Bridging the Gaps

It’s been hard to avoid Olympic fever these last two weeks. Certainly the kids have gotten in to it with the cheers for their countries. The Olympics provide an opportunity for people around the world to come together and highlight their talents. The students in QA are going through some of the same experiences; while they are not competing in sports, they are navigating some interesting territory.

By far my favorite part of working with the QA team is reading the chat and seeing what goes through kids’ heads on a daily basis. They certainly have a complex way of looking at the world and think on a much higher level than most adults give them credit for.

For example, before the winter holidays two girls were talking about the difference between the friendships you make online and in person. QA has students all over the world and it’s encouraging to see friendships spring up between students who otherwise would have had no chance to meet. These particular girls were debating on whether you need to know someone in person to really like them or if the way you have a crush on someone you met online is the same kind of crush you would develop on someone you met at school. Of course, these are questions I couldn’t answer myself.

Then again, there are also the just-plain-fun chats. I was able to explain to students that giving away your height is not against the Iburst rules. Although, I’m still not really sure why they needed to know my height. (It’s about 5′ 5″, by the way.) But, it is encouraging to see them thinking about the rules critically and how to protect themselves on the internet. There are also times when students will warn another not to use names. Our stance is that first name only is ok, but students should never feel pressured to give out more information than they are comfortable with or their teacher allows.

We’ve also seen students starting to understand geography and how people can come from different places. We had one student doing a states project on Florida and asking questions of another student who lives in Florida. They were talking about the wildlife and the student in Florida responded “in Florida we have snakes, and up in North America they have bears.” That same week a student from Canada was talking about how excited she was to visit America for the first time. She admitted that she had been to America before but it was only driving through on her way to Disney World. In another instance one of the younger students in North America was talking to a teacher in Australia. She was trying to wrap her head around time zones and that it could be night in Australia but still morning in America. Finally she asked the teacher, “So are you from the future?”

The Olympics will be coming to an end this week but that doesn’t mean students need to stop thinking of ways to bridge the gap with others around the world. Afterall, there will always be someone from the future out there.