Collaberation is fun. You really should try it!!

Whether I am on the band wagon this year or just riding my own 2.0 wave collaboration has been the them in my math room recently. I was asked to collaborate with a group of grade 7 students in Alabama. Their teacher and I hit it off immediately and started to push the limits of our respective students. We started off using voicethread to get to know one another. We then started to do math problems together. Using Eluminate 's free V-room was a great way to share. Both rooms had access to interactive whiteboards and took time explining different ways to solve the problems.



Recently we started creating Geomonsters. One room created instructions and the other room created using the instructions provided. It was a great activity to jump into my geometry unit and to teach the importance of writing instructions. These final monsters can be seen in a series of voicethreads. ( go to voicethread and search alatoba07 or geomonsters to see them all.)

A common theme with all the collaboration days is that the kids were focused for the entire time. They were working and more importantly communicating mathematically.

Viva Collaberation. Were to go next.......? Stay tuned.

Alatoba07 February 1st

Our second collaboration went today. This time Chrystal and I decided to test out Elluminate's Academic version. This allows you to use Elluminate with most of the bells and whistles except the recording feature.

There were some issues because we decided to video and audio through skype and it bonked on us a couple of times. It was nice to have it there for back channels though.

The problem was to do this from The Man Who Counted. I had created a slidecast at slideshare a few weeks ago. The student then had time to work on the problem and then share their work on the elluminate white boards.

| View | Upload your own

This part of the collaboration was excellent. With both of us being moderators we could manipulate the white boards and have them at our disposal. The kids enjoyed this part too. The could see the writing going on the boards from 2500 kilometers away.

This still wasn't the perfect fit. I have 3 fifteen minute screen captures sitting on my desktop at school and they will be too bi9 to upload anywhere. I will have to import them into imovie and then split them up.

Actually I slimmed them down and uploaded them to viddler. You can also see them here at the Alatoba wikisite. I just love viddler because you can leave comments behind at all of the videos. It is a mini pop up video. Please leae comments behind.

On the bright side I was able to get ustream to work at school and this means that the next session on February 19th will be streamed. much better for all I hope.

Thanks for reading and I hope you will try collaboration out.

January 18th Collaboration

The day started out great and the kids from Huntsville Alabama's Challenger Middle School and those of Sargent Park School started working on problems and getting to know each other.


The first class asked questions of each other and they were answered to rounds of applause and laughter. Once the introductions were over the students got to work and started doing the problems at the Alatoba07 wiki site. Once the classes started working we took 2 breaks to have students explain how they solved problems and then continued the process and ended with another question and answer.

The day went off with out any major glitches. Well no it didn't. My proxy server went down for 50 minutes right in the middle of the second class. It came back online and we were back at it again.

I am looking forward to the student comments at the voicethreads left at Alatoba07 site. I am curious to see how the 2 sets of students attacked the problems.

Next week I hope to try Yugma or ustream to capture the activity. Until next time. It is really cold here in Winnipeg. -40 with the windchill. That means it is a good time to do work.... sure it is :-)

Yugma and collaboration a perfect fit?

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This is something that you might want to try. Until the end of the month you can have a free account. Yugma like Eluminate allows you collaborate in many different ways. I plan to use it to connect 2 smartboards. Chrystal and I are doing a math problem solving series with our students. Using this technology the students will be able to interact with each other using their smartboard or activeboard. I am able to give control of the mouse to the other school and have them write on our screen and visa versa.

As we give a problem and share our desktops the two rooms will in REAL TIME share ideas and solutions.

We will be storing all of our results and problems at alatoba07.

Thanks to Ann and Dennis for helping me test out Yugma and for Kristin for giving up some time on the weekend to teach me a few new tricks.

I have that fire back in my belly. Bring it on. I am ready for ..... collaboration.

A new project

I am going to be collaborating with an awesome teacher from Alabama. Crystal Wright is a math teacher from Challenger Middle School. After a few skype calls and some lead up we have decided that the students will introduce themselves to each other using voicethreads.

You will find the work we will be doing at the alatoba07. We are planning to use skype to get two different classes one from Sargent Park School and the other from Challenger Middle School to solve problems. I promote communication in my classroom and this will be a great opportunity for the students to practice what they have been doing. The students will start communicating with each other this week on January 18th.

I am a bit nervous for this first interaction. As with all first steps it will be the most difficult. After the 18th there will be nothing but smooth sailing. Right?!!

Looking forward to having the opportunity to collaborate again. It was great last year and perhaps it will be the catalyst for more authentic learning opportunities for my students.

I'll let you know how it goes.