tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701369113681154658.post4371131058154876864..comments2008-12-18T22:05:46.448-06:00Daniel Rezacredferntwo@comcast.netBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701369113681154658.post-13717382440461698192008-09-14T04:16:00.000-05:002008-09-14T04:16:00.000-05:00Hi Daniel, <br>I was surprised to see murch's comment there as she is a friend and colleague of mine - she may have told me about this wiki a few months ago, when I was still in 'head spinning' mode with web 2.0. I have collaborated with a year 7 science teacher in New York on the project that I put on the wiki - Extraordinary Animals. One difficulty, apart for our different curriculums is the term times - we have just one 10 week term left before the end of the year. I will add to the wiki as time and energy permits and i would be very interested in seeing some of your curriculum documents to see what overlap we may have.Mrs Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146065181438935336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701369113681154658.post-71391971661114845782008-06-17T15:47:00.000-05:002008-06-17T15:47:00.000-05:00I agree with you that we are only just on the 'fringe' of big things happening with teacher collaboration and virtual teamwork. The reason for such a concentration on success with students in classroom20 is that teachers are working solo, and finding success with web2.0 tools. The collaboration with other teachers, I feel is the next step and the sharing of this success is the predecessor. In Victoria, Australia, our syllabus tends to be set for us although we all add our own personal directions.<br>I teach in a small country prep to year 12 school, where I am reasonably isolated by time, distance and budget restraints from being able to work with other staff in the old fashioned way. However, the advent of web2.0 has meant that I am no longer isolated at all but at the centre of all the action right in the middle of the globe. My students have worked on some interesting collaborative projects eg http://es1001tales.wikispaces.com and a ms version and the flat horizons project. Each of these required prior elluminate meetings and skype linkups with staff in other countries so that staff could collaborate and work out the project s together. Time zones are a limiting factor. Personal learning networks is another term used for social networking, so you might try googling that. <br>Videoconferencing with skype has been an amazing learning outcome for us and although we have only used it several times, I can see that this is a 21st century classroom application.<br>My membership of twitter (id=murcha) has allowed me to work in virtual teams and meet others with similar interests and as I teach information technology, I am lucky that I can experiment with many of the web2.0 tools that I learn about. As time proceeds social networking amongst staff across the globe will allow units of work to be developed in virtual teams which will lead to powerful learning outcomes for our students. I shall send on the wiki link to one of our science teachers as she enjoys working in this environment but there are so many teachers out there who have absolutely minimal computer skills.<br>My blog is at http://murcha.wordpress.commurchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01394218389713275044noreply@blogger.com