HSD Videoconferencing

The annual Read Around the Planet videoconferencing event has begun. At Hempfield we have many classes participating including ESL, German, Spanish, French, second grade and fifth grade. The first two events were held on Thursday February 25. Mrs. Goserud and Mrs. Snyder’s ESL classes shared books that they had created with Technology Specialist Ms. Reed to another ESL class in Peel School District, Ontario, Canada. The Canadian class shared a presentation on the provinces of Canada. Both classes enjoyed the interaction and we look forward to further communication with this district.

Frau Henrich’s German II classes videoconferenced with a grade 2 class from the  Calmant Science and Technology Magnet School in Pittsburgh. The German 2 class presented two children’s books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie substituting german vocabulary for the english words. The second graders really liked our student who acted the part of the mouse in the story. The second grade class then shared a presentation on Pittsburgh and their haiki poems that they had written for the event. The question and answer session was a good vocabulary test for the Hempfield students as the second graders wanted to know many German words!

We look forward to the rest of the RAP connections next week. You can follow the RAP event on Twitter using the hashtag #RAP2010.

Our final Read Around the Planet videoconference took place yesterday afternoon. Madame Rita Nutter’s French 5 class interacted with her partner, Madame Joelle Barrette and her Advanced French Class form Ecole Francophone d’Airdrie in Airdrie, Canada. Both classes prepared power point presentations on their geographic area which included sharing historical facts, local products, foods and art. The students enjoyed interacting and asking each other questions about their schools so much that the session lasted 20 minutes longer than anticipated! Both schools are eager to videoconference again and are working on scheduling another event in May! Great job to both schools!

Three high school foreign language teachers, Mrs. Sherri Seachrist, Mr. Ryan Stralo, and Mr. Xiaodong Fan celebrated NEA’s Read Across America by collaborating with other classrooms “around the planet”. Mrs. Seachrist and Mr. Stralo’s classes both connected with students from Monmouth County Vocational School District in Neptune, NJ and Mr. Fan’s class connected with students from Los Angeles Unified School District in Los Angeles, CA. Read Across America is sponsored by Twice and Polycom, in cooperation with NEA. Twice provided the matching service for point-to-point videconferences betwee schools. Using this video conference technology, the classrooms were able to present flashcards, skits, songs, questions and more to each other. It was a new and powerful experience for many of the students!