Making Global Connections: United States & Brasil

The purpose of this blog is to share a journey -- a journey of two teachers -- Tyrone Santiago of CECR Escola Parque in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil and Cathy McDonald of Lovejoy Technology Academy in Brooklyn, IL, USA -- who want their kids to connect intellectually, socially, and culturally. Two separate classrooms on different continents merged to become one group who share their cultures, their ideas, their hopes and their dreams and their fears.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Meanwhile at Lovejoy...

September, 2008
The Lovejoy seniors started by anticipating problems they might encounter and programs that they could use.

They downloaded SKYPE and Before You Know It - Portuguese - Brazil (http://www.byki.com).

They downloaded Google Earth and used Google Maps to look at Escola Parque. This was exciting as they also looked for their own school and homes.

They found websites where they could practice translating. (http://www.freetranslation.com; http://translate.google.com) I have since been told that Bing Translator is also good (http://www.microsofttranslator.com/Default.aspx). They discussed the problems that come from translation sites. Eventually, they would use these as they participated in blogs and threaded discussions by putting their work in both languages. The brunt of the translation problems fell on Tyrone in Brasil...