This post is a bit of a call for assistance from any schools in Indonesia. If you could assist we would really appreciate it.
Our year 5 classes are just embarking on a thematic unit of work on Indonesia. The students are doing research into life in Indonesia, learning about the culture, food, transport, religion and so on. It’s being done as part of their HSIE strand. By the way, HSIE stands for Human Society and it’s Environment, for those outside NSW… Oh, and NSW means New South Wales, for those outside Australia. See the joys of writing for a global audience?
And that’s the point really. Getting kids to think outside their own backyard, and realising that when they use certain words or abbreviations that they don’t always translate across borders and timezones. Knowing that other people are asleep when you’re awake, and that words and phrases you take for granted can be complete mysteries to people outside your own culture is, I think, a really important mindset to develop. It’s one of the reasons I’d love to see more and more projects include a global, collaborative element.
If we’re going to learn about Indonesia – a country that is one of Australia’s closest neighbours and yet so very culturally different – I’m really keen to connect our students with other students who actually live there. I know it can be tricky to arrange global collaborations, especially where language can be a barrier and these sorts of “soft learning” projects are not always valued by others as much as they are by me. So I’m trying to come up with something that is relatively “low impact” to potential Indonesian partners. I’m looking for something whereby we can encourage them to be involved, while at the same time not becoming onerous and overcommitted. It’s got to be something where the partner schools can contribute at a level they feel comfortable with.
To that end, here’s what I’d like to suggest (or rather, request)…
I’m going to get our three classes of Year 5 students to work in teams to build three websites about Indonesia, one per class. Our students will be put into pairs and each pair will work on creating a section on the website about one aspect of Indonesian life. We will be using Google Sites to build it.
Ideally what I’d like is to establish a handful of Indonesian schools to act as “consultants” to us as we build these websites. We’d invite comments and feedback about the pages we make, perhaps letting us know if we were somehow missing the point on something, getting our facts wrong, or just not quite understanding the spirit or nuances of the Indonesian culture. It would be pretty cool if one of our students who might be learning about, say, Indonesian food, could, instead of just finding an image using Google Images, be sent a photo from an Indonesian buddy showing what they had for dinner last night. That sort of thing would be just perfect!
I’ve already managed to enlist one such partner teacher in Endang Palupi, an ESL teacher at a school district in Pekalongan. We have arranged a series of Skype calls between her students (who are keen to practice and extend their use of English) and our students (who are keen to meet Indonesian students and learn more about life there.) On that level, it’s win-win. Endang’s students will also try to provide us with feedback and some level of consultation as we build our websites.
In an effort to not place too much expectation on any single teacher or school, I’m also looking for a few other Indonesian partners who might be willing to contribute to this project. I’d like to think that it will be a two way street, and that they will benefit from working with us as much as we hope to benefit from working with them. Like I said, it’s just a nice easy project that would be based around getting some “consulting” and advice from them as we build our websites. This consulting can be simple and easy (maybe just take a look at our websites occasionally and drop us some feedback on how we’re doing), or become more involved (Skype calls, travel buddies, co-collaboration on the sites, etc) It’s really up to the other school as to how much and what they’d like to contribute.
So, Indonesian schools, how about about it… can you help me out? We’ve just started working on this project and we’d expect it t run for the next 7-8 weeks. We’d love to get you involved!
If you can help us, or know someone who can, please leave me a note in the comments below.
Photo Credit: CC BY-ND http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_t_in_dc/2503224501/
Looking for Indonesian Partners by Chris Betcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
I don’t know exactly how accurate this is, but according to Google Translate, here is the above post in Bahasa Indonesian…
Posting ini adalah sedikit meminta bantuan dari setiap sekolah di Indonesia. Jika Anda bisa membantu kami akan sangat menghargai itu. 5 kelas tahun kami hanya memulai unit tematik kerja di Indonesia. Para siswa melakukan penelitian ke dalam kehidupan di Indonesia, mempelajari, makanan budaya, agama transportasi, dan sebagainya. Ini dilakukan sebagai bagian dari strand HSIE mereka. By the way, HSIE singkatan Masyarakat Manusia dan Lingkungan Hidup, bagi mereka NSW di luar … Oh, dan NSW berarti New South Wales, bagi mereka luar Australia. Lihat kebahagiaan menulis untuk khalayak global? Dan itu benar-benar titik. Mendapatkan anak-anak untuk berpikir di luar halaman belakang mereka sendiri, dan menyadari bahwa ketika mereka menggunakan kata-kata tertentu atau singkatan yang mereka tidak selalu menerjemahkan lintas batas dan zona waktu. Mengetahui bahwa orang lain sedang tertidur ketika Anda terjaga, dan bahwa kata-kata dan frasa Anda ambil untuk dapat diberikan misteri yang lengkap untuk orang di luar budaya Anda sendiri, saya pikir, pola pikir yang benar-benar penting untuk dikembangkan. Ini salah satu alasan aku ingin melihat lebih banyak proyek termasuk elemen, global kolaboratif. Jika kita akan belajar tentang Indonesia – negara yang merupakan salah satu tetangga terdekat Australia dan namun begitu sangat budaya berbeda – Saya benar-benar tertarik untuk terhubung siswa kami dengan siswa lain yang benar-benar tinggal di sana. Aku tahu itu bisa rumit untuk mengatur kerjasama global, khususnya di mana bahasa dapat menjadi penghalang dan macam ini “lunak pembelajaran” proyek-proyek tidak selalu dihargai oleh orang lain sebanyak mereka oleh saya. Jadi aku mencoba untuk datang dengan sesuatu yang relatif “low impact” untuk mitra Indonesia potensial. Aku sedang mencari sesuatu dimana kita bisa mendorong mereka untuk terlibat, sementara pada saat yang sama tidak menjadi berat dan overcommitted. Ini harus menjadi sesuatu tempat sekolah mitra dapat memberikan kontribusi pada tingkat mereka merasa nyaman dengan. Untuk itu, inilah yang saya ingin menyarankan (atau lebih tepatnya, permintaan) … Aku akan mendapatkan tiga kami kelas Tahun 5 siswa untuk bekerja dalam tim untuk membangun tiga website tentang Indonesia, satu per kelas. siswa kami akan dimasukkan ke dalam pasangan dan masing-masing pasangan akan bekerja untuk menciptakan bagian di situs tentang satu aspek kehidupan Indonesia. Kami akan menggunakan Google Sites untuk membangunnya. Idealnya apa yang saya ingin adalah untuk menetapkan beberapa sekolah di Indonesia untuk bertindak sebagai “konsultan” untuk kita saat kita membangun situs ini. Kami akan mengundang komentar dan umpan balik tentang halaman yang kita buat, mungkin memberi tahu kami jika kami hilang entah bagaimana titik pada sesuatu, mendapatkan fakta kami yang salah, atau hanya tidak cukup memahami semangat atau nuansa kebudayaan Indonesia. Itu akan sangat keren jika salah satu siswa kami yang mungkin belajar tentang, katakanlah, makanan Indonesia, bisa, bukan hanya mencari gambar menggunakan Google Gambar, dikirim foto dari seorang teman Indonesia yang menunjukkan apa yang mereka makan malam tadi malam. Hal semacam itu akan menjadi sempurna! Aku sudah berhasil meminta satu guru mitra tersebut dalam Endang Palupi, seorang guru ESL di sebuah distrik sekolah di Pekalongan. Kami telah mengatur serangkaian Skype panggilan antara murid-muridnya (yang tertarik untuk berlatih dan memperluas penggunaan bahasa Inggris) dan siswa kami (yang tertarik untuk bertemu dengan mahasiswa Indonesia dan belajar lebih banyak tentang kehidupan di sana.) Pada tingkat itu, itu menang- menang. Endang siswa juga akan mencoba untuk memberikan kami umpan balik dan beberapa tingkat konsultasi saat kita membangun website kami. Dalam upaya untuk tidak menempatkan harapan terlalu banyak pada salah satu guru atau sekolah, saya juga mencari beberapa mitra Indonesia lainnya yang mungkin bersedia untuk berkontribusi pada proyek ini. Aku ingin berpikir bahwa hal itu akan menjadi dua arah jalan, dan bahwa mereka akan mendapatkan keuntungan dari bekerja dengan kami sebanyak yang kami berharap dapat manfaat dari bekerja dengan mereka. Seperti saya katakan, itu hanya sebuah proyek bagus yang mudah akan didasarkan sekitar mendapatkan beberapa “konsultasi” dan saran dari mereka seperti yang kita membangun website kami.konsultasi ini dapat sederhana dan mudah (mungkin hanya melihat pada website kami sesekali dan drop kami beberapa masukan tentang bagaimana kita lakukan), atau menjadi lebih terlibat (Skype panggilan, teman-teman perjalanan, co-kolaborasi di situs, dll) itu benar-benar sampai ke sekolah lain untuk berapa banyak dan apa yang mereka ingin berkontribusi. Jadi, sekolah-sekolah Indonesia, bagaimana tentang hal itu … dapat Anda membantu saya keluar? Kami baru saja mulai bekerja pada proyek ini dan kami harapkan itu t berjalan selama 7-8 minggu ke depan. Kami ingin mendapatkan Anda terlibat! Jika anda dapat membantu kami, atau mengenal seseorang yang bisa, silahkan tinggalkan aku catatan di komentar di bawah ini.
Hi Chris,
This sounds like something my students can definitely help you with. We have 6 weeks left before summer and we are working on a pretty loose unit, so we can skype now and then as well as comment on blogs etc…Let me know what you want us to do. I teach grade 6-8 so my 6th grades are similar in age. I will share this post with our grade 5 teachers as well, to see if maybe they want to be a part too.
Here is a link to our class blog, if you want your kids to get a look at who we are and what we do: http://mrraisdana.blogspot.com/ All the student blogs are in the side bar. Maybe your kids can leave some comments and build some relationships before we skype or make contact. We can also help you by using Google Docs to fill in info, take surveys, share photos (food, neighborhoods, traffic, etc…)
I will wai
t to hear from you! This should be fun!
Hey Jabiz! That would be awesome! I just got the first group of kids started today on their site, and I’ll have the others started next week. Once we get some info up I’ll send you the links.
My plans were foiled a little, in that I was planning to use the commenting feature at the bottom of the Google Sites pages… each page has a comment forum at the bottom, making it a perfect place (I thought) to leave feedback and comments. However, I’ve just realised in the last couple of days that viewers only see that comment area if they are logged into a Google account and the site has been shared with them… Grr!
So, unless your kids have Google Apps accounts, I’ll come up with another way for you to give us feedback… maybe a Google group, or a Doc or something. I’ll ponder it. Of course, if your kids DO have a Docs account, that will solve the problem I guess.
Either way, looking forward to collaborating with you.
Chris
We are all on Goolge Apps so no problem there. Just send us the links and I will tell my kids on Monday. Time zones should be okay for some Skype calls as well. Cool. I am looking forward to this.
Cool! I’m sending you a direct email… Let’s test it.
Hi Chris, your classes might be interested in our partnered project to raise money for a new school building in the remote village of Watambune in central Sulawesi. The school is part of a group of schools close to Palu run by the Salvation Army Education Korps. The schools involved are Red Hill Primary in Canberra and ACG International School in Jakarta. We have just begun our joint fund raising this term. I’m tweeting it at #wsbp and we have just started a wiki at http://paluproject.wikispaces.com/ . The plan is for the schools to add information, photos and share ideas not only about their fund raising, but also find out information about the area and the kids. We have recently sent a series of questions to Palu to find out what a typical school day is like for the kids in the village. We will then have our Yr 4 boys create e-picture books using the information we get – they are starting a unit about communities. Skype s also on the agenda (when they give me access at school!). There will be lots of photos of the village and the school uploaded to the site, particularly when the build begins and we can follow the progress.
Perhaps your students might like to follow our progress and even join in? We have $25,000 to raise – so if you have an interested kids that would like to help us out that would be brilliant.
CHeers, Sunny
awhh,,,, gues that im late 🙂 really need to helpppp……………….
hi iam sony, indonesian teacher from jepara, central java, can ia help you ???