About+our+Project

This is a global collaborative project that has connected three school across the globe. First, we have the International School of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo, Japan. Next, we have St. Dominic Savio in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada. And finally, we have Gyeonggi Suwon International School in Suwon, South Korea.

The project was born when Mary Fish, a teacher in Tokyo, went back to her hometown of Weyburn, Saskatchewan one summer. She was at the local bank withdrawing some money when she ran into the mother of a girl she had once taught swimming lessons to. The mother pondered about how neat it would be for children in Weyburn to get in touch with children living in Japan. Mary gave the mother her email address to pass on to her daughter's teacher and a little while later, Mary was contacted by Sheryl Ehman, a teacher in Weyburn. And thus, the pen pal project was born.

At first, students wrote and mailed each other paper letters, and the next step was an email exchange. And now, in 2010, here we are with our own wiki.

Mary met Darrin, a teacher at Gyoenggi Suwon International School, at an Earcos workshop in September of 2010. Together with Bethany Shull, another teacher at ISSH and Susan, a librarian at Tokyo International School, they all came up with an idea to share book reports on a wiki with other students around the world. The aims of the book report are

1. to promote a book using digital media tools 2. to encourage other students to read the book by seeing what other students are reading from around the world 3. for students to have a greater audience for their reports, than just their teacher.

If you would like to join us on this project, please email one of us.

=T**eam members:** = Susan MacIntosh, Librarian, Tokyo International School smacintosh2@gmail.com Bethany Shull, English/Language Arts, International School of the Sacred Heart bethany.shull@issh.ac.jp Darrin Schumacher, Grade 5 teacher, [|Gyeonggi Suwon International School] schumacherd@gsis.sc.kr Mary Fish, English/Language Arts, International School of the Sacred Heart mary.fish@issh.ac.jp

=**Other Participating Schools**= Mary Sykes, [|Nichols Middle School], Buffalo, New York Cindy Quam, Sauk Prairie Middle School, Sauk Prairie, WI Brigid Stevens, South Wairarapa, New Zealand Katy ISD, Katy, Texas

This is our presentation that we pitched to our colleagues at the Weekend EARCOS conference held at Yokohama on the 2nd and 3rd of October 2010. media type="custom" key="7090135"

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