Looking for a 4th grade class (from NE United States) to buddy with

Two sections of our 4th grade are studying the Northeast region of the United States. I am working as liaison and tech support, trying to find a 4th grade class that would be interested in doing a short term project with us sometime in the next 5-6 weeks.
We have good internet access and are an almost 99% Mac district. (Students and teachers have access to laptops with iSite cameras.)
We would hope to connect with another classroom via video conference (Skype?) to have the students interview each other about everyday life in their community.
Our elementary school is in a small town of less than 3,000 people, bordered by two larger cities, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City (http://www.solon-iowa.com/) and our school has just over 500 students.
Many of our 4th graders have never been to a metropolitan area larger than DesMoines. It would be very interesting for them to communicate with real kids about life in a completely different environment.
We would prep or followup with some sort of photo/video content, as we plan to "publish" a classroom album as a wrap up.
Here are links to the 2 classes that will be participating (we can do separate projects or combine them into one):
http://www.solon.k12.ia.us/~kari_mai/Site4/Welcome.html
http://www.solon.k12.ia.us/~jan_johnson/Site/Welcome.html

First step would be to connect the classroom teachers and then we could start working out details. Anyone interested, or know someone who might be interested? Or is there another way to look for this kind of partner?

Thank you!
Kathy K
http://mediaservices.solon.k12.ia.us/scsdmediaservices/site/lakevie...

Tags: Elementary, interviewing, social studies, videoconferencing

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Permalink Reply by Linda Martin on January 5, 2009 at 3:57pm

Hi

I am a technology teacher in a school that only has 10 4th graders, but we would love to collaborate with you online. I have never done videoconferencing, but have been dying for the opportunity to. We are in Piscataway NJ - not far from NYC and I am sure my students would love to share with your students. Let me know.

Linda

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Kaldenberg on January 5, 2009 at 4:52pm

That sounds wonderful! Do you need to get in contact with your social studies teacher or will you use this as a tech lesson? Are you Mac or PC? I was thinking that we should use a web 2.0 tool for planning. Perhaps a wiki, or google docs... I'm excited!

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Permalink Reply by wittyteacher on January 5, 2009 at 11:06pm

Hi Kathy,
I am a Resource teacher in Saratoga, California. I would love to "tag along" or watch what you do and how. I am new to all this and would like to encourage our teachers to try this type of thing. We are a small Catholic school -preK -8th gr. Our 4th gr has 34 students. We are 1 hour south of San Francisco and in the heart of computer land-Silicon Valley. Apple headquarters is about 5 miles from us. We are all Mac lap tops. We have video cameras but do not have Skype. Maybe we can learn from you?
Roberta

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Kaldenberg on January 6, 2009 at 10:31am

Sure! When I get things rolling, I will invite you to our google docs/wiki group so that you can follow our progress...

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Permalink Reply by Linda George on January 6, 2009 at 3:30am

I think I could help you out. I have 2 4th grade classes in Portsmouth, NH. One of our teachers is into Skyping in this classroom and if that fails, I have them in computer lab.
Please email me and let me know how I can help.
lindargeorge@gmail.com

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Permalink Reply by Carrie Callan on January 16, 2009 at 6:44am

Hi Kathy!
I teach fourth grade in a small rural elementary school located in Central New York. We are less than two hours from Albany, forty minutes from Syracuse, and a few hours from Binghamton, Buffalo, Rochester, and NYC. Our entire grade consists of seventy five students and we are very interested in joining in on the video conference if it's not too late. We actually just finished up a unit on the regions of NY State. Our culminating activity was to make brochures and power point presentations on each region. Very interested in sharing and learning about you as well. We do have Skype available, but also have Tandberg Video Conferencing units at our disposal.

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Kaldenberg on January 16, 2009 at 9:56am

Thanks Carrie!
I have really had great success posting to Classroom 2.0. I've connected my 4th grade teachers here in Iowa with classes in New Jersey and New Hampshire, and we are well on our way to doing video conferencing via Skype (we don't have the Tandberg system). I think I have my hands full with these 2 projects, but I do have 2 other 4th grade teachers that might be interested. I have sent you an email with some specifics.