[esocialaction] TRANS POND

[Thompson, Steve]

Hi All
 
This may interest some. of you. I'm in the very early stages of setting up a story telling project to link kids from North East UK (neukol) Schools with Canadian kids. This is an e-twinning excercise and I'll be shaping open source blogging software to create an interface that will allow 20 (10 Uk 10 Canada) schools to have their own blog within the system but so that we can cross reference the themes. We'll also be using our community media archive software developed here at Teesside Uni to allow a range of multimedia objects to be utilised in the story telling. 
 
This is an e-twinning excecise and we've hit on the name TRANS POND. My contact in Canada is with the National Literacy Agency so the Canadian schools could be nation wide. Here in the UK I've engaged schools from urban Middlesbrough with a variety of ethnic mixes plus some rural schools from County Durham to North Yorkshire where the backgrounds vary from Mining to Farming to Fishing.
 
I envisage kids writing stories on a range of topics that we (the practitioner participants) suggest in order to create a cultural exchange across the "POND" hence TRANS-POND. Topics could be "what we eat", "Our Music", Our Community and Working Lives etc. Images and multi media can be included. 
 
There's no funding I'm doing it for the hell of it. It's just one of those things you can develop in an online discussion with some one you've never met. the Canadian contact started talking to me after coming across one of my projects www.ourjourneys.org.uk 
 
My part will be to develop and set up the interface teach the participants how to use it and react to development needs/ideas. I'm saying that each school needs a teacher with the time and interest to take ownership of their part in it and look after it. On the UK side I've already worked with most of the schools before and I know that this will work. It's likely that it it would fit into other activities each school is doing. The participants will be roughly 8 to 11. I'm looking at a January start for the project to give plent time to get prepared and get all the teachers up to speed. 
 
This could be replicated with other schools/countries but I doubt if I'll have time to document as well as run the process. If it fitted in with someones agenda to run a study on the process I'd be happy to accomodate.
 
  
Steve Thompson
Community Media Coordinator
Department of Academic Enterprise
University Of Teesside
T-  01642 384567
M-  07860 374 047
E-  s.d.thompson at tees.ac.uk
www.neukol.org.uk (web)
www.neukol.co.uk (intranet) 
 
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