OER Stories

The peeling paint on the wall above the teacher's desk does nothing to diminish the excitement of the 5th graders as they work together in groups to create their presentation on global climate change. They squirm in their seats, interrupt each other, pass the computer mouse back and forth as they put the final touches on the document that they are about to send to their partner classroom in Barcelona. They're learning about Greenwich Mean Time, and the time zones between NYC and Barcelona, and realize that their Spanish peers are sleeping. The teacher helps to facilitate her student's interactions, and answers questions as she continuously moves about the classroom. Tomorrow morning the kids will have a live video teleconference with their partner-learners in Spain, and they want to make sure that they are ready. After the teleconference, the students will co-develop a web-based exercise for how to learn from other people's perspectives, and then put it up on the web for anyone to use around the world.