A teddy bear and a Kangaroo trade places in an exciting new exchange scheme, writes jenny Benjamin
Saffy the teddy bear has been in Tasmania for several weeks now. Her hosts are the children and staff of Hagley Farm Primary School, Hagley, and it looks like she's going to have a great time. Her exchange partner, Skippy the kangaroo, has recently arrived at Saffy's home base, Katherine Semar Infants School in Saffron Walden, Essex.
Over the coming months, the two cuddly travellers plan to e-mail their friends back home every day with news of their exploits. They'll go home from school with a different child each night, so there will be plenty to talk about. With a bit of luck, they'll be sending digital photographs of themselves in front of the local sights and, eventually, they may return home bearing souvenirs of their stay on the other side of the world.
Saffy's e-mails will be received on a laptop belonging to Mary Williams, IT co-ordinator and Year 1 teacher at Katherine Semar.
'It's taken a while to set the project up,' she says, 'Because they were having their summer holidays over there when we started. I sent Saffy out in a parcel with school brochures, a British flag, a class photograph, some leaflets on Saffron Walden and some local newspapers and each child wrote a letter and sent a photograph of themselves.
'Jenni Tantari, the teacher at Hagley Farm, sent Skippy here about two weeks ago - he's a glove puppet, which is nice - we can make him talk and do things. All the children over there have written back now, and we'll soon start e-mailing every day.
'I plan to look at the e-mails with the children during story time, then they'll type in the message we're sending back.
'The children are really excited about the whole thing, partly because using e-mail makes it so immediate. About 50 per cent of the children (there are 30 in the class) don't have e-mail at home, so it's really great for them.'
Katherine Semar is in the South East England Virtual Education Action Zone (SEEVEAZ), a unique school improvement venture which unites its members through IT rather than geography.
The teddy bear exchange idea was introduced by Albin Wallace, manager of ICT and learning technologies for the Zone. The idea is not a new one; it originated with something called the Global Classrooms project (www.sofweb. vic.edu.au/gc), and has so far involved schools in Australia, Canada, the USA and Eire.
Albin Wallace encountered the idea while teaching in Australia, and felt it had a great deal to offer, particularly for children of this age. One of his main aims is to make sure that resources are used in a manner appropriate to the learning needs of the children and this project, he believes, does exactly that.
