A few weeks ago some teachers at my school asked me to help them create a project. They wanted to publish some artwork online and make a quilt. This sounded great. First of all they wanted help and second of all those baby steps were being taken. I created a wiki and showed the teacher how to create pages and work within the wiki. I also showed the teachers flickr. I am so excited to see other professionals in my building start down this path. It has been a long 4 years but finally something is happening.
The Peace Quilt. The idea was spawned around the topic of Remembrance Day. This is the eleventh day of the eleventh month. WW I was ended on this day and it is a national day of Remembrance in Canada. The grade 4 teacher got their student to draw pictures about remembrance, war, veterans and peace.
Together the students and teachers uploaded their pictures to flickr. Here they made sure that they had the appropriate tags and titles. The teachers were very excited. To make the mosaic or quilt I used FD Flickr toys mosaic maker.
All of these ideas were floating around when When Night Falls was taking place. In the lulls of conversation I happened to mention to the other participants and low and behold a little project became a large global collaborative project. I was blessed to have participants for Australia, and the US wanting to participate. I also had other classes across Canada participating.
A full list of participants can be found at The Peace Quilt and more are still completing their pictures. The goal of this project was to have students connect with one another and communicate about peace. I also needed the teachers in my building to take first steps and become literate with the tools an applications that my network is so familiar with. Both are occurring.
As the project continues the students will leave flickr notes on other students work, leave comments behind at the wiki and at flickr and keep the conversation alive. This was my first attempt at being a collaborative project coordinator. I suppose I have done alright. It has been fun and I want to thank my network and those that made the project great.
The quilts will continue to be built this week. There are still more images out there needing to be sewn into this collaborative project.
Man I love this stuff.
3 comments:
Nice job Chris!
It was neat seeing the quilts 'go live' right on Remembrance Day.
This project has not been without a few hiccups, and you've done a terrific job of troubleshooting. Your instructions and patient support have ensured that it's easy for both teachers and students to participate.
I'm hopeful that this project is only the first of many projects you'll be coordinating; and that participating classes will use this experience as an entry point to other collaborative ventures.
Nice job. I hope my students will be inspired by your artwork. Wish we had someone at our school to help with a project like this. Glad for the WWW where we can learn from others. Thanks for sharing
Dollie/GA
Thanks for the comment Dolly. If you want to collaborate in the future just drop me an email of a comment. I am easily found at twitter. You could also take student through the quilt site and have them leave comments behind at the wiki or at flickr. Thanks again
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