Wednesday, May 6, 2009

I've never been to Italy...

I've never been to Italy. Never. On Tuesday after a fairly intense day with my classroom I was looking at my inbox and found the following message:

MusicAtAmbrit has left a new comment on your post "Tamaki Int. - Cultural Festival Montage":

Hi, Tamaki! Thanks for teaching us the Sasa! We are performing it this Thursday at our annual Dance Festival in Rome, Italy. Our students love it! Warm regards from us all at Ambrit Rome International School

This message is a post from material that my old class completed last year, as we did a series of lessons about 'How to Sasa' to perform a Samoan Sasa (slap dance). I'm not a Samoan - I'm a palangi (European) teacher. The site isn't active any more. I've never had any contact with the school who left the comment. As I stated when I started writing this, I've never been to Italy. None of last years class would really have known anything about Italy, but they have taught them something - and students learning from their work, who have never met them have taken part of their culture (in this case Samoan) and are performing it on the other site of the world.

That's a huge head trip.

I just think to me this email underlines the power of the internet of Web 2.0 technologies that students from 2008 can have such an affect. The work they created last year is still a resource for people around the world to use. That students who have found it online have learnt from it and are using it at a festival in Italy.

I know the students would be very proud. I know I am, and this email is probably one of the most positive things that I will receive this year.

Myles Webb/NZ Waikato (formerly tamakitoday from tamakitoday.blogspot.com)
melvilleroom8.blogspot.com

3 comments:

John Hadley Strange said...

Wow! What a great testimony to the breaking down of school room walls as well as time and space. we are seeing the future, I hope!

Wm Chamberlain said...

This really is an awesome thing to see happen. As usual, you make me think about what I can do to leverage my students knowledge. Now I am considering having my students teach my school's teachers next year. Really, it is all about those who have content sharing it with those that need or want it.

Jarrod Lamshed said...

Have you been to Australia?!

As I've said before...the Tamaki site was a great influence on our current site, and your Haka videos certainly helped us to learn our Haka here in Adelaide last year.

The flow on effect of this, is that performing Ka Mate (which is not seen very often here) has opened up a lot of opportunities for my class. We are STILL performing it, and the invitations keep coming in. You and your kids from last year are part of this.