An Elementary School Creates a Community Study Project on an Educational Social Network
Source: Nipagesh Blog
During the 2012-13 school year the Izraelia elementary school of Neveh Sha'anan, Haifa, began implementing an online community study project on the "Nipagesh" secure elementary school social network platform. Their project, "Creating the Neveh Sha'anan Sequence Trail", entails creating an interactive map of the Neveh Sha'anan neighborhood for the benefit of anyone visiting it, including historical photographs and personal stories of local residents.
The project - led by Ms. Adi Dorfman, Communication Instructor, and Head of School, Ms. Iris Cohen - combines several disciplines, including community history, citizenship, communication skills and ICT, with the secure "Nipagesh" social network serving as a platform for processing these materials and communication between all partners in the project - students, teachers, parents and community.
This year is the first year of the project, which is planned to last three years. As part of the project, students tour the neighborhood, study it, collect information, learn basic concepts in photography and communication skills, sharing and organizing their materials via the "Nipagesh" platform. Students having problems with their computers can call on a "network trustee" - one of the students, trained in operating the network in general and in particular "Nipagesh", who helps anyone who is experiencing difficulties.
This project connects the students with values of getting to know the neighborhood, its culture and history, and especially connects the children with the local community and the community to the local school. One prominent feature of the project is that it is not based on existing written material, but on new original material, which the children discover and collect themselves. The mother of one of the students says her daughter told her, "'Mom, this isn't only learning to know, its learning to enjoy it!" And in the same vein, focusing on "Nipagesh", we can write: It's not just using social networks to chat, but really being helped by it!
Read the original post and see a short video clip (in Hebrew) on the Nipagesh Blog.