Lincoln School Tech Club: Global Virtual Classroom GVC

Fifth Grade GVC- Global Virtual Classroom
Global Virtual Classroom (GVC) 2011-2012

Dear Parents of Fifth Grade Students,

The Global Virtual Classroom (GVC) is a collection of free, online educational activities and resources. It aims to complement the efforts of governments and educators around the world to integrate technology into their classrooms and curricula and to link their schools to the Internet in educationally productive ways.
The GVC vision is to empower, enable and connect students around the world using Internet technology. It provides students with a stimulating, positive and enjoyable environment along with the opportunity to develop skills that are essential in the 21st century: cross-cultural communication, collaboration through teamwork, information technology and website design.

More information is available at http://www.virtualclassroom.org/index.html
The GVC Program at Lincoln School is open to ALL fifth grade students. It will take place during the lunch hour (11-12 noon) one day a week for each homeroom and take place in the computer lab. Students will come to GVC the first half of lunch and can return after they finish eating their lunch. I will be offering GVC on multiple days during the week, as I know that some students have other commitments during the lunch hour.

Please complete the online form below or by visiting
http://lincolntechclub.blogspot.com/p/global-virtual-classroom-gvc.html
Complete the form and submit.

This is the ninth year that I have offered the GVC Program at lunch for the fifth grade students at Lincoln. My hope is that many students (if not all) will sign up for this outstanding program. I am excited that we will be working with two international schools this year.

Please visit our Lincoln Tech Club blog to learn more about GVC and technology at Lincoln.
http://lincolntechclub.blogspot.com/

Sincerely,

Matthew Kuntz
GVC Coordinator
mkuntz@op97.org

2010 GVC10-04 Project
Over 60 fifth grade students participated in the Global Virtual Classroom (GVC)Project this year during their lunch hour. The fifth graders had the opportunity to work collaboratively with students from New Delhi, India and the Czech Republic during the 6 month project. Together they created a website called The Art of Living. Please see their outstanding work at http://gvc1004.gvc10.virtualclassroom.org/
The GVC is coordinated by Mr. Kuntz.

Welcome to the 2010-2011 Global Virtual Classroom (GVC) Contest. This is Lincoln's ninth year in participating in GVC! I am so excited to announce that we will be partnering with schools from the Czech Republic and India this year. We will be team GVC10-04 (the contest year 2010 and team number 4).
GVC Team #4 Partner Schools
Teacher: David Hellam School: Riverside School    Location: Czech Republic

View Larger Map

Teacher: Lakshmi Srinivas School: St Mark's Public School, Meera Bagh   Location: New Delhi India

View Larger Map

Teacher: Matthew Kuntz School: Abraham Lincoln ES   Location: Oak Park, Illinois USA

View Larger Map

GVC End of Year Party 2010

Lincoln School's GVC Awards 2005-2010

2009 Virtual Classroom Contest GVC09-05 Third Prize Imaginary Island Exceptional Helping Focus
Abraham Lincoln Elementary School	Illinois, USA
Island Village Montessori School	Florida, USA
Tainain Municipal Haidong Elementary School	Taiwan

GVC08-01	The School of Kindness Special Recognition for Helping Focus 2008 Virtual Classroom Contest Grand Prize Winner
	Ein Ganim School	Israel
	Harrison Elementary School	Indiana, USA
	Abraham Lincoln Elementary School	Illinois, USA

GVC07-04	Fairy Tales Around the World 2007 Virtual Classroom Contest Second Prize
	Doverwood Public School	Port Dover, Ontario Canada
	Abraham Lincoln Elementary School	Oak Park, Illinois USA
	Yugichuo Elementary School	Hachioji City, Tokyo Japan

	Zhi Kai Elementary School, Tainan City	Taiwan
GVC06-04	A Community of Dreamers Special Recognition for Creativity 2006 Virtual Classroom Contest Special Merit Award
	Ein Ganim Elementary, Petach Tikva	Israel
	Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, Oak Park, Illinois	USA
	Zhi Kai Elementary School, Tainan City	Taiwan

2005 Virtual Classroom Second Prize GVC05-02	In the World of Tales
	American Institute of Monterrey	Mexico
	School Number 176 - Novosibirsk	Russia
	Abraham Lincoln Elementary School	USA

Lincoln School's GVC Team is Recognized for Outstanding Website in International Competition 2010

Oak Park Schools - Four Wins in International Web Contest

Article about District 97 Winners from Triblocal.com

Global Virtual Classroom Contest (GVC) is a free online collaborative learning project that fosters creativity, cross cultural understanding, helping others, and teaches IT and website design skills amongst students working together from around the world.

Sponsored by GSBI [Give Something Back International], the GVC program provides an opportunity for primary and secondary school students from different countries to work with and learn from students in other countries, as they collaboratively design a website on a topic of their choosing. Teams are comprised of either three primary or three secondary schools from different countries. A panel of international judges evaluates the final work and determines the winners.

Student efforts are judged for content, presentation, collaboration, and a helping focus. The helping focus was added to encourage students to also demonstrate achievement of a helpful objective such as personal, social and/or environmental responsibility or support for a worthy cause.

Each division has 3 prize winners and 3 special merit awards.

Oak Park Schools received 4 of these awards in the 2009-2010 contest.

In the primary division [grades 3-7]:

Julian Middle School's 7th graders won 1st prize with the site: Save Earth! Partners from: Olean, New York and New Delhi, India. Teacher: Janet Barnstable

Lincoln School's 5th graders won 3rd prize with the site: Imaginary Island. Partners from: Florida, and Taiwan. Lincoln School was also recognized for EXCEPTIONAL Helping Focus for their work in creating the Haiti House Project. Teacher: Matt Kuntz.

http://gvc0905.gvc09.virtualclassroom.org/

Mann School's 4th graders won a special merit award for the site: Animal Stories. Partners from: New York, and Czech Republic. Teacher: Jim Hayward.

In the secondary division [grades 8-12]:

Julian Middle School's 8th graders won 3rd place for the site: Mystical creatures and gods. Partners from: Malaysia and Kenya. Teacher: Janet Barnstable.

These sites and all the winning sites can be viewed by going to http://www.virtualclassroom.org/win09.html

Lincoln Students Help the People of Haiti

The devastating earthquakes in Haiti energized the Lincoln Student Council and the GVC09-05 students into action as they wanted to do something to help. Students came up with the idea of "One Island Community Helping Another" and realized they could help the people of Haiti by making "one house at a time." The students created tiny HAITI HOUSE pins that made a BIG difference.

From their research the students learned that... the people of Haiti live in extreme poverty and their housing situation is in a crisis. Natural disasters, including hurricanes, floods, droughts, and earthquakes have had serious effects on the housing situation as well. The poor live in tents or dilapidated shacks made of cardboard, plastic, tin, or whatever materials can be scavenged from the garbage. These structures barely provide protection against the elements and children frequently fall ill from the appalling conditions. A luxury for these people would be a cement house with solid walls, zinc-sheet roofs that don't leak, doors that lock, and floors that don't turn to mud every time it rains.

Lincoln Student Council Members and Global Virtual Classroom Students [GVC09-05] spent their lunchtime recess creating Haiti House pins. Students then sold these pins at various school functions and raised over $1,050.00 to donate to The American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. The students created and sold over 250 Haiti House pins to help those in need that were devastated by the earthquake.

Click here to view photos of the creation process as well as the finished Haiti House pins.

Click here to read a newspaper article about our efforts.

GVC09-05 Project Finished!

After six months of hard work, the Global Virtual Classroom Project (GVC 09-05) Imaginary Island is finished. For this project we collaborated with schools from Taiwan and Florida. Please click on the link below or the image to the left to see our AWESOME website!

http://gvc0905.gvc09.virtualclassroom.org/

Oak Park District 97 is adopting an orphanage in Haiti

A group of Oak Park District 97 teachers led by Karen Tokarz, the Multicultural Education Department and community members led by former District 97 teacher, Gale Liebman, are part of a collaborative effort committed to supporting and rebuilding the Horizon de L'espoir Orphanage in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.

The orphanage was destroyed in the terrible earthquake earlier this year. Drs. Mildred Olivier and Serge Pierre-Louis, from Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago have been working with Horizon de L’espoir to address the immediate needs of the children and are raising money for temporary housing for the children until the facilities can be rebuilt once the ground is stable.

Our Oak Park Haitian Initiative is enlisting faculty from each of the 10 District 97 schools to help raise funds for these Haitian children over the course of the next two years.

As a kick off to our efforts, there will be station at the 30^th Annual Ethnic Festival sponsored by the Multicultural Education Department on Saturday, May 1^st at Whittier School, where we will be accepting donations of new and gently used toys and clothing; sealed over the counter medication; and school supplies (see the list below).

Helping Haiti is also helping kids!