Teacher, Laura Alessi, (This SMSTeacher on Ramapo Islands) started the school year off thinking of ways to engage her middle school and high school students in a collaborative project. Mrs. Alessi teaches Italian at both Suffern Middle and Suffern High School. We put our heads together (always a dangerous thing around here!) and decided to start them off in Second Life. Today we began by orienting the 8th graders in her class at the middle school. The students joined a group (Ramapo Italian) and Sra. Alessi sent out a notice to the group with instructions for the day. Part of her purpose was to keep things simple and the other was to conduct an informal assessment to determine the students entry level writing/conversation ability. Here is one example of a notecard she received back today:
[9:48] Palior SMSVoyager: ciao
[9:48] Una SMSVoyager: ciao
[9:48] Palior SMSVoyager: come ti chiami
[9:49] Una SMSVoyager: mi chiamo Farrah E tu?
[9:49] Palior SMSVoyager: mi chiamo anthony
[9:49] Palior SMSVoyager: come stai
[9:50] Una SMSVoyager: sta cosi cosa e tu?
[9:50] Palior SMSVoyager: sta bene
[9:50] Palior SMSVoyager: quanti anni hai
[9:50] Una SMSVoyager: Ha tredici anni e tu?
[9:50] Palior SMSVoyager: ho tredici anni
[9:51] Palior SMSVoyager: quanti fratelli
[9:52] Una SMSVoyager: ho un fratello e tu?
[9:52] Palior SMSVoyager: ho un frattello
[9:52] Palior SMSVoyager: dove abiti
[9:52] Una SMSVoyager: Io abito nella Montebello e tu?
[9:53] Palior SMSVoyager: io abito nello airmont
[9:53] Palior SMSVoyager: arivederchi
Many of the students are new to Second Life, some had forgotten login or basic skills- but enough of them were functioning as student mentors and we are off to a good start. Using Poinkey’s Pods was a plus — but also required some management as many were still unsure of how to sit properly and we ended up with a few “singles” in what is designed to be a two-person pod (yes– some had threee when students unknowingly sat on each others’ laps—at least I think it was unknowingly ) Pics tomorrow and more conversations–Next we plan on taking them into Decka’s Decks to try multiple person conversations – and from there we will use multiple classes betqween the high school and middle school . NOTE: Once again – it was a teacher – speaking to another teacher that now has three more of our Foreign Language Department on board to use Second Life.
