Global Connections - Building Relationships


Although videoconferences are often the 'high points' of project activities, there are many other ways of communicating, and it's important to get the best out of all of them. Building good working relationships and understanding with each other is vital, to establish trust and confidence. There is more to a group project than getting the planned work done: below are some of the other things that happened during the first year...
Children at Chipeta Elementary and Taliesin Junior schools exchanged several parcels, sending books, mascots, toys, and local information. (Pogs were 'in' at Taliesin and were history at Chipeta - so the American children donated some of theirs to a good cause!) They also used the early videoconference links to tell each other about themselves.	Sharing a favourite doll

Contrasts: Around Elgin High (left)
and Sgoil Lionacleit (right)

Students at Sgoil Lionacleit wanted to see an American Shopping Mall: this led to short videos of each locality being made and exchanged using the videoconferencing equipment.

Students at Washington Irving High sent these Valentines to their colleagues at Boston Spa Comprehensive. (In January, some members of the Boston Spa group had treated their US partners to a rendering of "On Ilkley Moor baht 'at" as part of a videoconference link-up. Unfortunately, this was not recorded!)

Learning how to videoconference and getting to know your partners at the same time...

Staff need to get to know each other too: regular e-mail contact was a significant factor in this, but phone calls and videoconference links were very important.

An open evening at the San Francisco School of the Arts was enlivened with a breakfast-time English tea and a videoconference link to staff and students at Coombe Girls' School. Chipeta Elementary and Taliesin Junior Schools organised simultaneous end-of-year parties, with a videoconference link-up, to celebrate the project, and show other staff and children what they had been doing.

Breakfast at Chipeta: it's tea-time at Taliesin!
Other staff see what it's all about.

Chris Carlson, from Chipeta Elementary School, planned her holiday so she could visit Taliesin Junior whilst they were still in school, and met the teachers and pupils face-to-face for the first time.