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| The whole class in the early morning hours of day two... We started the Skypeathon with a call #1 at 10 am to Erik Engström, meteorologist and climate researcher at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. Erik told us about the future prospects of the climate...  |
My students' start of a summary of the call:
We began the conversation with asking the girls about how it is to be in a school with only girls, to which they replied that it was really nice because you can be yourself and there are no distractions in the form of boys.
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| Tudor Hall Girls' School |
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| Students at Tudor Hall Girls' School |
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| Tudor Hall Girls' School |
Louise Epstein, national radio talk show host, was our call #4. Louise told us about her career as a journalist, the advantages and disadvantages of the job, what kind of credentials you need to have and her advice for future budding journalists. Very interesting to get an insight into the life of prominent journalist.
Call #5 went all the way to Gurgaon, India and Arti Chopra. We had some delays due to Arti's traffic challenges (she was stuck in traffic) but after 30 minutes we managed to connect for about 15 minutes, before it was time to hang up and prepare for our next call. Arti informed us about natural disasters and how to act effectively if a natural disaster happens.
Brian Johnson and the students at Lakeside Junior High in Springfield, Arkansas, the USA was call #6. It was a Mystery Skype call but we quickly understood that it was morning and the accents made my students think of North America. It is always a pleasure to talk to the students at this school, always well-behaved, curious and well-spoken. Such a delight!
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| Students at Lakeside Junior High School in Springfield, Arkansas
Kara Andrade, Pulitzer journalist reporting from Latin America, but currently stationed in Washington D.C., was a wonderful person to interview. My students had many questions regarding the situations for journalists today, the state of free press in the world, her personal experiences and much more. This was call #7.
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| Journalist Kara Andrade talks about her journalistic career, amongst other things.. |
Call #8 was a Google Hangout with students of English in Brasilia, Brazil.
Call #9 was to Amanda Killough and her colleague in Flower Mound, Texas, the USA.
Call #10 went to the Palm Coast in Florida, the USA and Christine Brink and students.
Call #11 was a virtual field trip to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in Virginia, the USA. The guide Liz guided us through old documents, facts and figures as well as rumors and sad truths about slavery.
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| Liz from Monticello Education |
Call #13 connected with Dee Stonis and students at Michelle Obama School of Technology outside of Chicago, the USA.
Call #14 was picked up by Brittany DeJean in California. Brittany is a lecturer and speaker for the organization Hearts on Fire.
Call #15 went to California and Calaveras Big Tree State Park.
Here are the students' own summary of the call:
We connected with Ranger Jenny Comperda around 11 pm, who takes care of the park. It was a Virtual Field Trip in the Calaveras Big Tree State Park in California. The call was about giant sequoias which Jenny gave us a tour of. We got to see the big trees and she told us a lot about the trees and the fact that the trees won’t die by its own but also that the small cones are coming out from the big sequoias. We got to know that the cones actually can stay on the tree for 20 to 30 years but to get them down earlier than that, they need help from animals, like squirrels and some special kind of insects from the nature. The park is being visited of about 10.000 up to 20.000 people every year. The meaning of the park is mostly to protect the rare trees.
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| Huge pine cone |
As March 7 turned into March 8 we connected with the most vivacious people ever - Adam, George and Jornea from Flipgrid, on tour in California. This was call #16 and here is the students' own account of the call:
We connected with George, Adam and Jornea from Flipgrid a little after midnight.
They told us about their bus tour, they are visiting schools right now all over the country and are hoping to come to Europe in a few years. They also spoke about their company and education through video worldwide. Started by a teacher named Charlie, who used it in his classroom. And going from a startup company to being bought by Microsoft, now expanding rapidly.
They told us visiting schools is one of the best things because they get to see the impact of Flipgrid, how the app is used in real life and meet the students personally. The worst thing about the job is that there is no personal contact with the students, however their bus tour provides them with that now. Their tips for us were to: follow your passion, see the needs of the community, listening and adapting to their needs, Using social media as advertising, answering questions on Twitter, focusing on putting out genuine and fun content as advertising. working with people who are like-minded is important.
St Mary's International Boys' School in Tokyo, Japan was our call #17 and we had prepared a few questions regarding human rights and especially equality between men and women.
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| Skyping with Tokyo, Japan |
St Mary's International Boys' School in Tokyo, Japan was our call #17 and we had prepared a few questions regarding human rights and especially equality between men and women.
My students wrote:
Our second and last call was with a boy school in Tokyo. We discussed their vision of the equality between the different genders. They told us that the women are made for cleaning and taking care of the kids/house, while the men are supposed to work and support his family. We realized that they were very old-fashioned when it comes to how society is built. The students were really surprised when we told them how it works in Sweden, that it is way more equal and that the genders are treated almost the same (except the salary, that we talked about)
We also discussed their opinions about going to an only boy school. Most of them actually prefer private school instead of an public school.
Sam Jordan in Juneau, Alaska picked up our #18th call to discuss the climate crisis. We chatted about Greta Thunberg, Netflix shows and had an honest talk about what each and everyone of us can do to help the environment. Such a great sport Sam! And a little bit of Viking blood in him there is.. :)
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| Sam Jordan in Alaska |
Call #20 was supposed to be a surprise call for our exchange student Kwan from Thailand. Her English teacher in Thailand - Chris Rudd - and I had planned a session that would be a listening comprehension for his students and just a welcomed surprise for Kwan on our end. However, I do think Kwan had been told about the call and knew what was coming... Despite that this was a very engaging call.
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| Chris Rudd - the teacher in charge at the Thai school |
Call #22 was a local connection - Swedish tv-journalist and musician Per-Olof Stjärnered.
The last call of our Skypeathon 2019, call #23 went to Burdur, Turkey and the students in Harun Cifti's class.
Here is a summary written by a student:
In the morning we talked with a school class from Turkey about human rights. Both the children (around 13 years old) in the Turkish class and us had a lot of common thoughts about how women and men should be treated equally. They also showed us some quotes that represented their view on women and men in Turkey. The children in the class told us that they liked their Turkey and that they felt equality between the two genders. We wrapped the conversation up with some questions about each other´s schools. It was a informative conversation and we learned a lot from it.
