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Permalink Reply by Lucy Gray on January 8, 2009 at 5:59am

It would be interesting to see if schools from other countries would be interested in participating in a discussion in order to compare and contrast political systems etc. I also get the sense that there's a great deal of interest in Obama around the world and this might lead to some potential collaboration. When I was in Singapore recently, there was such enthusiasm and hope about Obama!

We should know more about what we are doing in the next week and I'll post here some opportunities for collaboration perhaps. I know we are going to watch it as a school for sure. I'm planning on producing some presidential trivia activities using our Senteo clickers and helping our kindergarten and first grade teachers use Photobooth to film their students talking about Martin Luther King's and Obama's dreams.

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Permalink Reply by Wendy Goodwin on January 9, 2009 at 12:38pm

I would like to particpate if you are still interested. I am the computer teacher at a K-5 school in Gadsden, AL. Here is a link to our school's web site. http://web.me.com/ramitchellelementary/R.A._Mitchell_Elementary/Wel...

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Permalink Reply by Rich Katz on January 19, 2009 at 10:23pm

Chrissy, my 8th grade students will be watching the inauguration from 11 a.m. to noon (Chicago time). Unfortunately, that's all the time we will be able to take out of our normal schedule. What software will you use for the video chat? The easiest thing might be Skype. (I'm "richk2921".) I'm pretty sure we can arrange something to chat with your kids or an older group if you want to use my Skype address. Give me as much detail as you can, and we'll see what we can do. I teach at Marie Murphy School in Wilmette, IL.

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Permalink Reply by Lucy Gray on January 13, 2009 at 12:28am

Okay, I am now slightly organized about the inauguration. Here is a web site that I am building to house our activities. There should be a lot more content in the next week. I'd love for grown ups and kids around the world to comment in our blog where I've created several writing prompts. Adults should sign their posts with full names, locations and school name. Kids should just sign their posts with initials and/or location. Also feel free to add locations to our Google Map.

Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/nkoinauguration.

During the afternoon of the inauguration, we'd love to do a video chat with classrooms around the world or country to discuss the inauguration. We're flexible with time, but our kids are let out from school around 3 PM Central. Maybe we could do a presidential trivia contest via iChat or have kids respond to questions we've come up with ahead of time.

Anyone up for collaborating?

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Permalink Reply by Wendy Goodwin on January 13, 2009 at 5:00am

Lucy the web site looks great! The children's podcasts are wonderful. I would love for my K - 5 students a Mitchell Elementary in Gadsden, AL to participate.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Campbell on January 13, 2009 at 4:30pm

A post by elmenous (Lucy Gray's) on twitter brought me here. (I'm BillCamp on twitter.) Since we are doing a full court press here and all students grades PK-12 will be watching at least some of the inauguration, I ran it by our Lower School (PK-5) principal who immediately hooked me up with a first grade teacher. She is very interested in her class participating in a video chat about the inauguration. We are located in Englewood, NJ, right outside of New York City. This would be something new for us, but I've used Skype a bit and am not concerned about setting up the tech side.

1:30 PM Eastern would be a good time for us, but we can be somewhat flexible either earlier or later up until about 2:15 PM.

What is the next step to get this going?

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Permalink Reply by Rich Katz on January 20, 2009 at 7:39am

Hi, Lori

I'm going to set up our community room in a similar fashion: we'll have one projector showing the inauguration and another one ready for Skyping or something similar. Are you able to Skype me anytime before or during the ceremony/speech? I'll email my Skype name to you. Rich

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Permalink Reply by MeacherTeacher on January 20, 2009 at 10:41am

I will have interested students in my class during lunch hour (11:30-12:20) today to watch. I expect a range from grade 1- grade 7. We are able to Skype. my Skype name is meacherteacher.

MeacherTeacher

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Permalink Reply by Sharon Brown-Peters on January 20, 2009 at 8:31am

Hi Lori,

My students in Montreal Canada will be liveblogging in either chatzy or cover it live with a school in California between 11:30-12:30 EST. I don't have the exact details yet where, but will keep you posted, if you are interested. Video will not be an option, unfortunately. We will be watching the inauguration over cable connection with a wireless internet connection and laptops. I have several grade 7 and 8 students participating.

Sharon Peters (The Study, Montreal)

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Permalink Reply by lady di on April 1, 2009 at 8:12pm

Well look who else is here!!! We showed the speech as well. My K. class loved it and wrote about it afterwards. Aretha Franklin's hat was a big success with them.

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