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= = Welcome to the 4Corners' staff room.


 * Action Plan for 2007**
 * Teachers become members of the four corners' wiki.
 * Teachers click on the "notify me" tab on both wikis, and select "Monitor This Space" (you may need to select "space" instead of "page" first. This will send emails to you directly to let you know if something has been added to the space. You can take yourself off this at any time.
 * Teachers add information to the collaborators page.
 * Brainstorm ideas for a collaborative project.
 * Decide on a project.
 * Decide on how the project will work.
 * Decide on a timeline
 * Gail - sorry I haven't been able to work out which city you are in. Let us know and I will add this to the time clock heading - time on LHS is perfect thank you.
 * Do we want this site password protected so that only we can see it?? or do we not mind. I don't really mind either way. - Lizz, I am happy to have it open - Gail.
 * Hey guys, having run into a situation about a week ago, i decided to password protect any pages on my class'i'm wikipage that needs to stay the same or has important info on it. I think we should password protect this page just in case anyone messes around with it.
 * although i'm happy about keeping our project to the 4 corners that currently exist, i can be convinced of adding another school.
 * i really like the fact that we are in 4 distinct areas of the world...hence the cool name that liz came up with!


 * some thoughts--Manny**
 * everyone ok with having 2 kids from each school to be in a group?
 * so, are we going to go ahead with a pre-project first, where all 8 group members have to do a little research on their community first, basically to introduce themselves, their school, their community, their city, and their country?
 * I'm just rambling here, but how about, we make it a photo pre-project? the students have to take pictures of themselves, their school, their community, their city and their country and explain 5-10 sentences each of the above. i.e. significance etc.
 * please feel free to add to this.
 * once they've completed their part, then they upload their section of their 8 member group photo pre-project to their own wikispace page that we as teachers create for them.
 * how many kids does everyone have? we're going to have to figure out our groupings.
 * still rambling....
 * what are your thoughts on how we assess this?
 * when do we want to start?
 * I'm good to start October 22nd with the pre-project, give them 7 days to finish their part and then another 2-3 days to upload their info to their group's wikipage....what do u guys think?
 * ok...done for now....whewwwwhhhhhhh
 * end of thoughts---Manny

Thoughts from Lizz** Wow - this is sooooo cool - you should see the grin I have on my face right now! Ok - enough rambling for now. I will go and put more thoughts to paper and add later. Does everyone run on Microsoft, because that way I can upload Word and Excel documents. Alternatively we can use [|google documents] which we can all edit?? http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgd777kd_1dvthbr If you click on this hyperlink, it takes you to an example. I worked out how to share a document that we can all edit - I email it to you guys. Anyway, lets not run before we can walk. We may not need to use this yet, although I can see this being great for the kids to use???
 * Manny - that is a fantastic idea about the pre-project - being local etc. This will fit in really well with what I am doing with my year 9s.
 * Keeping the main project as a global issues idea is a good idea as well.
 * Start date of the 22nd is great - and I think 7 days is plenty of time.
 * I have 50 kids (my seniors are studying for their final examinations, which are in 5 weeks - eeeek). Maybe..... what if.... ummm... LOL ..... maybe the groupings are not equal per school. The two classes that I have in mind are different levels - but this shouldn't matter really. I have an idea - maybe another teacher at my school would be interested?? We could add her year 9 class - this would take Aorere up to 80 participating students???? What do you think about that one. I might have to twist her arm, but she is good value.
 * Assessment - I will think on this one - I have some ideas, but need to ramble on paper first. Overall, I think that teachers can allocate their own assessment necessities - ie, is this a homework grade, assignment grade, end of year grade.... etc. But the criteria of the assessment could be much the same. I also think students could pair assess other groups work. I will think more on exact criteria.
 * Photos of students - I know I wont be able to convince senior management of allowing kids to put photos of themselves on the net!! I will double check - but this is ok - they can do self portraits and upload them.
 * Protecting this wiki site from intruders: At the moment, everyone can see it but only the members can edit this space - so as long as we do not accept any random people to the space, then we shouldnt experience any vandalism, I was mainly asking about whether people mind others being able to see our ramblings :) Manny - I leave this one for you to decide. I have made you and gail both "organiser status", so if you want to change the settings so that this one is for members viewing only - go for it:) The main this is - we can all see and edit.
 * Adding other classes - for now I think I would like to keep it with the four we have and go from there. Maybe next year if people want to join, they can let us know for next year?? Alternatively - they could evaluate our kids work. So, they dont do the project as is, but evaluate the end result and let the groups know what they think.
 * The "4Corners Project" - my husband came up with it, thinking of the four corners of the globe, rather than the number of schools. He is very glad you like it:)

If each teacher could find 10 web resources to act as a starting point for students on a gobal issues and then we let the students expand it, stretch it and turn it into something they are interested in. For example - after just a little surfing I found http://www.gig.org/Departments/gig_science.php. This site has links to 10 different potential global issues: 1. Kyoto Protocal 2.Wildlife trade rules 3.Deer Decreasing Forest bird population 4.European probe to explore Venus 5.DNA map targets genetic diseases 6.Bird Flue 7.First brain stem cell transplant 8.Environmntal refugees 9.Slum Architecture 10.Importance of Whale death - Ecosystems
 * Thoughts about the Global Issues: - Gail**

Each teacher could add one link from each of the 10 global issues to their allocated 10 wikis as a starting point for the students.

It would be fine for each of the 4 teachers to have global issues that overlap but it would be good it they come from different internet resources. What do you think?