Tag Archives: Japan

When Santa stole the show!

Posted on December 17, 2014 by murcha | Leave a comment

Santa takes a rest!

For several months, a connection with a school in a rural area of Japan has been formally planned. Test connections took place and we got a glimpse of the classroom without students.

The empty Japanese classroom

This was my first quite formal connection as previous skype linkups have been spontaneous, sometimes unplanned, rather relaxed with some discussion on what we would do and how it would look once we connect. The learning has often been customized by the students and teachers involved as the connection evolves. However, with Mariko, a University colleague from Japan, we had a very formal structure in place with specific briefs and time to be taken for each part of our 30 minute connection.

Meanwhile behind the scenes:

The week before, students decided to organise a KrisKringle with the presents being opened on the day of the organised Japanese linkup. Names were drawn out of a hat so that the girls knew who their gift recipient was to be, would spend up to $10 on the gift and decided to open them prior to the Japanese web conference. Meanwhile, staff decided during the week to have a smorgasboard morning tea on that same day.

Prior to the connection:

On the actual day, I emailed Mariko to ask whether her students would like to hear about Christmas and how we celebrate it here if there was time. She responded yes and suggested we do it at the start of the lesson.
Students collected ‘Christmas’ type items around the school eg the year 5/6 Christmas tree, examples of craft work, printouts of pictures and amazingly found a Santa costume.
Students brought in their gifts and placed them in the Santa Bag.
Printed off individual first names on A4 paper so that the Japanese students would see who was talking to them.

The actual connection

Students completed a survey prior to the connection to share what they already knew about Japan. Surprisingly for me, two or three said that they knew nothing at all. At the appointed time, the skype call came through. We were seated informally around the webcamera, Christmas gear discreetly out of sight and faced a very formal classroom setup with the Japanese students seated in rows, some with masks over their mouths and a couple of girls with a blanket over their knees.

The girls proceeded to introduce themselves one at a time, name tag clearly displayed. Then showed some of the pictures, craft work and the Christmas tree. As this was going on, a lot of noise was coming from the corner of the room. About to reprimand those who were making the noise, I saw that they were quickly trying to dress a student in the Santa costume. With no planning at all, Santa, then grabbed the presents that were placed in the Santa sack, ho ho’ed her way into to the webcamera and did the Kris Kringle on the spot!

Santa opens her gift

There was much laughter and fun as the girls opened their presents in front of the web camera and showed what they closer to the camera. There were chocolates, lollies, lip gloss, cosmetics and jewellery. Curiousity gave way as we had to explain what some of the goods were and compare whether some of the confectionery and chocolates were available in Japan. At times we had to wait to be interpreted, a new skill for the girls to learn.

Talk then proceeded to the food we eat, when I suddenly remembered the leftovers from our smorgasboard morning tea. Leaving the girls to continue talking, I returned with some of the special cakes, chocolates and part of Christmas fruit cake. Britt Gow a fellow teacher shared her fruit cake with them and explained what it was.

Britt shares her Christmas cake

It was then question time. Our girls wanted to know why the boys were wearing the face masks and why the girls had a rug on their knees. Too quickly it was time to say goodbye and despite the fact that we did not follow our original program, the lesson worked, was fun, student led and directed with one of our favourite festivals and Santa taking pride of place!

A masked student

A kitty blanket

Going back in time!

Posted on November 26, 2014 by murcha | 2 comments

Mariko Eguchi took us on a virtual tour of a Japanese classroom belonging to the class she is going to connect us with in early December. Japan brings images of high technology use in my mind so it came as a bit of a shock to see a blackboard, chalk, no sign of computers or technology except for Mariko’s equipment, chairs in straight lines, desks individually placed allowing one student per desk etc. Certainly a contrast to our classrooms at Hawkesdale! It took me way back in time and reminded me how far we have actually come with technology.

Mariko had brought mobile polycom equipment, but the school firewall did not allow video to be transferred during our test linkup. Skype was used instead with the video and audio of high quality.

The year ICT class used Mystery Skype, google maps etc to determine where Mariko was from. She then took us on virtual tour of the classroom explaining that we were to meet the actual class in a couple of week’s time. Students were intrigued to find out that this school canteen only serves curried rice compared to our school which has a wide variety of hot foods and cold foods.

One of my students then took Mariko on a virtual tour of our school, using their microsoft surface tablets device.

2 Comments

Posted in Asian Connections, skype, web conferencing

Tagged Japan, mariko, Mariko Eguchi, polycom, skype

Solving technical issues on a global scale!

Posted on October 24, 2014 by annemirtschin | Leave a comment

Skype for initial call then keeping contact open

There is a saying that “if your product is good, the market will come to you!” The same saying can be applied to a person who has a strong online presence. If you are interested in global connections, have a strong profile, blog, share what you are doing and push it out there, others will find you and seek connections with you.

I was delighted to get an email from a university lecturer, Mariko Eguchi, from the Shimaine Prefecture in Japan who is working on global competencies with a number of countries including USA, Taiwan and Russia but was seeking interested secondary teachers in Australia. I immediately responded and said yes I would be interested as Mariko offers linkups via both skype and polycom. We get lots of skype contacts but global polycom users are more difficult to find. The visuals can be clearer with dedicated videoconferencing equipment so I was keen to try our school equipment with Asia.

Year 12 dress up day

Yesterday we used skype to initially connect, and used as a backchannel while we tried dialling each other over polycom. Year 8 girls happened to be in the room as were some year 12 students. It was their final day of school and they had come dressed up! Always a great opportunity to show off their costumes if it is on a global scale!

I could ring Mariko using polycom but she could not ring me. It was decided to test the connection with the school that she wants us collaborate with this Friday.

Skype opens our learning spaces

Polycom videoconference was next

Testing is essential and to ensure we covered all possible potential complications, I booked a room for us to meet through our Education Department just in case. Mariko then used skype chat to tell me that I cannot ring her on her mobile unit when outside the university, I have to ring her! We then tested the room connection immediately through the booked room number, but although Mariko could see me, she appeared as a blue box to me and also to her.

Resolving Mariko’s lack of video

Mariko is back on video

Gary Schultz, a virtual learning officer with our Education Department was messaged. He came into the room virtually and immediately to try and resolve the problem. As there was still no solution, the central office digital support technician was contacted who also immediately looked at the back end to find all was well on the Australian side. It was suggested that Mariko’s camera was not working. She contacted her technician who was on site. She came in immediately and resolved the problem. The actual linkup takes place tomorrow so fingers crossed all goes well.

How fortunate were we to have almost immediate virtual and face to face help and that technicians from 2 countries could work together and resolve the problems.

Day #2 Flat Classroom Conference 2013

Posted on March 9, 2013 by murcha | Leave a comment

As the state that I live in enjoys its hottest March on record, I worked as quickly as possible to water some of my garden before the conference started. In a split second of anxiety, I thought I would miss it altogether as I was about to step on a snake! Luckily it was not a snake but a blue tongue lizard.

A blue tongue lizard mistaken for a snake

As one of the two virtual co-ordinators, together with Jason Graham, our role included co-ordinating and moderating the 40 virtual participants – a group made up of both educators and students. It became a busy day, multitasking on several screens, trying to help those who were ‘lost’, those who were uncertain as to where they should be and those who wanted to engage in conversations and become more actively involved.

Participants in the Backchannel

A range of tools had been set up to try and engage those who were interested in participating. They included:-

A wiki – for capturing the conference and the learning that occurred there
The ning for networking and sharing
A backchannel using backchannelchat
Online notepads (shamblespad) for editing, contributing, brainstorming, chatting etc by the individual groups
Twitter using the hashtag #2013
A BlackboardCollaborate room during conference hours

With my mobile devices multi tasking in the chats

A preservice teacher from Canada waits to speak to the conference

Running a little late due to my escapade with the lizard, I logged into the Blackboard Collaborate room and was delighted to see Eva Brown in there with a number of her students from Canada. They were about to present virtually as part of Eva’s presentation using the microphone and video in this room to project their viewpoints. The chat was vibrant and it was good to see that this part worked well.

Over the day, there were hitches with some of the technical aspects of the conference eg Ustream did not always work, face to face groups became very busy within their own group and several keen virtual participants tried to help their group. The most active tools were the backchannel and the chat on the ning. This is where most people found each other and were able to share in conversations. It was always good to have Julie find time to pop in and tell us what was happening at the conference.Toni Oliveri-Barton, in the USA, entered the chat and talked about the success she had virtually working with her group no.4

Mid afternoon, Julie suggested that the virtuals make up a video to be played at the closing ceremony to share their side of the story in being part of the conference. This gave many a purpose, caused much chatter and eventuated in a google hangout for meeting in real time to discuss our experiences. Jason Graham created this google document for us to share images etc and talk about the nature of the video. It was quickly populated with notes and images and also gave everyone a sense of achievement and purpose. The backchannel was actively employed for further discussions on the creation of the video.

I enjoyed following the tweetfall through tweetchat and interacting in there. Although this was reasonably quiet, enough tweets were added to give a feel for the day from the face to face participants. By all accounts it was really successful. Tomorrow sees the last day of the conference. I wonder what it will bring? Were you a virtual participant or a face to face participant? What were your impressions?

Processes involved in global collaboration

Posted on September 16, 2012 by murcha | 1 comment

Global education is a personal passion. Tonight’s #globalclassroom twitter chat looked at “Scaffolding learning from class to world” – a fascinating topic that Laurie Renton in a blog post What is Global Taxonomy teased apart for us with a number of questions. One question that sticks out firmly in my mind is “Is there a progression of global collaboration?”

I experienced one step in that progression today – talking to a class of students through an interpreter. My friend, Lorraine Leo was the main presenter from Boston, USA and the class of students were in Japan. This was my first experience of working through an interpreter and an interesting one.

How it looked!

Professor Yoshiro Miyata, who I met through Lorraine, and creator of the World Museum Project, invited me to speak to some students along with Lorraine, using skype or google hangout. However, google hangouts are heavy on bandwidth, so I asked for skype. Unfortunately, I could not use my video due to poor sound quality
Lorraine shared her screen with Japan and talked about her use of Scratch with her class and beyond by sharing images. This included our collaboration recently on the World Dot Project.
Lorraine would speak a few sentences and then pause for Yoshiro to interpret.
Then, it was my turn. I spoke a little, paused and could hear Yoshiro interpret. When I felt he had finished I started speaking again. I have no knowledge of Japanese, so it was very much a guessing game, especially as I spoke to a blank screen.

Up until now, I have found classes where teachers have some grasp of the English language – enough to get by in simple connections. However, this was the first time that English was not spoken. Teachers who are interested in genuine global collaboration, will need to learn how to work with an interpreter and how to do so in all situations – virtual and face to face! Another competency for me to work on!

Have you ever worked in a situation that required an interpreter? What advice would you give?

1 Comment

Posted in skype, web conferencing

Tagged Japan, Lorraine Leo, Professor Yoshiro Miyata, scratch, skype, videoconferencing, World Museum

What the…..? and other classrooms sounds!

Posted on October 20, 2011 by murcha | 3 comments

Students followed the link given on my classroom blog, but as the first student opened it, all I could hear was “What the…..?” Wondering what was wrong, I glanced at the computer screen and saw the following:-

Next comment from another student “It’s all in Japanese!” I just laughed and thought “let the learning begin”!

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by an educator from Japan, who taught English at Hokusei Gakuen University in Japan. As Interpretation was one of the upcoming topics for study, Nakao wondered whether we could create some videos on Family or School for her students. Wondering how I could build this into my VCE IT subject where the current topic is databases, I realised that I could actually tweak things and use data from the linkup, student names etc to build a database that would be far more engaging than textbook exercises.

The procedures:-

Naoko’s professor built a space for my students in their moodle learning management system.
Two spaces have been setup – a forum area for discussion and another space to upload the videos.
My students will upload their videos to youtube – the university professor suggested that we make them private and has told us how. However, I think it is better to make them public as many others may also be interested in our way of life, family life, school, culture etc. Due to our isolated rural community, we are so different to many! The youtube videos will then be embedded into the moodle.

The students from Japan each added a conversation starter to the forum. Once my students worked out the English translator, they were away!

There were periods of absolute silence as they read with fascination, the comments made about life in Japan and questions asked of my students.

At other times there was lively chatter as they discussed pronunciation of names, topics shared and who was going to respond to whom.

Here are some comments that caused keen interest:-

180 million people lives in Sapporo city. What does your town look like?

Response: We have 150 people live in our town of Hawkesdale

I soppose that ski is one of the most popular sport.

Response: The closest snow fields are 6-8 hours drive away from where we live. (Most of my students have not seen snow)

I love vegetables which my grandfather makes. Especially, White Pumpkin is delicious

Reaction: Australian students are intrigued about white pumpkin. We have never seen one

Highlights:

the engagement of my students
their eagerness to participate and respond as best they could
students completely focused on task at hand (other times they are easily distracted with youtube, playing games etc)
the discussion amongst my students that was triggered by some of the questions and comments
having an expert set up the system for us in moodle – a university professor! Thank you! Using moodle and the forum is an excellent way of collaborating. Students took to it like ‘water off a duck’s back’.
the learning that takes place – we are different, live in completely different environments, learn at different levels of education and yet students are so curious about each other.
our mandarin Chinese teacher walked in at the stage where the screen was in Japanese text and identified many Chinese characters amongst them. He shared with the students, why they were the same.

Challenges:

language barriers, different terms used, completely different names!
using a new tool and system although they students embraced it quickly. They quickly worked out how to add images etc
the cultural differences and avoiding offending each other
I am afraid that I will mess up the moodle space if I change details etc.

3 Comments

Posted in Asian Connections, global classroom

Tagged Hokusei Gakuen University, Japan, Japanese connections