Education Policy, Business and Technology

Digital is the plumbing; 'One to the World' is the vision

eSchool News: Observing the wonderment of kindergarten kids as they discover the world with the help of digital learning can be magical. In the kindergarten classes at Newton-Lee Elementary School in Loudoun County, Virginia, wonderment is at an all-time high as the students squeal with delight. Their eyes are glued to the Skype session with a zookeeper in Texas. The camera is projecting the live images of orangutans as they play with puzzles that the kindergarten students actually designed and shipped to the zoo for testing by the primates.

A few months earlier, the students had learned on another Skype call that orangutans can become naughty if they are not engaged with games and toys. One student in the class volunteered to become an orangutan puzzle designer. The whole class got behind the project and launched into a primate puzzle design team. Challenging five-year-olds to become orangutan puzzle designers is not in most lesson plans for kindergarten!

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