8th Grade Eng - Anyone interested in conducting an online debate?

Hi everyone.

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place or inappropriately. I'm new to the online edu-world and not sure what the protocols are.

Basically, I'm an English teacher in Melbourne, Austalia and am looking for someone to collaborate with on a project I've been thinking about.

It's basically a series of 8th grade inter-class formal debates conducted over a couple of weeks, via YouTube or some other service like it. Just an idea at this stage, so would love to work with someone to get something happening.

Any 8th grade English teachers interested?

Megan Bailey

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by andrew bendelow on March 26, 2009 at 7:03am

I teach tenth grade English, and we are also just beginning to work w/ web 2.0 tools. We're at http://wiki-land.wikispaces.com And one thing that would be useful would be a voicethread-- posing a question and getting various responses. We've just started that with this thread--a lead in to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (http://wiki-land.wikispaces.com/Kroy+Underground+voicethread).
I think your 8th graders may be the cognitive equals of my 10th graders. If you like, since I teach in a K-12 district, I could pass along your request to the district tech learning person, who could connect your request with 8th grade teachers.

Permalink Reply by Megan Bailey on March 30, 2009 at 2:45am

Hi Andrew,

I had a look at your wiki - I'm very impressed by your organisational skills!

It would be great if you could pass my request along to someone with 8th grade connections.

Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Lucas Cioffi on April 6, 2009 at 6:24pm

Hi Megan,

We're looking to do exactly this. I'm here in Washington, DC and we've created some software that can connect classrooms in online debates and conversations. The tool is new so it takes a little getting used to, but after watching the brief video tutorial it's easy to get the hang of it. You'll also see that it can be much more powerful than other blog commenting software or wikis.

Please email me directly at lucas[at]deepdebate.org and I'll send you my phone number. We've got 8th grade students here that would be very excited to join in this conversation.

Here's what teachers in Pennsylvania said about the software in a recent pilot project. Here's what students said after using the software.

What's also great is that the entire conversation can occur through text and/or YouTube videos. This could be a lot of fun.

I look forward to speaking with you.
Lucas
Co-Founder, DeepDebate.Org
Washington, DC

PS- If there are others that are reading this thread and are interested, don't hesitate to contact us!

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