A Window to the World - Grade 2s connect worldwide (part 2)

Earlier this week I published a post about the first experiences our Grade 2s have had with connecting with other schools worldwide using skype and email as a way of discovering how the weather affects our lifestyles. Since then we have now connected with 2 other schools, in Spain, and South Africa. One of the schools we skyped with last week was in Jacksonville, Florida and it was very exciting to see the Langwitches blog post yesterday entitled A Skype Odyssey where Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano explains how she set up the Around the World with 80 Schools project and the skills and understanding that the students have developed through taking part in these skype conversations with other students around the world.

For us, what was really exciting about this blog post, was seeing our school and the view from our classroom, projected up onto the wall in the classroom in Florida - we had lifted the laptop onto the windowsill to show the students our old school building with the pine trees behind it. It was amazing to think that the students thousands of miles away were looking at the same view we were! Even more exciting was looking at the video at the end of this post where we could actually see the students connecting with us in Switzerland and hear some of the things they had learnt from our students.

I think what our students have here is definitely a window to the world, and even more than this we are beginning to see a world without walls. As our students connect with each other they are definitely becoming more internationally minded and more open minded. They are becoming more tolerant, more respectful and more able to understand and celebrate diversity.

Photo Credit: This photo was taken by a student in Jacksonville, Florida and shows the view out of our classroom window in Switzerland.