other parts of the world. They will share information about their culture, their environments, and their lives. The teacher wants these students to communicate through email. Our project is similar to this one because we want our students to communicate about their culture. We also want students to comment on the essays of students from other schools. We are using a blog format instead of email, but students have the capability to make comments to other students.
- This project is called Teddy Bear Project. It was established in 1996 and has had over 100,000 teachers and students participating in the project worldwide. Elementary classrooms are paired with another elementary classroom in a different country for this year long project. This project is open to participants aged 5-18. Classes are paired based on a common language and similar aged students. In the beginning of the project each class will send the other class a teddy bear or another stuffed animal through the postal system. The bear will send weekly diary entries home through emails or through entries on the iEARN Teddy Bear Forum. The students write the diary messages through the eyes of the bear, as if they were the visiting bear describing its' experiences in a new culture over the course of the year. The goal of this project is to foster tolerance, understanding, and to assist in the break down of cultural barriers. We have the same goal for our project. This project is similar to our project, but only would allow students to share classroom culture and traditions. For our collaborative project, many of the traditions that our students will be writing about are traditions that occur at home. This project allowed teachers the option for classrooms to write diary entries through email or through a forum. This is similar to our idea of using a blog to communicate, except it would be a class blog instead of individual student blogs. Individual blogs are important so that every student can get more time blogging entries and can be held accountable for the work that he or she completes.