Global Learning Comes to Chelan Middle School
Students in Mrs. Burton’s sixth grade social studies class entered a new age in education this past week by Skyping with an Egyptologist and her son from Toronto, Canada. Mary-Ann Wegner of the University of Toronto is related to our very own Karen Wegner who helped make the connection. Mary-Ann has a twelve year old son, Otto, who has traveled and participated in the archeological digs in Egypt. Otto began by 
doing a PowerPoint presentation about his experiences in Egypt. Otto had pictures of himself standing by a pyramid, a sphinx and even a mummy. Of course the sixth graders wanted know if a mummy stinks. If you were wondering too, they found out that it does! Otto’s presentation was followed up by Mary-Ann’s. She did an excellent job of telling the students her story of becoming an archeologist. She explained to the students what it is like to be an archeologist and what education and training is needed to become one. Students ran out of time on this first Skyping experience with all 100 students so the following week Mary-Ann and Otto Skyped with each of Mrs. Burton’s classes so students had the opportunity to ask questions. The students came prepared with excellent questions. Each student that wanted to was able to sit in front of the camera and ask their question. Many of these were related to topics they have been researching. The girls asked about make-up and jewelry while the boys wanted to know about the weapons and what kinds of 
boobie traps are found in the pyramids. Prior to the 
presentation, the students conducted collaborative research about an area of interest from their studies of ancient Egypt. Students used Wiki pages to pool their research findings. Wiki pages allow student to add to each other’s research and try out another global collaboration tool. This is the district’s first experience with Skyping and using Wiki pages, but now that the door has been opened, the possibilities are endless. Look out world, here come the CMS sixth graders!
