Project Overview &  Academic Standards Addressed

PowerPoint Overview Click on Slide Show in right corner

Video Overview

Student Objectives, Activities, & Overview of Collaborative Project With Mexican Pen Pals

3rd grade academic standards

Student Objectives, Activities, & Overview of Collaborative Project With London Pen Pals

2nd grade academic standards

Web Lessons

Mexico: Our Southern Neighbor Student Pages

Friends Across the Ocean Student Pages

Student permission to publish work

Teacher Help

Thoughts about managing student collaborative projects

Template for a country holiday WebQuest

Brochure for Holiday WebQuest in PDF Format

What began as a simple pen pal project between classes in Indianapolis, London, & Mexico City, developed into a year-long collaborative project that included email, posted letters, a book study, shared web content, & a teleconference between students.

ëBridging the Distanceí was a project that allowed for two classes at Rhoades Elementary to collaborate with classes in Mexico City and London. In a project called, 'Mexico: Our Southern Neighbor', Mrs. Careyís third grade students collaborated with Ms. Quintanillaís fourth grade class at the American School Foundation in Mexico City.  In a project called, 'Friends Across the Ocean', Ms. Alexanderís second grade students worked in partnership with Ms. Ottleyís second grade students at Churchill Gardens in Westminster, England. 

Planning: The media specialist and teachers worked together to write for grant money from Indiana Department of Education, Corporation for Educational Communications & the local school foundation to purchase digitizing equipment, reference books for the library, novels for the students in all four schools, and videoconferencing time. The media specialist and teachers planned for the introduction of the project to the students and to their pen pals and the research components for the cultures of Mexico and England.

Communication: Throughout the project students saved their work to a network folder. Then the media specialist would copy the work into an email to send to the partner school. The media specialist constructed web pages for research and posting of student work. Release forms were signed by parents and students to allow student work to be published on the Internet.

Book Study: The media specialist used grant funds to order and send novels for each of the students to keep in all three schools. Mrs. Careyís class read the novel Ramonaís World ëtogetherí with the students in the American School. The students emailed each other with questions and comments while reading the chapters at the same time. Amelia Bedelia for Mayor was the novel chosen by Ms. Alexander for her students to read ëtogetherí with the students in Churchill Gardens. 

Teleconferences: The culminating activity at the end of the year was a 'meeting' between the students in Indianapolis & their email pals. Using telecommunication equipment the students were able to talk to each other. It was satisfying to be able to see their email pals after writing to each other all year. 

Evaluation: Rhoadesí students were given many opportunities to access, evaluate, and use information to further their knowledge and communicate it to others. They learned about an unfamiliar culture using a variety of resources, including books, web sites, and pen pals. Academic testing and teacher observation was used to evaluate student success. Writing samples were scored throughout the year and language composite scores from standardized testing were used to evaluate student progress in language and written expression.