Loving the Global Read Aloud

In a previous post I mentioned and shared information about the Global Read Aloud, a world wide collaborative project where schools around the world read the same books and collaborate virtually about their reading.  We are currently reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.   To say the students are loving it would be an understatement!  They are so into this book and never want me to stop reading!  As I said in the previous post about the Global Read Aloud, it is one of the best collaborative projects I have been involved in, and it is living up to that this year as well.

skyping with 3rd graders in Wisconsin

Yesterday we had the pleasure of skyping with some 3rd graders from Wisconsin and sharing our thoughts about what we have read.  Both classes had read to chapter 9 so we prepared questions beforehand to ask one another.  Of course, as this sometimes happens, when we were ready to Skype, our computer and Apple TV froze up and would not work in the classroom so we just skyped on our iPad, which worked fine.  We were ready with a backup plan!

The students on both ends shared a lot of deep thoughts about the reading and are all excited to continue reading and share more of our thoughts along the way.

Last week, we chatted virtually with Mrs. Malphy's class in Wisconsin through on online program called TACKK.  Teachers post a question and students can sit and type answers, reply to one another, and communicate without opening their mouths or really seeing one another.  The focus question, of course, revolved around the book we are reading.  You could have heard a pin drop in the room as the students were so quiet and engaged.

Students chatting with Wisconsin students using TACKK

 It was great in the fact that as some of my students in 3B were typing their answers and thoughts, some of Mrs. Malphy's class were also on and responding to my 3B students instantly. Their faces were priceless.  One student even commented, "This is so great.  I am chatting with someone about a book and she is not even here!".   We plan to do more TACKK discussions in the future as well.