Toshiba Garner's Page

Hey Toshiba,

I have researched two connecting organizations mentioned in the chapter and found two projects that I felt were quite interesting, and I learned from.  The first is found at http://www.digiteen.org and is called the Digiteen Project.  It is a project for ages 11 and up to study digital citizenship with partners around the world and culminating in a local-school digital citizenship action project.  

This project is open twice a year (Sept-Dec) and (Feb-May) for new applicants.  It is a great project for students to find information through a series of videos (chosen by school), research current digital citizenship trends, and news and compile collaborative reports with others around the world, thus making fact based recommendations in offline action projects at their local school to promote safe, appropriate online behaviors.

An example, was found in the blogs of two classroom teachers who connected via Skype.  Miss McGuyer's class from Alabama and Miss Wisneskis's class from Wisconsin.  These classrooms discussed and researched netiquette, online safety, and how different areas of the nation are perceived.  

The other project I researched was found at http://www.jenuinetech.com/calendar.htm  or the Pumpkin Seed Count Project.

This project was for prek-3rd grade classes worldwide.  It required a 1-5lb pumpkin and an information sheet to be used to post results.  The students would estimate the number of seeds in a pumpkin, scoop and count the seeds as the teacher cut it open.  Then the class compared their guesses with a final pumpkin seed count.  Next the classes would submit their results online in a collection database with other participating classes.  Fun activities involved a pumpkin fashion show where students created (drawn/carved) pumpkins and uploaded pictures to Pinterest page for the project.  Classes used skype, and email to connect. The project also shared collaboratively activities, resources and books for ideas using pumpkins and pumpkin themes.  The results of the latest project were 4,369 participants, and 91,357 seeds.