Dear Kaia/ Intrepid Teacher

Dear Kaia (and Skyelar)

Intrepid Teacher

Jabiz Raisdana is a year 7, 8, 9 English, History, and Geography teacher at the Compass International School in Doha, Qatar. As a teacher by profession, he maintains an educational blog called Intrepid Teacher. On a personal level he maintains a blog for his oldest daughter Kaia, and his recently born second daughter Skyelar. Interestingly enough, it seems as though his personal family blog has brought him attention here in the U.S. Recently, Mr. Chamberlain's class in Missouri, came across Kaia's blog. They were able to skype with Jabiz in their classroom, and created a video response with a voice thread for Kaia and her Dad.


Mr. C's Class Blog

Mr.C's class blog is maintained by Mr. Chamberlain at Noel Elementary School. Mr. C has been working with other schools in a project called Comments4Kids. There are sections on his blog page for his students to follow links to other class blogs and make comments. Mr. C is working with his students to further technology in the classroom.

Mr. Raisdana's professional blog the Intrepid Teacher follows the work of Mr. Raidana's students and their studies in Qatar. He recently posted about the difficulties that he has encountered in the system there. He is determined to teach his students about blogging and the use of the web in instruction. Recently his school shut down for several weeks because of swine flu. Mr. Raisdana posted about how he was so glad that his class was able to make progress even though he wasn't having face to face meetings with them. He also talked about teachers who were not accustomed to this type of teaching being at a loss to proceed with their classes. I had not previously thought about the aspect of emergency situations and classroom instruction. The ability to carry on by way of a class blog, or website would allow for instruction when classes are not able to meet. This led me to a completely different thought. Isn't this somewhat like homeschooling? Are homeschoolers at an advantage in this area over those that go to a conventional classroom? Many homeschooled children participate in online classrooms. They can receive their instruction from teachers that are thousands of miles away. They rarely have face to face meetings with teachers other than their own parents.

Mr. Raisdana's was recently reading The Last Child In The Woods. This led him to take his little girl outside and let her photograph her surroundings. He then helped her to put her photos together and record some narration with them. When Mr. C's class found her blog and pictures they responded to her. Mr. Raisdana had to determine if he wanted his daughter's blog to be used in this way. Of course there are always concerns over someone using the materials inappropriately. In the end he determined that he wanted more good to come from the use of her blog and photos for the good of his students. He said that we can't expect our parents to be comfortable unless we ourselves are willing to put our own selves in that situation.

As we continue to become more and more dependent on technology in the classroom, more opportunities will present ourselves for global learning efforts. What a wonderful connection that these two schools and families have made.