Advertisement
-
Recent Posts
Archives
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
Categories
-
Join 17 other subscribers
Meta
Pages
gcdstar 
Above, Nespelem school teacher Sheri Edwards (my wife) attends and judges a worldwide debate event at 6:15 a.m. Dec. 17 from her room at the school.
Edwards’ “avatar” sitting in the outdoor amphitheater on Second Life where the debate was held, sports purple hair and a little “hotter” outfit than Sheri would have liked (kids in Georgia augmented her original design), but she was one of a couple dozen educators from around the world who took part in the audience of the live event.
Second Life is a virtual world online where people can do just about everything they do in the real world. Far-flung colleagues can meet and discuss from anywhere in the world.
Sheri was also a judge, and actually devised the judging system used by the team that put this first-of-its kind “Eracism” event on.
This was the culmination of two months of working with classrooms around the world with a team of teachers that only met online, and who got their middle school-age students to take part in the project, hosted from Doha in Qatar, where students hatched the whole idea.
Edwards’ students nearly won the prior round by default when a team from China had not appeared to have posted their oral arguments online.
The debates leading up to Thursday’s live event used another type of technology entirely, called VoiceThread. Students visit a site and post their own audio files of their arguments.
The series of debates focused on the statement “Diversity makes us stronger.” Teams had to prepare arguments both for and against that proposition, learning and writing about the issue as they progressed.
Edwards teaches writing to fifth through eighth graders and reading to eighth graders at the the P-8 school of 160 students on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state, USA.
The private Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia won the world championship.
Nespelem School: http://ow.ly/NbXL
Second Life: http://ow.ly/NbHI
Voicethread: http://ow.ly/NbJr
Eracism: http://ow.ly/NbLe
Westwood Schools: http://ow.ly/NbVJ