More RAP Newspaper Articles

Thanks to Google Alerts, here are several more Read Around the Planet news articles, blog entries and school reports.

• Room 2 in Alberta, Canada RAPs with New York and then starts writing letters as pen pals!
• North Dakota and Minnesota participate in RAP.
• JANET’s report on UK participation in RAP.

And my favorite post from Shane Grundy, 6th grade teacher for the Edmonton Public Schools in Alberta, Canada. I’ve quoted a snippet here, but you should read his whole post along with the comments and continued conversation on the value of videoconferencing.

… The reason I like this conference so much is because it’s so easy. You submit your name, recieve an e-mail telling you who your partner class is, then share a story with them. While that is a wonderful experience in itself, the real magic happens after the sharing. The students get a chance to talk to each other. In my school I co-ordinated 9 different connections – all between Canada and the US. Each time the students were amazed to discover that despite the different flags and weather patterns – we are all the same. Children thousands of kilometers away all play. The all love recess and hate math. They study hard and play harder. Each time I disconnected from the remote site the first reaction was always – “WOW, They’re just like us.” Didn’t matter if they were kindergarten, or grade six – mainstream, learning strategies, or an alternative program, they all reacted the same. They all knew they had just made a connection to people a world away, and they were just like them. Everyone has a different story to tell, we all walk different paths, but in the end, people are people – no matter where they’re from, the colour of their skin, anthem they sing, or grade they’re in. People are people. I can’t think of a better lesson to teach our students. Or a better way to teach it.

YES!!! And as Roxanne Glaser said to me on Friday, nothing worth doing is easy. While RAP is lots of hard work, it’s worth the lessons the students learn!