Each year for the past five years, Robin Blackburn’s social studies classes at Western Hills Middle School have partnered with students around the world to work on projects together.

The locations have varied, and include countries such as Turkey, Greece, China, and Canada, in addition to elsewhere in the United States. Each year the project has continued to evolve, as have the technological capabilities. This year, Bilgen Tezcan, a teacher in Istanbul, Turkey, has worked closely with Blackburn to create an international partnership.

According to Blackburn, the partnership originally began when the two were connected through the use of the ePals program, which is a community of classroom collaborations established in a safe, secure environment, and which promotes the fundamental learning principles essential for academic achievement. The program challenges students and educators to research smartly, collaborate with other learners of all ages, to think critically, problem-solve, and communicate their learning using various Web 2.0 tools. Blackburn notes that this is not simply an add-on to the classroom, but is technology facilitating deeper learning.

After years of working with ePals, the two educators a world apart decided to branch off and create their own collaborative enrichment project connecting all that the students have been learning both in history and across the rest of the curriculum areas.

“Our Rhode Island students are currently learning the history of the world, more specifically areas like the Fertile Crescent, Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The project gives the Rhode Island students a 21st-century snapshot of what life is like today in the areas where they have studied their history,” Blackburn said. “In Turkey, the students are learning English as a second language, and the collaboration and participation in a hands-on media project helps them to practice the English language and learn about American culture. This project helps to make a unique connection that students can relate to in a high-interest platform. Both partners are learning about the world and how others live.”

The collaboration Tezcan and Blackburn created together involves 33 different projects, each consisting of a small group made up of two teachers, two or three students from Cranston, and two or three students from Istanbul. Each group of partners must create a slideshow using Google Slides, to which all students in both countries have access. The slides include an introduction from the Rhode Island students, and from there 23 more slides are to follow. In total, 12 slides are created by the students in Cranston and 12 slides by the students in Istanbul, with the slides alternating in order so that every other slide is from one country and then the other.

“The slides consist of topics such as geography and culture as well as school, state, and city facts. They must contain photos, facts, hand-drawn pictures, and videos,” Blackburn said. “They are monitored closely by both teachers for safety and security measures, and the students are able to communicate and ask questions of each other.”

At times, though the students in Istanbul are not in school when the Western Hills students are, the Istanbul students will add to their projects in the evening while the Cranston students are in school working as well and have the chance to see their partners from across the globe, adding material to the project.

Shrieks of surprise and delight erupt throughout the classroom at Western Hills as a group suddenly realizes that their Istanbul partners are on at that very same second, although a world away. They watch as the Istanbul students type and as the new material appears on the slides. They peer at what’s been added – photos of a school classroom in Turkey or pictures of the surrounding area in Istanbul – and then they continue to work on their own slides, sharing photos and images of seascapes, snowbanks, clam cakes, frozen lemonade, and coffee syrup.

“It’s amazing to see how much they’re getting out of this, and how much they’re putting into it,” Blackburn said. “We have groups that have gone down to the beaches to take photos and videos so that that the students can see the ocean. They make Flipagrams and videos, and they’re using all kinds of technology to enhance their projects. It’s been very exciting for them.”

The final slide in the project is a conclusion prepared by the students in Istanbul, which ends the presentation.

“The students have been working on these since March, and at the very end we’ll have a showing where every group can present their project,” Blackburn said.

For more information about the ePals program, visit epals.com.