Skyping with Briarhill and Flower Mound, Texas

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We are singing Christmas songs to American students - and vice versa

Skyping with the Flipgrid team and a school in Budapest during Skypeathon

I have recently started my planning for the 24-hour Skypeathon that we will conduct in March at our school. Microsoft's and Skype's own Skypeathon took place on November 13-14 and we decided to join by taking part in two sessions only, due to our own version coming up in a few months.

The first session was on November 14 with the Flipgrid Team in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Great session with four employees at Flipgrid that were curious about our country and students, while my students had prepared a few questions to ask the staff, regarding their company, city and country. Need I say that Donald Trump also came into the discussion?

The Flipgrid crew in Minneapolis:

Tweet from Jim Leslie from the Flipgrid team

The next session was with a class in Budapest, Hungary. Their teacher's name was Gabriella and she guided her students through the session with a great deal of professionalism. The focal point of the session were the differences between our schools and countries.

Gabriella's students in Budapest:

End of year reflections 2018

It is that time of year again......the students have left the building.....

I have finished cleaning my desk and I have 60 minutes to kill before I go to my colleagues for lunch. 60 minutes in which to summarize this school year. An impossible task of course, but what are some of the things that I take with me from this year? 

The answer to the question is "many things for sure". Let's start with all of the reading that the students have done. 

In year 1 (English 5) we read A Monster Calls as part of the Global Read Aloud (GRA) project during October-November 2017. The process during reading was rewarding in the sense that the students were very active during the discussions and we used Flipgrid to connect with other readers at our school and in parts of the USA and Canada. At the end of the reading we came to a close with watching the film version of the book, starring Liam Neeson as the monster. Thumb's up for the project that always succeeds - Global Read Aloud for the win! 

In year 2 (English 6) my students read Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Rifka Brunt,  Never Let Me Go by Nobel laureate Ishiguro, Flowers for Algernon by Keynes and The Island of Dr Moreau by Wells. Even though all of the books were appreciated by the students it was a definite landslide win for Tell the Wolves. Most students were immensely engaged in the lives of the characters and we had a great deal of fruitful discussions in the classroom. Some even said that "I will carry this book with me for quite some time" and "I loved it!". Never Let Me Go was still a good choice for discussion, however some expressed that "I can't really connect with the characters or feel for them" while some were captivated by the love story between Ruth and Tommy. With this one too, we finished the project by watching the film version with Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. 

The latter books were studied and discussed as part of a joint project with Biology called "Medical Ethics". Among other things, the students argued in a formal essay how the rules of medical ethics were broken or violated with regard to the books. In the end-of-year evaluation a majority of the students thought that the Medical Ethics project was among the best of the year. 

Finally, many short stories have been devoured during the English courses as well, the best ones being "The Moment Before the Gun Went Off" by Gordimer, "Chinasa" by Ngozi Adichie, "Indian Camp" by Hemingway and "The Hour" by Chopin this year.

When it comes to writing the ultimate challenge has been to try to get a few of the students to grasp the basics of writing, such as using capitalization and full stop at the end of sentences (I kid you not!). On the other hand, a few others have penned exquisite writings embellished with the utmost care, consideration and creativity. The first project in August-September for year 2 (English 6) was called "No Limits" and there was a choice between writing drabbles or stream of consciousness narratives, somehow connected to the street art festival "No Limit" in Borås, where we live. Many chose drabbles, which are concentrated forms of prose using exactly 100 words. The results were exceptional. The project was among the favorite top ones when all 90 students evaluated. 

In November we had a look at cover letters and more formal writing. Argumentative essays were dealt with during the fall as well as towards spring, as a preparation for the national tests. The writing task at the national tests in May gave an indication as to what the focal points for next year need to be. As I concluded, students find it bothersome to comprehend the principles of agreement of concord, to keep the formal writing strictly formal, spelling and there is a rather substantial lack of synonyms...

Padena speaks to two students in the Basque country in Spain

Generally speaking, students are good at speaking! At least that is what they think most of the time... What I have gathered though, is that a majority are good at speaking BUT they are also fooled by their own impressions of what and how they sound like. They mistake good fluency and pronunciation for good proficiency. And there is a definite difference between the two! A good fluency and pronunciation do not necessarily mean that you have an extensive vocabulary or that you form sentences in more complex manners. Oftentimes the opposite is true. Fluent speakers tend to be quite informal and sometimes very challenged when it comes to more formal circumstances where a wider scope of complexity and depth is needed. Next school year I need to implement a stronger emphasis on distinguishing between formal and informal spoken English in the classroom. 

I still use Skype in the classroom on occasions and in November we had a Skypeathon again, this time for 12 hours. In December and January we had a collaboration with a teacher and school in the Basque country where the students skyped individually/two and two for about 30 minutes. For practicing informal and colloquial exchanges, as well as useful phrases, Skype is fantastic. Additionally, Flipgrid has been essential too, as a tool used in various projects throughout the year. Some students, however, started to grow tired of the tool at the end of the year.  

Listening is an ability that is always practiced during lessons,  but usually more in an informal way than anything else, and next year an additional focus on listening strategies will be on my agenda. 

To make a long story short...this is what  I will do MORE of and LESS of next school year, based on my own and the students' evaluations:

MORE

* Read (and only interesting, challenging titles)

* Work on expanding vocabularies more continually

* Work on distinguishing more between formal and informal registers, in speech and writing

* Practicing spelling more continually

* Homework (= actually giving them homework once in a while - I am not a steadfast believer in that it actually improves results, but the students want them!! - yes it is true! )

* Evaluation and exit tickets - the feedback is imminent and should guide me further

LESS

* Read uninteresting short stories 

Now, I am going to dive into my book - The Underground Railroad - and not even think about school until August again. Have a lovely summer ! :) 

Skyping with Sweden - from the Spanish perspective

My friend Catrina McDonald sent me this video of the Skype session we had together earlier this year. Enjoy. 

Skyping with Spanish students

We had a great time today Skyping with students in the Basque country in the north of Spain. In December my students received letters from the Spanish students and we sent away responses a few days later. Today it was time to connect using Skype and to speak to each other in pairs. Despite some technical difficulties we managed for everyone to connect and questions were hurled back and forth. 

A few comments about our Skypeathon

Some of the highlights of our Skypeathon were the following: 

Visiting and being taken on a virtual tour at Fort Loudon in Tennessee by this mesmerizing guide.

Visiting students at Catholic High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana. A great dialog there..

Touching down in Puerto Rico where we met Darlene Colon and students. 

Playing Mystery Skype with Mr Westermark and adorable pupils in Wales..

Talking with journalist Hannah Engberg in Sweden

and being met by the enchanting smile of Iro Stefopoulou in Birmingham, England

to be updated ....

Our schedule for Skypeathon - November 28, 2017

Tomorrow it's time for a 12-hour Skypeathon for my English 5 and English 6 students. A day filled with many calls to various parts of the world, but also time for socializing and bonding. Here is a preliminary schedule with planned calls. 

Mystery Skype with Burdur, Turkey

They say "third time's a charm" and I suppose that's true with our Mystery Skype with Turkey. After two failed attempts of trying to connect we finally managed to connect without major malfunctions this morning. Some students were questioners and answerers and a few others used Google Maps to search for the location. In 35 minutes we managed to guess country, town and name of high school. Harun Cifti was the teacher in charge in the Turkish classroom - thank you! 

Mystery Skype with students in Bilbao, Spain

Today we had an opportunity to mystery Skype with students from the north of Spain, Bilbao, and much to the delight of my students we had a fantastic time asking and answering questions! Catrina MacDonald was guiding the Spanish students. We saw this session as a preparation for our Skypeathon which is put in motion on November 28 at 12 pm. 

Preparing for Skypeathon

It is a very hectic time right now as I am in the process of planning a Skypeathon on November 28. This time around we will Skype for 12 hours and we will partly conduct some calls in English and some in Swedish. Also, we are more broad this time,  in the sense that we have tried to engage guest lecturers who work in sectors connected to media and communication (e.g. journalists, writers, social media experts). Not so many schools this time and we have tried to match our students with students of the same age to increase the interest.  Now, in the latter part of the planning process, I have one-two slots to fill and then we are ready to rumble!!! Year 1 and 2 of the media and communication program are involved. More news to come shortly...

Skyping and exchanging goodies with Texas

From left: Nina, Amanda, Zainab, Marcus and Isabella and the rest of SA17P in the background. 

Two weeks ago we sent a package containing some candy, brochures, school mercandise to an (for the students) unknown destination. Today was the day to connect through Skype and to open our packages during that session. Five students were randomly selected to be in front of the monitor and to open the package. The goodies can be seen in the last picture below. The clues in the package lead the students to quickly assume that the country was the USA and the state Texas. Then we needed a little bit of help to figure out that the other students were located a little north of Dallas. 

The students north of Dallas in Texas

Getting the taste of Djungelvrål (it doesn't seem like they like it?!):

Some of the things from the package: 

Skype Master Teacher

And there it was...in my mailbox...the message that I had been selected as a new Skype Master Teacher, what a wonderful way to finish this week before heading home. Thankful to have been selected and looking forward to many more Skype sessions this school year. I have already started to plan a little for our Skypeathon in late November... :) 

The final Skype session of the school year - Dunkirk and Joshua Levine

The final Skype session of the school year was guest lecturer Joshua Levine, British author, barrister, actor and historian. He has currently worked as historic advisor on Christopher Nolan's new film "Dunkirk," due for release this summer. We had a chance today to ask him questions about the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, the Second World War in general, the significance of the event on world history and the shooting of the film. Levine told us that Harry Styles did a good job as soldier in the upcoming film and that was to the delight of a few of my students... :) We were left with the impression of an extremely vivacious (despite the early hour and the British general election) man with a wide field of expertise about World War II. What a great Skype year it has been! 

Majken, Emilie and Tilly listening to Mr Levine.

Joshua Levine telling us about the trick with the wooden soldiers on the filmning of Christopher Nolan's movie"Dunkirk".

The director himself and Harry Styles on the set. Joshua Levine at the bottom of the picture. 

Skolvärlden writes about our Skypeathon

Click on the screen shot below to access the article. 

A quick summary of our Skype sessions and our Skypeathon

The map of documented Skype calls currently looks like this:

Documented calls from our Skypeathon - March 16-17 2017:

Call #1:
The first connection turned out to be Sara Gunneriusson, an English/Biology teacher at Bäckängsgymnasiet - due to the snow storm that hit the eastern coast of the USA - our original call was canceled and the next best thing was our own shining star Mrs Sara. With lots of vivacity she engaged the students and set a great standard for the calls to come.

Sara Gunneriusson and students - call #1

Call #2:

Marine geophysicist Dr. Kelly Hogan at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, was our second call and she quickly gave us a lot of information about her research and the state of the polar ice and glaciers.

Kelly Hogan, call #2

Call #3:
Our third call went to Melanie LeJeune and her students at St. Louis Catholic High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana. My students were very happy to talk to students their own age and they got many informative answers to their questions. We hope to do something more with these students in the future.

A photo from the Louisiana side of things....

The students at St. Louis Catholic High School in Louisiana on the screen in the background, call #3

Call #4:
Jennifer Nolan greeted us from a wintery Maine and we were quickly drawn into her enthusiastic way of stressing the importance of the oceans and sea animals. Great call.

Jennifer Nolan, call #4

Call #5:
After a few trial calls with technological mishaps, we were happy to see everything working like clockwork when connecting with Dee Stonis and her students at Michelle Obama School of Technology and the Arts in Park Forest, Illinois.

Dee Stonis and students, call #5

Call #6: 
Nathan Doerr, at Wyoming State Museum, welcomed us in an entertaining and educational Mystery Skype manner which we took to heart.

Nathan Doerr, call #6

Call #7: 
Next thing on the list was to visit Dan Horton and his students at Broadway High School in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Students in Virginia, call #7

Call #8:
At 5 pm it was time to focus even further west and we connected easily with Vicky Trevino and students at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico. It just happened to be a Twin Day for them (during Spirit Week) so some students were dressed up in similar outfits. They sang their national anthem and persuaded us to do the same. 

Call #9: 
Chrissy Gregg was nice to escort us around the World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. She showed us planes and war memorabilia while being very hospitable during this Q&A/Virtual Field Trip-session. Thank you! :) 

Call #10:
Next up was a Mystery Skype and the students quickly understood that we were dealing with the USA again. Questions back and forth until we had pinpointed them at North Plainfield High School, North Plainfield, New Jersey. Kelli Beard was teacher in charge on the American side.

New Jersey students on the screen, call #10

Call #11:
My American colleague and fellow teacher Rick Bleemel was helping us out and let us touch down with him north of Dallas in Texas. He revealed that he is cheering for Notre Dame in College basketball and (I think) they actually beat their opponents in the latest game. Yay! One student asked what his favorite historical era is (he is a History/Geography teacher) and I believe he said "the American Revolution."


Call #12: 
We turned a little east for the next call with friend Kelly Fykes and students in Vero Beach, Florida. We played a Mystery Skype version and it took a little time to find them on the east coast of FL. Great questioners and answerers. Always a pleasure Kelly! :)

Students from NA16F were in charge of this call, call #12.

Call #13:
I had arranged a session with Debra Erdmann and her students and today Veralice Estrada helped out in actually going through with the activity. We could find the students at Oxnard High School about one hour's drive north of Los Angeles. Excellent questions were asked on both parts, with special focus on political systems, and it sure was fun to be able to get an insight into the differences between the schools.

A look into a classroom at Oxnard High School in Oxnard, California.

Call #14: 
You could tell that Yellowstone ranger Greg Malloure was used to educational and informational sessions with students telling us about the importance of the national parks and Yellowstone in particular. The students learned that Wyoming is the least populated state in the US with around 600,000 inhabitants.

Call #15:
Our first (and only this time) visit with Canada came true through Dean Vendramin, teacher at O'Neill Catholic High School in Regina, Saskatchewan. I sent over a few questions from my students to his last week and earlier this week we received answers in a flip grid. Next week I will make sure my students answers with flip grids of their own. Thank you helping us out, Dean!

In between sessions this happened:

Call #16:
Is a canceled call still is a call? Well, if it is then we connected with Hampton High School in Hampton, Nevada. But, we really didn't, because our call wasn't picked up. :(

Call #17:
Kerri Thompson is wonderfully creative teacher that I come back to now and then since she is so committed in using digital tools. Her colleagues Alastair and Debbie joined in while we played Mystery Skype/Q&A with students at Tamatea Intermediate School in Napier, New Zealand. Love their uniforms and manners!

Students at Tamatea Intermediate, Napier, NZ. Call #17

Call #18:
Brian Johnson is also a teacher that I have come back to, because we share a common interest in digital tools and collaborations. He graciously answered my students' questions and gave us book tips (he's also a librarian). Brian lives in Arkansas, USA.

Brian Johnson, call #18

Call #19:
As March 16 turned into March 17 we connected with Richard McLaren and his students at Shirley Boys' High School in Christchurch in New Zealand.

Call #20:
Juneau and Alaskan resident Sam Jordan answered many questions about life in that part of the USA. We saw a snow-covered landscape behind him and learned that he moved to Alaska a few years back, from New England. This summer Sam and his family will tour Scandinavia and visit Sweden for a few days. Therefore, he asked what kind of food dish he should eat while here and the answer was a quick "meatballs!". What to avoid? Fermented herring.

Sam Jordan in Juneau, Alaska. Call #20.

Call #21:
Call #21 was another call that never really became a call. This time confusion about the time and other school activities hindered us from connecting. Melbourne, Australia would have been the destination but this time it was a no go. Unfortunately.

Some singing occurred when a call didn't go through:

Call #22: 
At 2 am we called up Daniel Parsons in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for a tour of the battleship USS Missouri (aka Big Mo), involved in the attacks on Iwo Jima and Okinawa among other things. The virtual field trip was very professional and we could tell that they had lots of experience in conducting educational field trips.

Call #23:
My old-time friend Désirée Harton Gold agreed to help us out with a vacant slot in the middle of the night. It was 9 pm in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she lives, as we connected and got talking about her life as a pastor, American values and the political climate. We have been friends for about twenty years but it was fifteen years since I heard her voice and got to see her "live" again. So thankful for this opportunity Désirée!

Call #24: 
St. Mary's International School in Tokyo, Japan was next. But somehow there must have been confusion about the time because they thought we would call an hour earlier than what we had planned for. So, this time no Japanese connection but we hope for a rain check.

Call #25:
3 x Olympian aerial flyer Emily Cook called us up at 4 am and despite being utterly tired my students managed to ask her interesting questions about her life. Emily was in high spirits and we felt so lucky to be able to meet her like this. Emily told us about how to persevere and not give up even when the going gets tough as an athlete.

Call #26: 
Malaysia was our next Mystery Skype and we connected with Kidurong High School in Borneo, Malaysia. Maggie Muuk was in charge of the call. Unfortunately we experienced some technical difficulties and had to call back many many times after the connection broke down. Still, we felt lucky to have added Asia and Malaysia on our virtual world trip. Thank you!

Call #27: 
The Mitahato Education Development Fund was in charge of this call where we got to learn more about Kenyan Food Culture and recipes. Kiambu, Kenya was the place we connected with and they were two hours ahead of us. Corn flour is a staple in Kenya and we compared that to the wheat flour status here in Sweden.

Call #28:
New Delhi, India was the next place and this call became short and I have to say that we had some problems understanding each other and energy was really lacking at this point in time. Still, my students managed to pull through - great effort!

Call #29:
Early Friday morning we turned our attention towards our own country, Sweden. A Mystery Skype was on the agenda and it sure was fun to see how the Swedish students reacted when they found at that they were both in Sweden. Borlänge was the town, Hagagymnasiet the school and Annika Karlin the teacher in charge. Great fun!

Students at Hagagymnasiet in Borlänge, Sweden. Call #29.

Call #30: 
Our next call, scheduled at 9.30 am, was with the Swedish minister for Upper Secondary School and Adult Education and Training (such a short title!) Anna Ekström. Some students felt an added nervousness in talking to a member of the government but the questions they asked were well thought through and the minister gave them good and comprehensible answers. An added bonus was that the minister's political advisor was Marcus Strinäs, a former alumni of Bäckängsgymnasiet.

Call #31
Anders Jacobsson, writer of many very popular Swedish tween books connected with us at 10 am on Friday morning. The students in SA16M had been fortunate to get to read his new unpublished manuscript and this was an opportunity for them to connect and give him some feedback on that script before it gets published.

Anders Jacobsson talks to the students, call #31.

Call #32:
As some of my students are prospective writers and journalists I thought it would be a good idea for them to speak to a well-known journalist. As luck would have it, I was happy to get hold of Håkan Steen, free-lance journalist/music editor at Aftonbladet and at 10.30 am we reached him for a 20-minute interview. He was a wonderful interviewee as he explained his career path and music interest to the students. His favorite artist? David Bowie. Best concert? Probably Håkan Hellström.

Swedish music editor and journalist Håkan Steen.

Call #33:
Tobias Rosvall, digital manager at Bonnier Broadcasting, works with sports in Stockholm. He got the students to talk about what his job entitles and he Skyped with us from C more's tv-studio.

Call #34: 
The final call of the Skypeathon was to Brighton College in Brighton, UK. Richard Grice talked about his previous experience of working with nuclear weapons and how he changed his career into teaching physics. A great way to end our 24-hour Skypeathon.