Hi all --

i know it's a busy time of the semester with papers and mid-terms, but if you can all be sure to have your daily reports submitted before the Nov 10 K-12 Outreach meeting that would be great. (well, the ones from the site visits you've done so far).

thank you, thank you.

kristi PS. Just to make it easier on us, please post you RTW daily reports here, under this category, and leave your mini grant daily reports in the other category, where some of you already have posted. TKS, Cristiana

-- Kristi Ransick (kransick@ilt.columbia.edu), October 29, 1998

Answers

Notes by: Chrystalla Date: 10/27/98 School visited: IS90 Project: RTW Teacher: Heather Ganek

Curricular Connections: As part of a reading comprehension and writing activity we had the kids read information about the RTW project and find the answers to questions that they have aleady wrote before we start the project.

Resources used:Downloaded pages from the RTW website, printouts from the RTW website and pictures.

Activities: We had the class work in five groups. Each group was dealing with a topic drawn from the RTW website. The five topics were: the boat, the crew, itinerary, supplies and preparation, life on the boat.For every topic we handed out a folder containing information on the specific topic (the relevant printouts from the RTW website and a worksheet with some questions that kids needed to explore and find the answers). The topics and the questions included in the worksheets were not chosen arbitrarily by the teacher. In a previous class the teacher had the students write down questions they wanted to ask about the RTW project. So in those worksheets students were basically exploring things they have already expessed interest in finding answers. They worked on the worksheets as a group for a period and after they finished we handed out big pieces of papers, crayons, construction paper, scissors, tapes and students started creating a poster for the topic they explored in order to present to their classmates. Presentations will take place next time i will go there. I have to say that all of us had great time. Students were very much into the project , they really enjoyed and even when it was time for lunch they didn't want to stop working on their presentations. They cut and paste graphics, they made headings and titles and they started summarizing the information they found in order to present to the other students.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), October 30, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza School visited: IS90 Date: October 30 Teacher: Heather Ganek

Curriculum Connections: Throught the presentations made students learn how to present to their classmates, how to listen and comprehend information and then how to compose a letter.

Resources: Print outs from the RTW website that had to do with he crew. Overhead Projector. Laptop.

Activities: Students had already finished their posters and i have to say i was really impressed. THen we had each group presenting the information they have been able to find. The teacher was asking some questions after each presentation to make sure tha students were learning something different from their classmates. After finishing the presentations students had questions that they couldn't find the answeres in the printouts we handed out on Tuesday. We had the students generate some discussion as a class about some of the things they wanted to know. Then we turned the overhead projector on and we composed an e-mail for the Crew. Students introduced themselves as the D410 class from IS90 and then ask few quesitons that they really wanted to find out the answers. Heather Ganek, the teacher will send the e-mail becuase the class doesn't have a network connection.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), October 30, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: October 16, 1998 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: This was my first visit to the school and my first time meeting Khaleelah. I was there for about two hours and helped out in the class. The children were finishing up there work and allowed to then use the computers to explore the Reach the World web site. I supervised this activity and provided assistance when necessary.

Curricular connection: I was there to discover how I could integrate Reach the World into Khaleelahs curriculum. I needed to observe how much experience the children had with the computers as well as at what academic and social levels the children were.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Today we used the 6 classroom computers which were linked to the internet.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Not yet...for next week I will plan.

Checklist Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. We exchanged our first email today. The children are studying weather as part of their science curriculum and they had already listed questions on the board which they wanted to send to the Makulu. We will look for the results next week.

Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 10:00-12:00

Amount of prep time this week: 0 hours (first visit)

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 05, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 10/21/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: We worked on a lesson which I planned called Lets Meet the Makulu. Although the children had talked about the Makulu with their teacher and explored the web site on their own, I sensed that they really didnt know too much about the project. Therefore, I developed a lesson where the children had specific questions to answer from the Message from the Crew to You portion of the website. They were required to work with partners and share the job of filling in the recording sheet. I also sensed during the previous week that the children did not have very much training in cooperative grouping since they seemed to argue a lot and not accomplish a task. The children did a good job searching the section for specific information. We came back as a whole group at the end of the session and discussed the answers. It led to many more questions about the crew, ship, and cultures being encountered.

I also noticed during the previous week that Quicklime wasnt running, one computer no longer had a working browser, and there were a couple of other computer related problems which I wanted to try to fix. I spent quite a bit of time there doing so on my own. Theron Feist also came to hook up a printer and we tried to troubleshoot some of the problems together. This work took up the rest of the afternoon.

Curricular connection: Khaleelah would like to tie in Reach the World with her weather unit in science. I felt that the children needed to have more background knowledge about the boat as well as more practice navigating around the web site.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used 5 classroom computers (1 did not work) each of which is connected to the internet and my information gathering sheets.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. Nothing new yet. We sent the original email to the wrong address and Khaleelah is having some trouble with her email so we havent heard from Heather yet.

Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-4:00

Amount of prep time this week: 2 hours -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 05, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: November 6 School visited: IS90 Teacher: Heather Ganek Project:RTW

Curricular Connections: Try to relate RTW with writing and social studies (geography)

Resources used: Printouts from the RTW website, books, maps, globe, worksheets.

Activities: For the first period we have tried to relate RTW with the writing activities students are engaged in. What students have been doing for a while is that they were interviewing one of their classmates,they were writing the answers down e.t.c We printed out the information about the Makulu's crew from the web site and in the same way we had students see how the people in Makulu introduced themselves. We decided that when Makulu will be in Singapore and they can access their land account we will send the interviews and pictures of the students to the crew so the RTW crew get to know students as well. In this way we are trying to make students feel more into the project and feel that they are establishing a more personal relationship with the crew in Makulu. In the second period we turned to geography. Since Makulu is in Asia and will be there for a while we decided to start studying Asia. We introduced Asia by using maps, the globe and their books. I leaded this section. We explained where Makulu is right now, where they are going next and why we want to study Asia now. We used yarn and mapped out Makulu's itinarary on the wall world map so they get a better sense of where they started, where they are now and how they will continue. Basically today's session was introductory. We have already planned out the next one which is gonna be much more exciting...stay tuned!

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), November 06, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/04/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: During a previous visit, the students had been concerned that the Makulu would suffer the same fate as the Titanic. I decided that rather than just tell them the answer, we would problem solve using various websites. The students had to find out about the weather in Bali and then look at the pictures of the weather on the RTW website to draw conclusions about the weather there. They recorded their answers on a recording sheet. We will finish the rest of the activity which will involve researching Nova Scotia and an iceberg site next time.

Curricular connection: This lesson combined the using the internet to research weather which is part of the science curriculum. It is also used the Reach the World website as a resource. The children also practiced reading, research skills, and drawing conclusions.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used 5 classroom computers (1 did not work) each of which is connected to the internet and my information gathering sheets.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. Nothing new yet....hopefully next week well have time. Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-1:30

Amount of prep time this week: 2 hours -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 08, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 10/28/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: Khaleelah had designed an internet based lesson which used the computers. The children shared the computers. Each child was assigned a U.S. city. He/she was supposed to go to the Weather Channel web site and find out the weather for the week in that city. Each child copied down the information, presented it to the class, and then Khaleelah recorded it in sticker form on a map.

After the lesson, I read Heathers reply to each of the questions which the children had sent to her via email. Within the responses, Heather posed some questions to the children which we wrote on the board so that they will be researched at a later date.

Curricular connection: This lesson combined the internet with weather. The children also were able to receive some answers regarding Reach the World.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used 5 classroom computers (1 did not work) each of which is connected to the internet and my information gathering sheets.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. Nothing new yet....hopefully next week theyll have some new questions. Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-1:00

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 08, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza

Date: November 13

School: IS90

Teacher: Heather Ganek

Curricular Connections: Relate the RTW project and resources with the Social Studies- - geography, cultural connections. The idea is to have students plan a one day itinerary in Singapore for the makulu crew.

Resources used: Print outs from the RTW web site. Print outs from the Internet with information about Singapore. Books, travel brochures for Asia and specifically for Singapore. Printouts from www.travel.com.sg and some other websites.

Activities:: At the beginning we provided an up date for the makulu, like when they are planning to arrive on Singapore, how long they will stay there and so on. Heather G. had alrady brought some brochures from travel agents with information on Singapore and also itinerary plans made for tourists who travel in Singapore. In this way we explained the idea to the Students ,we went on and study some of the itineraries so they get a clear sense of what we wanted them to come up with. I want to mention that one of students homework the previous day was to do a research and come up with information On Singapore. I was amazed by the things students learned. If you recall the previous time i was there we also introduced Asia . So now students know where is Singapore, which countries are near by, what is the population and other basic information. We had students work in 5 groups. Prior to this i prepared five folders with inforamtion on Singapore. One folder for each group. Each group was studying different attractions. So we had one group had a folder with historical information and everything the makulu crew should know prior to arrival in Singapore. The second group was to find the interesting museums and we provided relevant information. The third folder was about nature and animal attractions --botanical gardens, national parks e.t.c The fourth group had information about interesting ethnic areas or unique villages and finally the fifth group had information on different festivals that will run between the period of Nov.20-27. Each group was responsible of reccomending couple of interesting places for the crew to visit. That's how far we got today. Heather will continue the activity on Monday. As a class the will come up with a complete one day itinerary that we will sent to the makulu via e-mail prior to their arrival in Singapore. That was a very exciting activity for the kids. They were very engaged with their task although we tried to explain that there are many things they need to consider before suggesting possible places. We told them they needed to be careful to send the crew in unique places and events that they will not be able to find them in other places of the world. Like, the air force museum is something interesting but it is something that they can find in the US as well. Second of all we told them not to send them in expensive places since they don't carry a lot of money with them. Like, if a museum has an entrance fee of $10 that's probably kind of expensive. We encouraged them to select places that people can get for free. Another thing they needed to be careful is not plan let's say a tour to one of the nearby islands that takes 5 hours because then they will have no time for anything else. They also studied the maps of Singapore to make sure that they will plan feasible things. For instance we discussed that we can not ask them to be at a museum on 11 and then on a park which is on the other site of the city at 12. We provided information about the hours all sighseeings are operating, phone numbers and directions on how to get there. We even provided information about restaurants that have specia food for tourists. I know this sound a kind of overwhelming but actually it was a lot of fun. It was just that Heather and I were running from one table to another to help students. However, we do believe that having the students in the position of thinking all these attributes it's a good practice for higher order thinking and problem solving.

E-mails between makulu and the class: we got an e-mail from Heather that answers the questions students sent a week ago. The questions were: Do you ever get sea sick? Do you ever get home sick? How do you navigate? How do you communicate with people? Do you speak all languages?

Answers are very interesting. If any of you would like to use them i have copies. Heather also told us that they can send navigation quizes for those interested.

i will send an e-mail to makulu by Monday explaining the activity we are planning for them and Heather will send the itinerary by Thursday Nov.19.

Length of stay: 8-10:30 Preparation: a lot.

Chrystalla.

-- chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), November 13, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/13/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: During my previous visit, we began a research activity to see if the Makulu could suffer the same fate as the Titanic. I decided that rather than just tell them the answer, we would problem solve using various websites. This week we researched the weather in Halifax, Nova Scotia and looked at a Coast Guard website which showed a picture of the iceberg assumed to be the one which destroyed the Titanic.They recorded their answers on a recording sheet. The children will finish up their conclusions before my visit next Wednesday. We will discuss our findings and email Heather with the results.

Curricular connection: This lesson combined the using the internet to research weather which is part of the science curriculum. We also researched icebergs using the Coast Guard website. It is also used the Reach the World website as a resource. The children also practiced reading, research skills, and drawing conclusions.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used 5 classroom computers (1 did not work) each of which is connected to the internet and my information gathering sheets.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. Nothing new yet....hopefully next week well have time. Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 11:00-1:00

Amount of prep time this week: 1 1/2 hours -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 14, 1998.

Notes by: Stav Birnbaum Date:Nov.18 for Class visit on Nov. 13th School Visited: Mott Hall Teacher:Nancy Einstein

Brief Description of what happened in class: Students came up with questions that they wanted to ask Heather about Singapore. They came up with 10 they liked and as a class abbreviated them on the board. We then went to the computer room to email Heather, but got locked out of the computer room for a while. When we finally got into the computer room, ten students (two to a computer) were able to view the RTW website for about ten minutes while the rest of the students worked outside the computer lab.

Curricular connection: The best part was that students were spontaneously figuring out how much the email was costing per letter.

Emails between Makulu and class: In the end, the students didn't actually sent the email but Nancy did after class.

-- Stav Birnbaum (stav@pixgen.com), November 18, 1998.

Daily Report for November 18, 1998 By Neal Carlson Visited Science Skills HS with Everton Barrett

I found him! Probably last time I was there, I arrived during 7th period when he has a break. He must have been away from his room, and the other room he has class in. Anyway, this time I had to walk around the school some, but found him and all is well.

He is very dynamic, as are his classes. This makes it difficult for me to figure out what is going on. I decided that to work with Everton, I have to be more assertive than I normally am. Otherwise Ill just get lost in all the commotion and activity. But working with Everton should certainly be beneficial to me, Im looking forward to it.

His classes have been introduced to Reach the World. His students are doing projects for the science fair which will be in January. He wants some of the students to integrate Reach the World into those projects. His idea is they can email the crew with questions related to their projects. That is one use of Reach the World.

Another use of Reach the World: his classes are doing other projects, from a list of ideas he made. As far as I remember, these projects are completely different from the science fair projects, but in some cases they could be the same. He wants his students to come up with ideas for activities which tie together the projects with Reach the World. Of these ideas, we will choose a few, and then narrow it down to two. These two ideas we will develop into the two activities Kristie wants for the Reach the World Web site.

I will visit his 8th period class on Wednesdays. His school is near the Debate Team school, so visiting at this time will be easy for me. And his classes are in the computer lab (which has internet access) on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, I cant visit his 4, 5, or 6 period classes because Im at Benjamin Banneker Academy (or in transit) at that time.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), November 18, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Date: November 19 School:IS90 Teacher: Heather Ganek

Curricular Connections: Cultural Connections.

Activities: It was a special day at IS 90 today because kids just received their laptops and they were really excited. We spent the first three periods preparing students using the laptops. Heather explained basic things, plugging then in, starting the computer, creating a file and a folder e.t.c So basically my role today was to help the class get started with the computers.

After lunch time we worked with a group of kids on the RTW project. Heather and the kids have already done a lot of work on Monday and Tuesday. Kids selected all the places they wanted the crew to visit while in Singapore, they figured out where each place is located and collected all the information. What we did today is that we put everything together in a one day itinerary plan. They are sending them in three museums, a festival and a night safari trip. They told them what time they have to be at each place , how long they can stay, how much they have to pay, how to get there and provide them with phone numbers to call for more information. Kids have even suggested a restaurant for lunch around the museum area where they are supposed to spend the morning of the day they will follow the itinerary. One of the students typed the letter, explaining the plan to the crew and listing the places and all the information like you see in travel brochures.

E-mails between Makulu and class: We sent an e-mail to Heather introducing the activity. We have already received a responce from her. She said the activity sounded great. I received an e-mail today asking when the itinerary will be ready because they want to plan their days in Singapore. I just wrote back explaining all about the activity and what we expect from them. Heather G. will send the itinerary that the kids prepared probably today or tomorrow. It is basically done. She will arrange the details and send it.

I got a picture of the drawing we selected for the T-shirt with a digital camera. I have already sent the picture to Kristi. I also have a class picture. We will send it to the RTW people along with the interviews kids were doing so we can introduce the kids to the RTW people. I have already sent this picture to Kristi as well.

I was there from 7:30-12:30

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), November 19, 1998.

Notes by: Stav Birnbaum Date:11/20 School Visited:Mott Hall The class was a little off schedule this week, and we did not work on the Reach the World curriculum except for the few students who were drawing their entries for the t-shirt.

The interesting part of the class was a book report that three students gave through a powerpoint presentation. The graphics of the presentation was fun and impressive for these sixth graders.

Otherwise, I have nothing else to report for this week.

-- Stav Birnbaum (stav@pixgen.com), November 21, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/18/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: We spent the first part of the day working on the Reach the World t- shirt design. The children used the computers to review some of the pictures of the Makulu. Khaleelah then had a lesson planned for the children in which they measured temperatures in the school using thermometers.

I also went next door to the first/second grade class as well. I talked to them about the Reach the World project. We looked at the crew page as well as the pages about the boat. At the end of my time there we sent questions via email to Heather.

Curricular connection: In the third/fourth grade class, the t-shirts connected with the project. In the first/second grade class, the children were able to see a web site on their 2 new computers and learn some basics of Reach the World.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used the RTW as a reference in both classes.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. One message from the first/second grade class. Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-1:00

Amount of prep time this week: 3 hours (I developed a lesson which we didnt wind up using.) -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 23, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/02/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: The students worked with the Storm Chasers web site. They had questions to answer about hurricanes and used the site to answer them.

I also went next door to the first/second grade class as well. I planned a lesson about weather for them. First we read a book. Then used the usatoday weather site to find out the temperatures both in New York and Malaysia. (Malaysia is where Heather was most recently) We then visited the Reach the World web site to look at pictures of some warmer climates. We thought of some weather comments to send to Heather.

Curricular connection: In the third/fourth grade class, the t-shirts connected with science. In the first/second grade class, the children were able to see a web site on their 2 new computers, learn some science and view the Reach the World web site.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): In the third/fourth grade class we used the Storm Chasers web site. In the first grade we used www.usatoday.com/weather, www.reachtheworld.org, the book What Will the Weather Be Like Today? by Paul Rogers, and a globe.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. One message from the first/second grade class. (We never received a reply from our previous message from two weeks ago.)

Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-1:00

Amount of prep time this week: 1 1/2 hours (developed lesson and researched web sites) -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 02, 1998.

I visited Nancy Einstein for the first time Nov 30 at Mott Hall. I was there from 10 to 11.

The goal was to meet the teacher and the students. I didn't communicate much with Nancy before visiting the school, so I didn't know exactly what she was doing.

The class of 6th grades seemed very nice. They have been studying geography along the route of the Makulu, so today they read about Malaysia. Then in groups they developed questions they wanted to ask of the crew for once they get to Malaysia. Of the many questions they brainstormed in groups, we choose 14 and wrote them on the board. We shortened a few of them, but didn't have time to shorten all of them.

I will email Nancy, and we'll have to figure out how I can best help her in the class.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), December 02, 1998.

I visited Science Skills HS with Everton Barrett from 1 to 3 on Dec 2.

Everton still doesn't seem to know how he wants to use RTW in his class. I didn't work with the students today. They were there during one of the periods, but they mainly did their own work on the computers. Everton and I discussed the two activities we are to prepare for Kristi. One activity came from a student suggestion from two weeks ago. The other activity Everton and I brainstormed today.

We did ask the students to help us come up with ideas on how to compare glasses of water. I'll be there next Wend, and I'll bring a draft of my ideas for the second project - measuring temperatures.

We talked a lot about teaching and education in general. It was interesting to get his point of view on many topics. Working with Everton is educational for me, even if we aren't too on task with his students and RTW.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), December 02, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: December 4 School visited: IS90

Curricular Connections: Cultural Connections

Resources used: Social Studies books, laptops

Activities: We provided an update of the RTW route and informed kids that we will have all the stuff we requested in the itinerary they have sent to Heather next week. Heather H. sent an e-mail saying that they have already sent us a DHL package with all the information they collected from the places we asked them to visit in Singapore. We are looking forward to receiving the package. Should be fun to see if they actually have gone to all the places we asked them.

Today kids reviwed origin myths from different countries as part of the cultural connections idea. Their task is to generate and create their own original myths. They used a template in their laptops to put in the outline of their story. Heather and i were walking around helping kids generate ideas based on the other myths they have already read,and plot the characters and the story.

It's amazing how kids are really into the laptops. They can already manage to work independently, they know how to create new documents, save their work in the right folder e.t.c The idea is when they will be done with their stories to put them in Powerpoint with pictures and narration and present them in the fourth graders in their school. Isn't that a great idea? In this way they have audience and a greater challenge to prosuce somethinng interesting and appealing.

Next week we will be more focus in the RTW project. We will ask Heather to record any myths or stories she can find from Asia. We will also introduce Malaysia and try to find some myths from there.

E-mails between Makulu & Classroom: One- -from Heather. I will send an e-mail requesting stories.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), December 04, 1998.

Daily Report for Mott Hall and Nancy Einstein:

She called Sunday night, canceling my Monday morning visit. There is a school presentation or something. She said she'd email me the questions we developed last time, and I would shorten them and send them to Makulu. I haven't yet gotten that email (as of Thursday at 4).

Daily Report for Everton Barrett at Science Skills HS. I was there Dec 9 from 12:30 to 2:30

The goal was to discuss the actities we'll be planning. We discussed and began on a draft. It seems like the activities we are working on are a bit of a reach - as in: we are preparing the activities because the ship is out there sailing around, but wouldn't dare prepose having a ship sail around so we could accomplish our activities.

I think that having a ship sail around the world can be very interesting, and students will enjoy activities based on it. But it probably isn't a very efficient use of money.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), December 10, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: Dec.11 School visited: IS90

Curricular Connections: Cultural Connections: Religion and Culture.

Activities: Students have worked with their textbooks studying about religion and how it affects culture so they will be able to comprehend the different cultures and the information that RTW crew is sending to them

On the second part of the class we showed students all the information we received from Makulu from Singapore. Heather and Mark went to most of the places kids asked them to go in the itinarary they sent to them. They collected all kinds of brochures, maps, museums' floor plans, magazines everything they have been able to find. H and Mark also sent two documents with pictures included from all the places kids asked them to go . We saved the documents on the disks and kids copied them in their laptops. We didn't have time to go through those. Heather will do that next week. If any of you guys would like to use those materials..(they are amazing) you can get the discs form me. Kids got really excited to find out that heather and Mark went to most of the places they wanted them to go. They were most excited about the night zoo safari. I read all the information that Heather sent us so i was able to tell them some more info. It was really funny to find out that the restaurant kids recommended for lunch, exists (!) although was not a very good place to eat. However, Heather sent pictures of the restaurant. It was also very interesting to find out that kids gave precise directions for the different places and all the information they included in the itnerary was accurate.

Resources: package sent form singapore, laptops. We had couple of emails with Makulu. Today i just received two mails with myths since we requested them, and pictures.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), December 11, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/09/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: The students worked with the Storm Chasers web site. They had questions to answer about lightning and used the site to answer them.

I missed the chat with Heather because they talked with her before I was scheduled to arrive.

I didnt work with the first/second grade class this week.

Curricular connection: In the third/fourth grade class, the lesson connected with science.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): In the third/fourth grade class we used the Storm Chasers web site.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. None sent this week. I wasnt able to pass along the message transmitted by Heather to the first/second grade class.

Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-1:00

Amount of prep time this week: 1 1/2 hours (developed a lesson plan for grades 1/2 which I didn t use) -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 17, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/16/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: Heather and Kristi visited this week. The children asked Heather questions about her voyage on the Makulu.

Curricular connection: Heathers visit obviously connected with the Reach the World project.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.):

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-12:00

Amount of prep time this week: none -------------------------------------------------------------

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 17, 1998.

I visited Everton Barrett at Science Skills HS from 12:30 to 2 on January 6th.

Curricular goals: To review where we stand with the two activities. To make some decisions on what to do next. We decided to work with one of his classes while developing our second activity. Next week we'll have them do some of the begining work for the activity. We'll use his 6th period class, it is only 6 or so students, and meets from 12 to 12:45.

I'll prepare the activity more during the next week, and be back at his school next Wednesday.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@hotmail.com), January 06, 1999.

Saw Everton Barrett at Science Skills HS on Jan 13 from 12:45 to 1:15 and on Jan 20th from 12:30 to about 2:30

Curricular goals - discuss the activities. Hmm... we never seem to get much "work" done. On the 13th I only stayed a short while, because he was meeting with a team that will build a robot for one of those contests you might sometimes see on TV with robots throwing balls and attacking each other. Sounds like fun.

On the 20th, we discussed the robot they are building. And we also discussed Reach the World :) He'll prepare one activity to email to Kristi (and then Heather) for Jan 25, and I'll prepare the other. Up until now, the activities are only in our heads, and the discussions we've had. I knew that they would have to be put on paper (or a computer screen) eventually, but we didn't prepare ahead of time. Anyway... We'll email each other the next few days with drafts of the reports.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@hotmail.com), January 21, 1999.

I'm sorry I haven't posted the last two times I visited Mott Hall, and I'm making it up now.

I visited Mott Hall on Fri. 1/29 and Mon. 2/1. Both times, I worked with a small group of students on their Reach the World projects. Each group is working on a brochure and slide show on an area in Southeast Asia. Mostly, I helped in organizational issues. We don't have access to the internet in the classroom, so we did research using an Encarta CD-ROM.

-- Stav Birnbaum (stav@pixgen.com), February 03, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: Feb.5 School visited: ISI90

Hello all. Here i am, back to duty. It was nice being back to ISI90 today and kids were excited too. It's also amazing how much progress did these kids do with their laptops. They developed great powerpoing skills.

Curricular connections: Cultural connections through origin myths.

Activities: Originally this unit started by presenting to kids original myths from different countries. They read myths from their textbooks and we found another Australian myth over the Interner about how the Kangaroo got its legs. Also RTW sent us a couple of myths and as you know we have already asked them to collect myths for us.

Now kids are working on writing their own origin myths using powerpoint. They are supposed to write an origin myth that will look like a storybool and will be interesting for 6 year old kids. So students not only write the text but they draw pictures that they then impost in powerpoint and the different slides are like defferent pages. Students are very close to finish their myths. Today we had some of the kids presenting their myths and the whole class was responsible for commenting and doing a kind of evaluation. Then we handed out the comments to the student who now has to revise according to the advise he/she got from class. We wanted to use a projector so the whole class can read and view the pictures but machines never work when you need them as you know. We will be more prepared next week when we will have the final presentations. Some of the myths were really great. some examples are: How the rabbit got its small tail, how the turtle gor its shell, how the snake lost its leg, how the skunk got its smell e.t.c. We had a lot of fun.

Our future goals are to teach about religion and continue teaching about culture. So we will ask RTW to send any information they can find about religion. They sent us a small segment of a Budhism temple on a video tape from Singapore. And..here is the funny idea. We would like to teach more about languages. An idea that we had today is to come up with a sentence like e.g "What is your name" and ask RTW to send us this sentence in as many languages as they can. So maybe kids can learn "what is your name " in ..10 languages.

Those are some of the stuff we discussed today with Heather G. It was my first beign there after the break so we were not as organized as we wanted. I will keep you posted with the stuff we will decide to go on. If you have nay commends or ideas to contribute feel free.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), February 05, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date:02/12 School visited : IS90

Curricular Connections:Social Studies, creative writing

Activites: We didn't get to have the presentations today because students were still working on their original myths in powerpoint. They finished the drawings and the stories but they are still editing and revising. We had the kids print their myths. Stunts have also print outs from previous drafts. They are keeping all of them in a folder so the teacher has the whole process when she will evaluate (emphasis on the process and not just the product). Students were really into the project. It was time for lunch and they didn't want to leave their task. That's a real advantage of technology. Heather and i were walking around , providing advice and help in editing. I saved kid's work on discs so i can show you some example son our net meeting.

The week after the beak we will introduce the new project. We have already planned our next two projects.

Resources: Laptops , powerpint, paintint program.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), February 12, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: March 4 Time: 11:30-2:45 School visited: IS90 Project: RTW

Curricular Connections: Cultural Connections-Religions of the world Hinduism

Activities: Thursday it was the first day that we introduced the project around religions of the world. The idea is to study the most well known religions of the world. We started with Hinduism since we already had good information that Heather and Mark had sent us a while ago from Bali, Indonesia. When studying about religion we are focusing around the following aspects: holly texts, philosophy, major god(s), number of people that follow this religion, major countries that follow each religion, rituals, basic characteristics.

Students had already stored in their computers a document about Hinduism that was cut and pasted from Microsoft Encarta. Major aspects were highlighted. Heather and I went through the document with students reading , explaining, answering questions and completing a worksheet that students had in their laptops. After gaining a basic understanding we watched the video that Heather and Mark sent us from Bali. The video clip provided information about Hinduism temples, rituals and showed how Hindus cremate a dead person. The video clip enhanced the understanding of the aspects of the religion that we have covered with the students.

We had also just received a post card from H & M from Sri Lanka and one of the students volunteered to write back an email informing them that we received the card.

Resources: Microsoft Encarta, Laptops, worksheet, video clip.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), March 06, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: 03/09/99 School visited: IS90 Project: RTW Time: 8:15-10:30

Curricular Connections: Cultural Connections-Religions of the World

Activities: Today we introduced Budhism. Heather found a story about Budha's life that we used in today's activity. We made 5 copies and had students worked in groups. We cut the story in sentences and we had students put the pieces together to get the story. Then they paste and taped it in a separate piece of paper. Heather prepared a template that copied in students' computers where she did the same thing we did in paper. She put each sentense of the story in a text box and students have to put the stoty in the right sequence by moving the text boxes. That's just for follow up and also for having the story saved for future reference.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), March 09, 1999.

Curriculum Connections: Students are making brochures and powerpoint presentations on places RTW has visited in South East Asia and Australia.

Resources: The Singapore group just received two discs of dgital images from Heather.

Activities:Since the images were on two computers, I had them start up two computers and go through the batch of images- two on one machine and three on the other. They were 100% involved in looking through each image. I had them make inferences for images they were not sure of or just analyze images to get more information. For example, there was a wedding photo. I asked them if it looked like a traditional or a typical western wedding and why. And, when they found the image of a buddha statue, I asked them to figure out what it was through questions. The kids had some great inferences, for example, there was one image titled "hall." One kid throught it was a church or some sort of religious structure because of the bells in the background, while another thought it was a government building because of the formality. They enjoyed looking for the details and were a bit dissappointed in the small size.

After picking which images they wanted to illustrate their brochure, I tried to get them to write simple captions for each of the images chosen. This was hard for them to do because they were not sure (a) how to write the caption and (b) if they could write statements about a photo when they were not 100% sure that they were right. We managed to write about 7-8 captions before I left.

-- Stav Birnbaum (Sbirnbaum@ilt.columbia.edu), March 10, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: March 12 School visited: IS90 Project: RTW Time: 8:15-10:30

Curiculum Connections: Cultural Connections - Religions of the world

Activities: Students worked in groups in order to create a poster with information on the religions they have studies so far. Students used different resources to find and organize information. The idea was to create a poster that will be informative for people who don't know a lot about the different religions. Each group worked on a specific religion. They had to write text, paste or draw pictures and images and include all major information for each religion.

Resources used: Microsoft Encarta, Social Studies books, laptops, information from RTW, poster paper.

Emails exchanged wiht Makulu: Two. We just received an email with information on Islam.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), March 15, 1999.

We had a shortened period today because they needed to take a vocabulary quiz.

Nancy had looked up several websites with images from Southeast Asia, and some of the students were going to download these images for their projects. There were technical difficulties, and only one student was able to log on to AOL in the 25 minutes we were on line.

The rest of the students were working on their projects offline and were fairly productive.

-- Stav Birnbaum (stav@pixgen.com), March 24, 1999.

Notes by : Chrystalla Mouza

Date: March 26

School visited: IS90

Time:8:15-10.00

Project: RTW

Curricular Connections: Cultural Connections, Languages of the Workd

Activities: As we planned a while ago we are starting a new language project. Heather Ganek will have different people coming in and teaching basic phrases of different languages. We also received some information from RTW in some unusual languages. For this first section i taught kids some Greek. I introduced the alphabet and basic communication phrases. Kid were highly involved and showed a lot of interest in learning new languages.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), March 29, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza School visited: IS90 Date: March 31 Project:RTW Time: 8:15-10:30

Curricular Connections: Cultural Connections- Religions and Languages of the World

Activities: In the last couple of weeks students were working on the religions of theworld. First we had students work in grops and create posters about the different religions they were studying. After poster students worked in pairs and created powerpoing presentations about religions. They used different kind of sources , like books, the Microsoft Encarta and information sent from RTW. Today Heather Ganek, the teacher of the classroom i work with and Christine Mulgrave another sixth grade teacher at IS90 decided to have some of Heather's students present their work and teach Christine's students about religions. Heather chose two groups and i worked with these kids in preparing them how to present their projects. Then we went to Christine's class for the presentation. We had the laptops connected with the TV so all kids could look at the slides. Kids did a good job in presenting theri work, answering questions that students had about religion and explaining different things. For the most part they knew what they were talking about although at some parts they were more excited about the sounds they recorded fro their presentation than the actual content.

Differences in student's work were very obvious. The first group of students focused more on including a lot of information about each religion by using various sources of information while the other group did not include a lot of information but included a lor of picures and sounds (like the Islamic prayer, the Budhism music) copied and pasted from Encarta. For the most part they knew to explain why they included a specific picture and what was the meaning of the picrure for the specific religion. However, for some of the pictures they couldn't say much. They knew the picture was representative of a specific religion but couldn't explain it's purpose.

I think this is one of concerns around the use of technology in education. Students might be spending a lot of time drawing pictures , copying pictures , recording sounds or adding special effects to their presentations and paying little attention in the content. I am not saying that they didn't get a lot our of it but just this is something we sould be careful when using technology. What was really interesting i think is the fact that the students that did a good job with religiong projects and sent to present were not the high achievement students of the class.However, those students due to the use of technology they were motivated and engaged in the project and did a nice job. In the case of presentaiton i like the approach the two teachers used. Students of one class became the experts for the students of another class. I think this is a high form of collaboration.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), March 31, 1999.

I visited Nancy Einstein at Mott Hall today from 10 to 11.

Most of the class was working on some practice essays for a big test they have to take in a few weeks. I worked with two of the groups to see how their projects are coming along. I don't think they work on their projects exept when I am there. Nancy is very unhappy with the class's performance and work ethic.

One of the groups had a pretty complete presentation. They just had to add four slides from one computer to the next. There were a few spelling mistakes (mis-use of words) that I pointed out to them. They had no pictures. The other group had a four slide presentation. There were several mistakes, and they didn't understand some of the things that they wrote (copied, but in their own words). They claimed to have more work at home on paper. They are going to use that information to make more slides for the presentation.

Overall, the class is disorganized, and they don't have enough time to devote to the presentations because they are behind with everything else. I sometimes feel bad because I feel that Nancy feels obligated to have me work with one group every time I come in, even though I think she'd rather just have the entire group together trying to catch up on their other studies.

NAC

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), April 12, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza

School visited : IS 90

Date: April 22

Project : RTW

Today Heather had planned a poetry unit. Since there are a lot of poems in their text book and they don't have time to go through all of them each kid was going to teach a poem to hes/her classmates. Students had to select a poem from the poem that they liked and wanted to present. Then they had to prepare it either as a powepoint or word document or even on paper with a background they thought match the tone and the mood of the poem. They could also used music that captures this tone and mood of the poem Then they had to read it loud to their classmates and explain why they picked the background and the music they did. Some kids did a great work.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), April 29, 1999.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza

Date: April 29

School visited: IS 90

Project: RTW

Today students had an online chat with Heather from Greece. They got to ask questions about Greece and also teach Heather the Greek words that they learned after i taught them some Greek. THey have asked questions about places to visit in Greece, Greek food, they way people dress in Greece e.t.c We used the remaining time to plan our goals and activities for the remaining of the school year as well as discuss things that worked and did not work this year.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrysstalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), April 29, 1999.