PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

1. PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

2. INTRODUCTIONA project can be multi-grade and can be done with a class or a group or club. Africa is a breeding ground for community projects Multi-grade/Club Class JS 1 JS 2 JS 3 SS 1 SS 2 SS 3 • Math Club • Drama Club • JETS Club etc

3. Title of project • Shall we say something like ‘Paying It Forward’. In other words we will be getting involved in a section of the community without wanting anything back from them. • This is an ongoing project that you can be a part of.

4. Aim Of The Project • It is hoped we will gain a better understanding of that particular problem and see how it impacts on society. I would like the learners to be more aware of and compassionate towards the suffering of others and to think of ways to make their lot easier to handle. We will aim to do one small thing to ease the plight of the chosen community. I’m not quite sure how but technology needs to fit into the picture here. Thinking ahead of our own learners’ digital futures, I want to create a project that will also enable them to be networked, collaborative, globally aware, more active in society, less dependent on paper, and able to write and edit in different forms of hypertext.

5. Brief summary of the project • We should each find a cause to get involved in, in a meaningful way, which is in our community. Ideas are: hospital, cancer patients, HIV Aids sufferers, poverty-stricken neighborhood, orphanage, farm community. deaf people, etc. Can you add any ideas to this? The involvement with them will spread over the duration of the project. We need to consider how the project will benefit them?

6. Media used in the project As well as being a community project we’ll use as much Web2.0 technology as possible. Set up a wiki (using wikispaces) which has the weekly activities outlined. A wiki surpasses a blog for this as you can attach documents, photos etc and everything is right there. I particularly like a wiki as the project needs some sort of showcase. • For the rest of the project we’ll use Windows Live – for collaboration, discussion, calendar, storage of documents until they go on the wiki etc.

7. Hey! What's a wiki? If you can picture a wiki – it is a lot like a website except that it is interactive. At the side will be a list of the pages. The first one will say ‘School and teacher information’. Underneath that will be a list of links, one of which says ‘Participating Schools’. You’ll click on that to find a list of our schools. You’ll then click on your school and that will link to another page that says weekly activities. It will list the activities and each one will be hyperlinked to a page. Here are some examples of wikis. http://sites.google.com/site/missalesclass/home/ (a Grade 6 class in Argentina) http://mrsibrahim.wikispaces.com/ (a Grade 2 class in USA) http://factorywall.wikispaces.com/ (An art teacher’s wiki)

8. How will I get involved in the community This will be entirely up to you. For example, learners could each link with a person and keep a reflective journal on that person.

9. Week 1Introduction to the project. There are several ideas for this week using Web 2.0 technology. We would need to add a screenshot or a link to this brainstorm in the wiki. A photograph of your class uploaded on to this page A map of your whereabouts using Google maps (http://www.maps.google.co.za), Microsoft’s multimap (http://www.multimap.com/) . • A brainstorm using one of the following programmes: Wallwisher, (http://www.wallwisher.com/) • Where one could brainstorm the type of project to get involved in , its whereabouts, and a plan. Other programmes could be webspiration (http://www.mywebspiration.com/) or even a Google docs document.

10. Week 2Make contact with the community you will be linking with. . Think of some way that you can benefit this community. For example, perhaps it could be one to one contact and writing up about the visits. Remember to let learners take photos either with a camera or cell phones. • A write – up in a Microsoft product about the organization/community, its history and any relevant facts and figures.

11. Week 3A list of problems faced by the people in your project. . Update on any involvement with the community this week. • This could be done in the form of a glogster which is an online poster. http://www.sanandres.esc.edu

12. Week 4Create a 30 second video clip with images from your community and appropriate royalty free music backing. . You can even use Photostory 3 and put that created video into onetruemedia for web use. Update on any involvement with the community this week. • There are many programmes one can use for this e.g. http://www.onetruemedia.com/ • I have a list of royalty free music sites one can use.

13. Week 5A one-minute speech using one of the podcasting programmes . Update on any involvement with the community this week. such as http://www.vocaroo.com explaining why and what world leaders or government officials should be doing more to ease these problems.

14. Week 6 A summary of the project . Update on any involvement with the community this week. • A PowerPoint which can be uploaded to the wiki using http://www.slideboom.com • This will summarise the involvement etc . How will your learners have helped the community technology-wise? Perhaps writing a story using one of the many web 2 programmes.

15. Duration • The project could run for the term with a presentation conference at the end. To participate in this project please visit http://paying-it-forward-project.wikispaces.com

16. Conclusion Well, this is just an introductory idea – feedback and ideas for development are very welcome. Thank you.