At the end of term 2, we experienced an amazing session. It was Friday 13th, in the school library with a combined year 9/10 info class and the grade 3/4s (as  it was too wet to play sport outside). Our principal had just left on a plane for the US, but we beat her there as we had an appointment at 10 am with a school from New England in the USA, at 8pm Thursday 12th.

Skype allowed us to videoconference with exceptional clarity. The audio did not falter on our end and the video was quite clear and had few time delays. A web cam and desktop mic were our means of communication. After 8 weeks or so of connections via shared blog posts and live blogging, our finale was this videoconference of ’show and tell’. A live bird, a New Guinea eclectus parrot, and three baby birds started the show off, followed by vegemite, a meat pie with sauce, a footy, Essendon footy jumper, a netball, webkinz, toy koala, banksia flowers etc. Collaborationnation showed us their dunkin’donuts/drink, baseball cap, basketball top, district flag, Disneyworld souveneir. They explained the origins of their national anthem and sang it to us with gusto. The girls demonstrated cheer leading and jazz ballet steps and chanted mugzy to taste test vegemite from a teaspoon to prove it was a food. We responded with a demonstration of netball and the singing of our national anthem. The responses from students has been resoundingly positive  and they wish to continue on with this style of learning and both countries’ students have begged their teachers for more. However, the US students finish their school year next week and we change semesters. It is certainly to be hoped that we can continue to collaborate next semester with a new group. Read these student posts to see what students feel about our current schooling and the online collaboration in comparison:- Flurogreen, Tawney, Leecie, Lauren, Mugzy The fabulous part about all this collaboration, is that it triggers further research from the initiative of students. Paul Bogush has forwarded on this finding on our infamous vegemite from his students after yesterday’s videoconference. We had promised to send them a tube of vegemite, but now we will have to abstain. However, I have been since informed it was a hoax!!!!