Workspace

Random Ideas from Katy (just throwing ideas up):
 * 1) A part of the project shows ties to common core standards.
 * 2) "Flipped" teaching or creating videos that all of our students watch and then write, reflect, solve problems together after.
 * 3) Use a wiki to communicate between classrooms.
 * 4) At least one Skype session (Matt - does that work with your constraints).
 * 5) A section on using technology with low bandwidth
 * 6) Lesson plans for getting through the book.
 * 7) The idea of telling stories (memoirs) to spark action (this is an interesting idea from our local PBS station that showed Pushing the Elephant, Rose Mapendo's story of conflict and family separation in the Democratic Rebublic of Congo). []
 * 8) Edmodo group.
 * 9) Older students mentor/filter others. Create presentations for younger students. Then a book group ensues. Older kids introduce to younger kids, younger kids do something, present back. Edmodo group.

I really like all those ideas and was also thinking of having the students create films to show each other about conflict and child soldiers. The Skype session will work but only with one computer on this end. Maybe we can set up some sort of chat group discussion during the Skype session. I think it would be cool to have the kids view each others films real time over Skype and then discuss what they made, how they made it, and why they made it. I tested Edmodo here and it loads quickly so that will also work and my students (the students who will be participating next year) have been doing wiki all year so they are familiar with how to format and edit wiki pages.

Maybe we could add a journal component on a blog site where students can write and respond to questions about the book, their experience with the project, and overall reflection. Students could read and respond to each others posts.

We could also have students create wikis to educate each other about a specific issue surrounding conflict and child soldiers as they are reading the book and preparing their videos.

Notes from Group Discussion 5/21

Working with multi-age groups and "explicit" content surround child soldiers:
 * HS/MS mentorship
 * Have older students create more 6-7 grade friendly versions of the content
 * Have younger students use technology to create narratives or projects
 * Have both age groups assess one another

Katy - Edmodo Ben - High School Project Katie - Middle School Project Matt - jump in to one of these or another side. I will work with Katie on the Middle School Project portion and I can create the wikis we need to support the project. - Matt