Travel Through Space and Time

Travel Through Space and Time by Silvia Tolisano

Ms. Tolisano shared her story of her student activity to stretch traditional boundaries, school, students and take them on a personal learning journey. She has taken the ”Flat Stanley” and Letters to Felix” stories to a new dimension. She traveled to China and virtually has taken her students and teaching coworkers with her via online technology. She combined a blog, podcasts, photos and videos to educate students about cultural universals such as education, transportation, food and culture.

The internet has truly opened up our world and its traditional boundaries for student learning. The ideas used were simple enough with a bear mascot for the younger students and an Amazing Race game for the older students. However, I found it fascinating how she used the various online tools for this learning experience. I’m starting to become familiar with some of the software mentioned but in this podcast she has explained how each of these were incorporated into the journey. She mentioned WordPress, Windows movie Maker, Audacity, Delicious, Flickr, Skyp to name a few. Each of these programs had specific and important functions for the overall project.

Even though as she stated, the equipment was too much for one person to carry throughout the day, I was amazed at the simplicity of the hardware and equipment used. The equipment was such that most people would be familiar with their operation. A laptop, webcam, digital & video cameras, mp3 recorders, and their chargers were among those listed.

This is a fantastic project. I applaud her for incorporating the Web 2.0 tools and sharing this project with others. Her organizational skills and preparational tasks were phenomenal and led to the success and wonderful global studies for students, staff and now sharing with others to continue the amazing learning experience.