Info on best way to send "greeting" to students in China

My superintendent is visting China next week with a delagation of admins from Massachusetts---she is hoping to forge a relationship between our school and a school in China. She has asked my class to make a digital greeting---my students have lots of ideas, but I'm not sure the best format to use. The superindendent suggested PowerPoint---but my students would rather make a voicethread or animoto video or video of their own. Anyone here have any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andy Birch on April 12, 2010 at 6:21am

Some of the websites such as animoto and voicethread are blocked in China. If you do create an animoto it may be best to download it as an mp4 video and send that in an email as an attachment or on a flash drive. I would be prepared for a stand alone computer that may not be connected to the net but can show a video. It will depend on the school that you connect with and what their facilities are like. All computers can usually play a video and you don't need to worry if they have PowerPoint installed or not.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mary Lou Buell on April 12, 2010 at 8:27am

Thank you...that was what I was thinking. Going to save PPt slides as pictures to movie maker--for one class of mine and then save the other classes' video from movie-maker to mp4. Wish me luck...way over my head with this one. Will be working today and tomorrow--so any other insights would be appreciated as well.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sean Junkins on April 12, 2010 at 8:36am

Make a YouTube video and send them the link... the Chinese government loves YouTube!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mary Lou Buell on April 12, 2010 at 10:53am

I can't tell if you are kidding :P At least one of the schools she is visiting is rural, so it's probably best to stick with the flash drive route.

Next question...she wants me to include my class's contact information. I guess our class blog--wordpress--wouldn't work, so email, regular mail? What about cell phone/text message. Is Twitter used? Our class has a blog and a Twitter page---otherwise they would have to go through me.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Brian on April 12, 2010 at 12:56pm

I taught in rural China and also did some presentations for the Educational Bureau. Best way to figure out what to do is to have multiple plans. If you carry items on cd's/dvd's/flash drives/etc., you'll be pretty safe. Also, have some links to URLs that you have. Blogs can be blocked, so don't rely on them.

My students LOVED personal contact, and we set up a Yahoo email account as a main source of contact. What province(s) are they going to?