Talking to Antarctica
I was interested in Mira’s post now THIS is engaging for students about a Year 5 class in Sydney talking to a group of Antarctic scientists. I listened to the recording of their Antarctic phone call and also had a browse around the class blog. Mira posed the question: would it have been as engaging for the students if an Antarctic scientist had come to address the students in assembly? Well, I guess not. The Yr 5 class was very excited to be talking to real live scientists all the way in Antarctica, who were able to address their questions directly.
Having said that, last year my daughter’s Year 6 class was studying Antarctica and the school organised an incursion – a scientist who had been in Antarctica came to visit and showed some video of his time in Antarctica and answered the kids’ questions in much the same way as the kids on the phone. He also had some samples of penguin poo for the kids to smell (very stinky by all accounts) and some Antarctic ice to handle. The kids also had the opportunity to dress up in the jackets, pants, gloves etc that are needed to brave the Antrarctic conditions. The incursion was very successful and the kids all raved about it. (I know because I had to edit their accounts of it for their Year Book.) While this experience didn’t have the immediacy of kids talking in real time to scientists in Antarctica, it did have the advantage of being multi-sensory.
Maybe it’s not a question of either/or but “I’ll have that too, please”. New technology can ADD to more traditional learning experiences, rather than replace them altogether.
One thought occurs to me: what happens when more and more teachers and schools get with the connected classroom idea and Antarctic scientists get so bombarded by phone calls from primary classrooms around the world that they don’t have time to answer them all?
Another question: it seems to me there are more primary than secondary teachers setting up class blogs. Am I right and why is this? Is it because primary teachers have all day with the one class while high school teachers have a 50 min lesson a day and 4 or 5 different classes – too hard to set up blogs for all of them?
Gentoo Penguin by Lord Biro on flickr.com
August 8, 2010@ 12:47 am
Sara, what an amazing coincidence! I think that Henrietta is a fabulous teacher and really pleased that you’re inspired by her blog to go out and try your own. I met Henrietta via Twitter, where we started up a conversation which led to me visiting her school, which led to her going to the ACEC2010 Melbourne conference where we met up again and the rest is history.
I think that in this day and age where people are so busy, it’s far easier to arrange a classroom technology ‘incursion’ such as this one rather than jumping through the many hoops required in schools to get kids out and about.
Having said that – why not have both when both are easily achievable!
Mira