Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2.
The Kaleidostories website.
system also invites users to link role models' stories with particular values (such
as friendship and justice) and to define those values in a collaborative values
dictionary. This dictionary has all the values that the Kaleidostories community
holds as a group, as well as the personal definitions that each individual creates
to ground those abstract concepts to concrete situations. At any point, children
can look at the kaleidoscope, browse the creations of other participants and
engage in a-synchronous communication.
Sharing stories across the world
I conducted two on-line pilot studies with Kaleidostories. First, I did a study
with three bilingual sites (Spanish/English) in different parts of the world: a
small bilingual class in a Cambridge public high school, an elementary school
class in Torrevieja, Spain and a youth group from a Jewish Sunday school in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. Second, I conducted a pilot study with only Spanish
speaking sites: the same elementary school class in Spain, two rural schools
with Internet connection in Colombia and a high school class in Argentina.
During both studies every local teacher decided to use the tool in a different
way and with different goals. For example, the teacher in Cambridge integrated
Kaleidostories into her “Spanish Literature and issues of adolescence” class.
She focused on writing stories about role models in Spanish, a language which
