Enloe Conducts First NC High School International Video Conference
March 23, 2006 - In a first for North Carolina high schools, Enloe High students launched a virtual partnership with students at Eyuboglu High School in Istanbul, Turkey in a class held by international video conference March 15. Enloe students take part in an international video conference with students in Istanbul, Turkey. |
About two dozen students in Enloe High's International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class met in the school's media center at the start of their school day while 5,400 miles and several times zones away Eyuboglu High's International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge students gathered late in the afternoon at their school. Using television and audio connections fed over the Internet and displayed on a large screen, students in classrooms halfway around the world from each other were brought together speaking face-to-face in real time.
Enloe students introduced themselves to the students in Turkey and talked about their lives in Wake County. They talked about attending school, homework, athletics and rarely having free time. Then the Eyuboglu students talked about their lives and Istanbul. They talked about schoolwork and described a mass transit system that allowed them to easily travel about their city.
Isaac Lake and Chad Keister are the Enloe High International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge teachers. Lake is Enloe's project coordinator for this partnership.
"In five years of teaching Theory of Knowledge, I have never seen students so excited, nor so many other students and teachers curious and interested in what we are doing," said Lake. "This should attract more students to the IB program. More importantly, teachers of students at every level have begun talking about how they could do similar things in their classrooms. For these reasons, I am confident the partnership will grow at Enloe and provide a model for other schools.
One of Lake's students had previously thought of Turkey as an historical place, but was now more interested because of this experience to learn about the people of Turkey today, especially people her age.
"I think this shows the essential difference between book learning and the experiential learning made possible by this partnership," said Lake.
Enloe students will be paired with their counterparts at Eyuboglu High School through video conferencing and will build and maintain cooperative relationships through email and instant messaging. Groups comprising students from both schools will plan, research, and prepare presentations that will occur simultaneously in real time through live video conferencing. Students will improve their understanding of international issues by learning with, not just about, people of another culture.
The March 15 video conference had been in the planning stages since October of last year. The planning group known as the Turkey School Partnership Committee is chaired by Penelope Maguire, with support from Todd Culpepper of the International Affairs Council, Pam Hartley of Exploris and Matt Freidrick of North Carolina in the World and the Center for International Understanding.
The timeline for the March 15 meeting moved up with the help of Dr. Rosina Chia and Dr. Elmer Poe of East Carolina University. Chia and Poe teach Global Understanding with partners in 14 countries, including one in Istanbul. They routinely use similar video conferencing techniques in their class and offered to facilitate the first video conference between the high schools.
The partnership will continue throughout the 2006-2007 school year and will grow to involve other classes in the years to come. The project at Enloe High, its work with the partnership and its work with Eyuboglu High will provide a model for similar partnerships at other North Carolina public schools.
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