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.
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On an e-Journey with Generation Y 
