During the week of March 9-13, 2015, the Gr 4 students celebrated la francophonie by participating in a collaborative activity with students from St. Emily.
Gr 4s at St Cecilia were grouped with a Gr 4 students from Mme Kohut's Gr 4 class. Team leaders were given a Google Doc with the required instructions to choose a flag, determine the country the flag belongs to, answer questions about how that country is affiliated with
la francophonie, then conclude their activity with an extension activity.
Students had roles: leader (who had full control over the document), researcher who would either have an iPad or Chromebook for researching and the photographer (with an iPad) was in charge of finding photos (e.g., capture the country on Google Earth). Students had to collaborate together to complete the activity. They had to be in constant communication with the students at St Emily via Google Video, Chat, and e-mail in order to complete the collaborative activity. The final task entailed students to choose a French Expression (which was given to them via Padlet). They had to research the French expression and collaboratively illustrate the meaning of the expression on Google Drawing (this included the English translation of the expression too).
It was a great collaborative experience for the students. I have never seen my Gr 4's so engaged! They would come early to class every day that week because they wanted to get started on this project. The challenge was motivating enough for them to be continuously engaged. There were some technical difficulties when trying to communicate with the other students from St. Emily, which was a great learning experience for students to problem solve when trying to use technology to communicate with others.
