http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/win2007/pinballs/index.htm
This article by Judy Lambert and Tony Sanchez details an e-mail and video conferencing project across the curriculum, a primary purpose of which was to teach about tolerance and cultural diversity. Students began by reading Betsy Byars’ The Pinballs (1993), a book about three foster children. It was to be the springboard for conversation and collaboration between two classrooms from distinctly different regions of the US, with great demographic variability. ELL students received extra help from their ESL teacher and remediations were made for learning disabled students and low-level readers as well. The authors noted that these types of technological social interactions are known self-esteem builders, particularly for students with lower academic ability. A technology expert assisted teachers in incorporating all six of Chisholm’s “elements for technology integration in multicultural classrooms” (1998) into their unit. This was a highly successful endeavor for both classrooms and would be worth replicating in some form in my future work, possibly with English Language Learners, whether in a self-contained setting, or in a language arts classroom, which-more likely than not-will include some ELLs and other students with special needs.
