Dear Kaia

Dear Kaia

Kaia's Blog

Intrepid Teacher

Mr. C's Class Blog



This was an extradinary blog to learn about. A father in Qatar was reading a book called The Last Child in the Woods. This book was talking about the importance of getting children out into nature to discover beautiful things and to explore the world around them. This inspired the father and decided to take his little girl, Kaia, outside to connect with nature. He took a camera with him to record his little girl's expierience. Where Kaia and her father lived was in the middle of the dessert and most people would find the area to be a wasteland with nothing beautiful about it, but Kaia's father was out to teach a bigger lesson. He encouraged Kaia to just take pictures of what she saw. In his blog, Kaia's father said that he could not believe the excitement and enthusiasam Kaia displayed while being outside expierencing nature in a dessert. The outcome of this expierence was to be just a normal outing with pictures to share with friends and family, but it turned into something so much greater. After Kaia and her dad were finished exploring outside, he asked kaia if she would like to see her pictures on a big computer screen and talk about them. She was very intrested and kaia and her father ended up making a video of all the pictures kaia took and her commenting on each picture in the background of the video, and posted it online. The next day the video got several comments, and kaia's father saw a commment from a 8th grade class all the way in missouri that watched kaia's video.

Through twitter kaia's father was able to contact, Mr. C, the teacher of the class and actually skype in and talk to the class. In return, the 8th grade students created a video and voice thread to Kaia thanking her for all of her great pictures. Through twitter, skype, online videos,voice threads, and other types of technology a group of people were able to connect with eachother from thousands and thousands of miles away. Technology brought together a family living in a dessert in qatar with an 8th grade classroom in Missouri. This opens up a type of learning that has no limits. People are learing from other people all over the world. Distance can no longer stop learning. If this type of learning can really take off all over the world the possibilities are endless. I believe this type of learning with technology could inspire children to learn. I believe students would be intrested in learning a different culture or hearing from someone halfway across the world. I believe this would spark students imagination and thrill for learning. I also believe this would help students and teachers understand other cultures and even gain more respect for other ethnicities.


Singing Hearts


Kaia's father started off having just a regular family experience with his daughter. He was trying to teach her to see the beauty of her surrounding. To stop, slow down, and enjoy what is all around her. Kaia took regular, ordinary, objects and turned them into something beautiful and creative. Through, technology this lesson was not just learned by Kaia and her father, it was learned by thousands of people all around the world. Through technology this simple expierence was turned into something that had the power to touch other people's lives. Kaia's father said that to really use this type of learning you must have an open mind, and really be open to trying new things. Although, Kaia's dad did worry about some factors of using this type of technology like revealing his little girl to the world over the internet, I believe he saw the good things that could be done and those outweighed the risks involved. Through sharing his little girl with the world connections were made with people that will always be in Kaia's history. People could learn from others expierences and make connections to people that would never have exsited without technology.