Each "Discussion Questions" and "Activities" are optional. Decide with your students what questions to answer,what activities to work on and which final products you will share here.
Usually, the learning process starts with a face-to-face discussion in a classroom or some other meeting place. After the discussion, conclusions and views are shared with peers through the personal pages in Kidspace. 1. Phase: Inviting your Friends
In this first phase of the Virtual Vacation you are going to invite your online friends that live in other areas/countries and want to come on a visit.You are going to write to them and invite them to come to you on a three day vacation. You find out what places, events and other things of interests are to be found in your area by reading books, finding information on the net and interviewing people.
Discussion Questions - What do we mean when we talk about a virtual vacation? Did you ever go on such a vacation? Can you imagine how it is to travel without leaving home? Introduce yourself to the rest of us and tell us a little about yourself. Tell us your name and age, where you live, how long you have lived there and if you were born there. Create a page with your presentation.
- How can you make your area interesting to others? Are there interesting places in the neighborhood? Did anything interesting happen there in the past? Did any famous people ever live there?
- What is your global address (longitude and latitude)? Look at this Webpage and find out.
- How did your country get it's name? What does the name mean? What is your country called in other languages? How did your home area get its name?
- What is the weather like where you live? Do you like your kind of weather or would you like it to be different? Would you like to go on a virtual vacation where the weather is different from what you are used to? Do you think it matters what kind of weather we have?
- How big is your country? How many people live in your country? How many people live in your area? What kind of an area do you live in (rural or urban)? Do you think it makes a difference for kids whether they live in a town or on a farm? Do you think environmental issues are treated well in your country?
- What language do you speak. What other languages is it related to? How many people speak your language? Is it a difficult language to learn? Is it difficult to pronounce? Are there any special letters that you have in your alphabet?
- What are your surroundings like? Are there any big mountains in your area? Are there any volcanoes in your surroundings? Are any lakes nearby? Are there any national parks near your home?
- Have any historic events taken place in your area or near it.
- How old is the oldest house in your area? What is it built of?
- Are there any traditions, holidays, festivals or sports in your area that you think might interest your visitors?
- What is the easiest way for visitors to get to your area? Do you live near an international airport/harbour/train station? How do you get from the airport/harbour/train station to your home?
Before you start working, maybe you should divide the class into groups of 3-4 and give the groups different subjects to work on. Activities - At the end of this phase, you will write an invitation to kids all over the world to come to visit your area. Go to the library to find books about your area. Make notes and write them down. See if you can find anything on the internet about your area (remember to write down the web addresses - you can put them in the invitation). On the Resource page you can find some useful links.
- If any of you know someone in the travel industry you might like to invite them to the school to tell you about what to show your visitors. If you live in a town you can ask the mayor or perhaps a mom or a dad could come to the school to talk about your area.
- Put up a billboard and put on it all the notes you make and all the messages so all the groups can see and use information from each other. Have a special folder for everything that you take off the billboard.
- Now you are ready to write an invitation: you can make a poster with pictures and text about your area or make a video and post it in your pages. Again you can make a page with the information you have gathered. A postcard, a photograph or a picture would surely be welcome. You can draw pictures on the computer or on paper and make an E-card to send to involved groups.
- When your pages are ready, Inform your partners by Kidmail and be sure to write the url of your Invitation pages
- Every group or students can add comments in the invitation pages asking for more information. Students can add more information in the page or by kidmail
- At any point in the Virtual Vacation module, exchange of postcards, pictures, travel brochures, posters and videos of places visited or to be visited would be great! They would make a wonderful bulletin board display.
Finally in Students'Pages, under teacher introduction, every student will create a presentation page with their likes and dislikes, and the things that make you what you are. Then add some pages where you will add the gathered information about your area.
NEXT PAGE: Where do you want to go?
| LINKS:
- To see past years works, go to Getting Started page and click on the scroll menù.
By Asya : Future city
- Who-Am-I?
- Where do I live?
- My friends and family
- What are my rights?
- What are my roots?
- Virtual Vacation
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