Week 15: Say it with an object…
This idea for this object exchange came out of an idea that happened in Nantes, France at the turn of the century/millennium. The city decided to create a “grenier de la mémoire” (literally an “attic of memory”) by collecting objects from people. The idea was to donate an object that embodied the 20th Century for future generations. In our case, the idea was for students to donate objects that represented life at their respective schools in 2007 for future generations of incoming students. Objects were placed in boxes and both boxes were opened on the same day in a videoconference session. When an object came out of the box, the student who contributed the object had to explain why s/he chose this object and other students could ask questions. A fascinating conversation!
Of course, I was out of town again, presenting at the annual meeting of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. So the technological setup for this session was a little adventurous… I had to videoconference in through Skype hooked up to a camcorder so that I could see both my students and the French students and so that all parties could ask me questions.