Sunny View Elementary School has promoted Polk County School’s Global Awareness in the 21st Century philosophy through video conferencing with other schools.
Many Sunny View teachers are registered with Collaborations Around the Planet (CAPspace), a social networking tool for colleagues and schools interested in collaborative video conferencing around the world. There are currently 9,321 educators from 34 countries registered with CAPspace.
Julie Wilson’s second grade corresponded with Australia to learn about conservation of the earth’s resources and sustainability (complete with a visit to live orangutans). This paved the way for a further collaboration between Julie Maziarka’s kindergarten and Wilson’s and Mrs. Gina Kelly’s second grades. They presented ABC’s of North Carolina facts to Andrea Mora’s kindergarten class of Lincoln School in Costa Rica. The kindergarten and second grades of Sunny View worked together to make posters with pictures illustrating a North Carolina fact for each letter of the alphabet.
Mora’s class did the same for Costa Rica.
“You mean you don’t have a soccer field at your school?,” they asked.
Mora’s students were amazed since their world revolves around soccer.
“Do you have snowflakes?” a Costa Rican kindergartner asked.
They have studied them but never seen them. There was also a two-hour time difference, the children of Sunny View discovered. Sunny View students were highly entertained by the kindergartners of Costa Rica who wore costumes and danced a folk dance. Students from both schools enjoyed the sharing of information immensely. Teachers and students have made friends in Costa Rica and look forward to other opportunities to share their differences and similarities.

– article submitted by Angela Hall