Woosha Goes to Hollywood
Phase of Development: Middle Childhood
The following Overarching Statements from the Curriculum Framework were addressed particularly in this collaborative project:
| 1. | Students use language to understand, develop and communicate ideas and information and interact with others. |
| 3. | Students recognise when and what information is needed, locate and obtain it from a range of sources and evaluate, use and share it with others. |
| 4. | Students select, use and adapt technologies. |
| 5. | Students describe and reason about patterns, structures and relationships in order to understand, interpret, justify and make predictions. |
| 8. | Students understand their cultural, geographic and historical contexts and have the knowledge, skills and values necessary for active participation in life in Australia. |
| 9. | Students interact with people and cultures other than their own and are equipped to contribute to the global community. |
| 12. | Students are self-motivated and confident in their approach to learning and are able to work individually and collaboratively. |
The following matrix describes the key learning area outcomes that were spotlighted in this unit of work. It should be recognised that many other outcomes, from these and other learning areas, will also be achieved during the course of the unit. I have omitted the Maths outcomes spotlighted in the Mathmagic Project, since this project was just the springboard for the larger collaborative project, and since only four students from the class were involved in this project.
Learning Area Outcomes
Curriculum Framework | Strand Statements
Outcomes & Standards Framework |
Society & Environment
Investigation, Communication & Participation:
Students investigate the way people interact with each other and with their environments in order to make informed decisions and implement relevant social action.
Place and Space:
Students understand that the interaction people have with places in which they live is shaped by the location, patterns and processes associated with natural and built features.
Culture:
Students understand that people form groups because of their shared understandings of the world, and, in turn, they are influenced by the particular culture so formed.
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Technology & Enterprise
Technology Process:
Students apply a technology process to create or modify products, processes, systems, services or environments to meet human needs and realise opportunities.
Technology Skills:
Students apply organisational, operational and manipulative skills to using, developing and adapting technologies.
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Technology & Enterprise
Systems:
Students use appropriate technology skills when designing, adapting and using systems to meet a technology need.
Nature Substrand:
Students understand that systems are designed for specific purposes and can evaluate the performance and impact of systems.
Techniques Substrand:
Students select and safely use equipment and techniques appropriate to both the development of the system and design requirements to achieve specified standards of operation and control.
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English
Writing
Students write for a range of purposes and in a range of forms using conventions appropriate to audience, purpose and context.
Reading
Students read a wide range of texts with purpose, understanding and critical awareness.
Viewing:
Students view a wide range of visual texts with purpose, understanding and critical awareness.
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Listening:
Students listen with purpose, understanding and critical awareness in a wide range of situations.
Speaking:
Students speak with purpose and effect in a wide range of contexts.
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Speaking and Listening:
Students speak and listen with purpose, understanding and critical awareness in a wide range of contexts.
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Understanding Language:
Students understand that the way language is used varies according to context.
Attitudes, Values and Beliefs:
Students understand that language has an important effect on the ways in which they view themselves and the world in which they live.
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Contextual Understanding Substrand:
This is a substrand of all four strands.Students develop a critical awareness of the ways language varies according to context and how language affects the ways students view themselves and the world in which they live.
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Brief Description
| Author: | Vanessa Rankin-Hume |
| Description: | Collaborative Internet project with Oakwood Elementary School, Los Angeles, beginning as a Maths collaboration but extending into a cross-curricular communication. |
Introduction
The  Mathmagic Project is found on a website from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
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It is a K-12 telecommunications project, and provides an excellent way to link technology with Mathematics. It provides strong motivation for students to use computer technology while increasing problem-solving strategies and communication skills.
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The Green Gorillas |
Because it involves a collaborative project with a partner school, students also develop S&E understandings, particularly in the Place and Space, and Culture Strands.
Once registered, a partner school needs to be found. We teamed up with teacher Wendy Greene's 4th grade class from Oakwood Elementary School, a private school in North Hollywood, USA. We chose four children from each class to participate, and created names for each team - Greene's Green Gorillas and Rankin's Blue Bobtails.
Context
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School: |
Gidgegannup Primary School is a small school set in a rural community approximately 45 minutes drive from Perth. A large proportion of the students are bussed into school from small rural blocks and farms. |
| Students: |
Year 5 students, working at Levels 1 to 5 in all relevant learning area strands. |
| Resources: |
1 computer with internet connection, computers, scanner, digital camera, video/audio recorder
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| Teacher
The project was operated initially by
the teacher librarian (Vanessa Rankin-Hume) and classroom teacher (Rob Coumbe). Since its first year other staff have become involved. | 
Rob, Vanessa & Woosha |
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Objectives
(For a description of the place of objectives in an outcomes-based environment, click here.)
- To introduce students to a variety of learning technologies and have them use and view their application in everyday life.
- To identify and appreciate cultural differences.
- Students will expand their knowledge of their own country and local environment by informing American children of where they live and what it is like to live in Australia.
Learning Experiences
Stage 1: Maths Project
At first, the eight children from the two classes took Maths problems from the website, and communicated with each other every day by email, sharing ideas and engaging in problem-solving dialogue. This proved to be exciting and motivating for the children involved.
Stage 2: Cross-Curricular Collaboration
As a result of the motivation of our Maths teams, Wendy and I decided to involve all the other students in each class. We swapped class lists and matched each student with a Key Pal, and so began our wonderful relationship.
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Students immediately began swapping information about themselves, their community and their country. Our students became very enthusiastic about checking the computer each morning for mail, and even continued to write in their own time, during breaks and at home.
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Halloween at Oakwood
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 Click here for the story of the ongoing collaboration. |
As the project evolved, students worked in several learning areas. It is difficult to describe these coherently, since the project has continued over several years and students often worked independently to research, prepare and present information, and to work with the information they received from their Key Pals.
English
Students have had extensive experience in both comprehending real texts and composing them for a real audience. Their continuing enthusiasm for the correspondence is a demonstration of the value of real audiences. They have thus been highlighting the Contextual Understanding Substrand of the English learning area, since it foregrounds the concepts of audience and purpose in all students' communications.
Over the life of the project, students have had opportunities to read/listen to and write/speak in a wide range of text types, including written texts of many genres, graphs, charts, maps, drawings, and video and oral presentations. These activities spotlight the Use of Texts Substrand.
The Travel Buddies that we swapped as part of the project gave rise to a great deal of enthusiastic writing, as students took George the Gorilla with them on holidays and wrote their parts of the George's Adventures Down Under class book.
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The Oakwood students' diary entries about Woosha the West Coast Eagle provided an interesting text with unfamiliar details which challenged our students to make meaning. Many of the details provoked useful discussion of cultural differences, which provided links to Society and Environment.
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Students at Oakwood |
For a description of the Travel Buddies project, click here.
At another stage of the collaborative project we focused on students' recount skills, as many of their letters were recounts of what they had done at school or at home. We took a selection of their own texts and those they had received from their Key Pals, and discussed them in order to develop a list of the characteristics of the recount genre. They then composed various recounts to be sent as emails, paying particular attention to the characteristics of the genre.
Click here for a useful template to help students improve their skills in recount writing.
They also witnessed the different ways language can be used by exchanging cultural expressions. At the end of each email my students would write one Aussie expression and its definition. In turn, we learnt many American expressions.
 Assessment
The writing assessed as part of this project has covered a very wide range of genres. In assessment we have focused on both the conventions of the students' writing and their contextual understanding, with a greater focus on each at different times.
Students have read the email messages of their Key Pals. They have also read a range of reference material in order to communicate with their American friends about West Australian history, geography and society.
Click here for a handout for negotiating with students about their progress in the English learning area outcomes.
Society & Environment
After the first few emails, our class decided to analyse all the information so we could obtain a cultural picture of what life was like for children living in America, in particular North Hollywood.
From the emails received, our students extracted information such as hobbies, pets, parents' occupations, favourite music and hobbies. They developed Venn diagrams and T-charts in order to see similarities and differences between the two cultures and lifestyles.
Students have also researched the local area around Gidgegannup and, at one stage, a specific region of WA so that they could present detailed information to their Key Pals.
In these activities they have often worked in groups or pairs.
Assessment
In these activities, students have been working chiefly in the ICP, Place and Space and Culture Strands.
Click here for a student handout that provides students with simplified statements on how they can progress at various levels in the ICP strand.
The following monitoring sheets can be used over a long term period for annotating outcomes demonstrated by students.
Click here for a monitoring table of the Society & Environment process strand: Investigation, Communication & Participation, Levels 1-4.
Click here for a monitoring table of the Substrand Outcome Statements for the Place and Space Strand, Levels 1-4.
Click here for a monitoring table of the Substrand Outcome Statements for the Culture Strand, Levels 1-4.
The class teacher and I have monitored/assessed:
their skills in collecting and organising information and in analysing, translating and presenting their findings.
their understandings about their own environment and culture, and about how the American students see their environment and culture.
their understandings about the influence of particular environments on those that live in them.
their understandings about people's roles in the development of particular cultures.
their peer tutoring and group cooperation skills.
Technology and Enterprise
During this collaborative project we examined and used various communication systems, focusing on both the Systems and the Technology Process Strands of T&E:
Technology Process Strand, Investigating Substrand
Students investigated what emails were, and gained an understanding of what happened to electronic mail and how it travelled from sender to receiver. They compared this with the postal system which was also used to communicate with their American buddies.
They gathered information comparing the features of the two systems. A retrieval chart was used to collect this information and investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems. In groups the students produced diagramatic charts of the components of the two systems, and discussed the possibility of a system that had none of the disadvantages of these two.
Technology Process Strand, Devising Substrand
Students devised a system which would reduce the cost of sending parcels by involving people who travelled to and from the United States:
relatives who were employed by airline companies were happy to carry small parcels.
one of the Gidgegannup families visited the Hollywood school while holidaying in the United States
the son of the American teacher detoured to Gidgegannup while visiting Sydney.
Technology Process Strand, Producing Substrand
The production of this system which involved people as well as mechanical components provided many exciting experiences for the students.
Technology Process Strand, Evaluating Substrand
Students evaluated the three systems in journal writing and found all three were effective means of communication in their appropriate contexts. From time to time, also, an ongoing evaluative discussion of the systems arose naturally in our classroom.
Systems Strand
The Systems Strand was central throughout the project.
Click here for relevant phrases from the Elaboration of Systems Strand Outcome Statements.
Learning Technologies
Students improved their proficiency in using learning technologies - as tools to achieve particular purposes. Learning technologies included:
email
Internet
scanner
digital camera
video/audio recorder
In terms of email communication, they learned how to open, print and send email, and to attach documents to their email messages. They had practical daily experience of the role of these technologies in their everyday lives.
A great deal of peer tutoring took place as students learned, remembered and practised the various skills required. If they were not sure of how to do something, I would always encourage them to ask each other before they came to me. They also learned to share resources and to take turns.
Reflection
The project has continually grown and has now begun again with a new set of students. Its benefits still amaze us and grow with every group of students involved.
What started as a way to expand Maths has given birth to a positive experience of learning about people, connecting with children of a similar age, experiencing different cultures, finding out what's going on in other parts of the world and understanding the power of technology in bringing people together.
The most satisfying aspect of the project was the engaged learning that took place especially with those students who did not normally achieve at their potential. This project produced a community of learners who were motivated and enthused about constructing their own learning from a point of need.
Vanessa Rankin-Hume, Teacher/Librarian
Rob Coumbe, Teacher
Gidgegannup Primary School
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