PART A - Description of Need or Opportunity

photo © 2010 Keri J | more info (via: Wylio)

An educational need or opportunity. This element is fundamental in this project. Since we have limited time, energy, and resources, cool technology without a clear sense of why it matters or what we gain by it is of little value in the educational setting.

When I found out I was to be one of the chaperones on our Grade 5 trip to Taipei, Taiwan from the 24th - 27th May 2011 I started thinking of how we could make the learning and information sharing more immediate using technology.
I'm sure my school is not the only one that bans the use of any electronic device other than cameras(which are merely just cameras nowadays, but never mind) so I had to come up with something that could be teacher facilitated but student driven.
To put it simply I wanted to come up with a way that students could share what they are experiencing on their trip, what they are learning and I wanted parents and teachers back home to be able to see these reflections and give feedback and ask questions of our students.

How you plan to address this educational issue with technology. You need to make a clear and convincing case that your proposed solution will make a real impact on the issue you identify, and that your proposed approach is a reasonable approach given its costs and possible alternatives.

With the recent protests in the Middle East Twitter has become the de facto way of communicating and transferring information in the most effective and immediate manner. I propose we set up a Twitter account for our Grade 5 school trip and inform and train our teachers and parents in how they can follow and interact with our Twitter account.
There are no better ways than Twitter to present our students' learning to an audience back home both anxious and excited to hear about their experiences. As Twitter is free the costs are minimal (more on additional costs later).
With instant feedback on any of our students' Tweets the opportunities for expanding upon their learning is immense with valuable feedback and questioning from our followers on Twitter.

Logistics of solution: For example…

What is the scope? (e.g., when and where will tool be used and for how long? Who all will use it?)

As the trip will take place over a number of days the whole Project will only be "alive" for around a week if we take into account any extra feedback after or any pre-trip questions before we leave Hong Kong for Taiwan.

I plan on setting up the Twitter account we create for our trip on all of the teachers' smartphones and discussing strategies for Tweeting with each teacher. My plan is that we let students know about the Tweeting activity and they are encouraged to come to any of their teachers when they want to share a photo/reflection or merely just an update of what they are doing. The additional costs I mentioned earlier will be the roaming costs we will incur while Tweeting outside of Wi-Fi zones. I have already checked with our mobile phone network and we can get 24hour limitless data roaming for around 10US Dollars which I don't see as being a problem at all.

Relevant research and resources (from the Internet and elsewhere) including reports on the closest effort you can find to what you are planning to do as well as ideas and materials you may be able to build upon in your own effort.

A quick search on Google brings up a South Florida school who tweeted their trip to Kennedy Space Center (http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/2011/02/follow_a_field_trip_on_twitter.html and Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/HeronHeightsEl ) From looking at their Tweets it is not entirely clear who was Tweeting. My plan is put down the students initials or first name and class whenever we Tweet so people back home can figure out if their child has just Tweeted. It will also give the student a sense of ownership over their Tweet. 

A college group in the United Kingdom tweeted about their sports trip to South America (http://www.gulliverstravel.co.uk/news/cheltenham-college-get-tweeting-on-tour and Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/cheltcoll2010) Looking through their feed gives a very good overview of what they were doing and experiencing as they were in each part of South America. With our Grade 5 students we will look for more learning related to what area they are in and any new information they have learned in the midst of being there.

A plan for the portion you will implement during this course and the portion you will implement after this course completes.

I will plan everything during this course and will have everything complete by the time this course ends. I will most likely need an extension on my Implementation stage as the school trip takes place around the date that submission is required.
The overview of what I need to do is as follows:

Talk to teachers on the trip of the plan of action and make sure everyone is on board.

Create Twitter account.

Make Twitter tutorials for parents (Jing)

Send email/letter to parents with project details, Twitter account details and tutorials on Twitter

Embark on trip 24th May and Tweet as we go!
Get back 27th May and write up implementation and findings stage.

Get together the Presentation on the entire project.

Indicators of a successful project

The indicators of a successful project will be how much value the students and parents found in the whole Twitter experience. The proof will be in the Tweeting from both our students and our parents alike. The Twitter feed will tell all!