It Was Like Being There

1. Students will be enrolled in Skype for the classroom.
2. Students will write a message to place on the Skype network, "advertising" for schools to Skype with them.
These schools would be from various countries, around the world.
3. Students would devise a set of questions to be asked of these schools-an introductory lesson.
4. Students would invite schools to set up days and times to communicate with each other via Skype.
5. Students would then begin to collaborate with each other to create a informational movie on their state, school and themselves.
6. Students would research the various history of their cities, noting various places of interest. These places would then be videotaped, accompanied by student introductions and commentaries.
7. Steps would be completed for the introduction of school.
8. Students would each individually plan a "method" of introducing themselves, talking about their interests and possibly developing slide shows, short videos, speeches etc.
9. Students would them come together and begin to exchange ideas of what needed to be kept and what needed to be edited out.
10.Once the ideas were finalized the students would be assigned sections to work on, each giving it his or her sense of flare.
11. Students would then merge the various pieces together and eventually add voice, music etc. to enhance its effects.
12. On the day of Skype, students would be able to exchange their video with that of another school or schools.
13. After the viewing the students would become involved in a class on class discussion of their work, their locations, themselves.
14. This lesson could then create a medium by which these students could exchange ideas on world events, as they occur or on other ideas that come up. Would allow each set of students to get different ideas on subjects and to "see" and "hear" other students' ideas. This would allow for a possible understanding of different cultures.

Now the expectations at each step would vary with the grade level. Students would very easily at grades 6-8 be able to create in detail each and every step listed above.
Students in grades 3-5 could simplify each step and also have teacher intervention.