Working with the Grade 5’s from Crozet, Virginia for my collaborative project has been an amazing experience.  This venture began with a Skype interview between Paula White (the grade 5 teacher) and myself about the expectations for this project.  We decided that I will be commenting on the students wiki’s, asking questions to further their thinking, and providing any kind of help that the students needed.  I commented on many of the students wiki’s asking them questions about their postings so they could inquire deeper into their posts.  I also did a lot of their ‘polls’ that they had for fun!  My first blog post discusses the frustration I was feeling with how slow this project seemed to start off as well as the initial plans for the collaboration project.  Even though the project got off to a slow start, the interaction between the students and I began to pick up and take off once the students felt comfortable with interacting and after I made a video of myself in my glog for them (it made them easier to associate a name to a face I think!).  I enjoyed emailing back and forth with the students, creating a variety of jings/screencasts for the students when they had any questions about how to use programs, and I created a glog about lit circles which was something that they wanted to start in the classroom.  My second blog post was about the things that I was learning from the students.  I was sharing cool sites and tools with them and they were able to share some amazing resources with me (example: wallwisher).  It is amazing that as a professional, the students are still able to show the teacher a thing or too.  As the teacher, you are constantly learning and growing along with the students which is something that this project showed me.  This project is something that I am going to continue to do, especially since I have a Skype date with Celine to talk to her about her glog she created.  It was easy enough for me, through the use of technology, to be connected to a classroom thousands of miles away!  Since I am going to be teaching a grade 5 class next year, using wikis is something that I would implement into my classroom.  The students are able to share their work with a world-wide audience as well as comment on each other’s wiki.  It is an amazing resource that before this class and collaboration project, I did not know much about.  I really enjoyed this experience and I see the value that it has in the classroom!

Here is the video of me that I made for the Grade 5's!