1Carteret: Students. Sports. Success.

Hear Ye: Brits Invade BMS

April 7, 2006 at 4:59 am | In Middle | Comments Off

Few web archives of student success exist as comprehensively as those managed by BMS and BES instructional technology facilitator, Janet McLendon. Her current triumph is a photo journal of the British Invasion. Students from Rastrick School in Yorkshire, England, have descended upon Beaufort Middle. Yesterday the students were at BMS, today they are at Fort Macon, and tonight they head to Ocracoke. All along the way learning opportunities are in place.

The beauty of this event is that the Rastrick student reciprocate by hosting Beaufort students in England on alternate years. What makes it even more compelling is that the deal started through snail-mail penpals, grew to keypals (e-mail), then to video conferences (NetMeeting). Finally, Janet and her Yorkshire counterpart said, “What the bloody heck! Let’s take it a step further.” Thus, the non-virtual trans-Atlantic crossings began. The students are the winners here.

Yesterday, I dropped by BMS and had the opportunity to meet several of the travelers. In the computer lab, the students were e-mailing their “mums.” And Janet was receiving e-mail from mums thanking her for keeping the daily photo journal of their children.

A few students did seem a tad perplexed as they scoured the cafeteria line for Shepherd’s Pie. It’s part of that cross-cultural exchange. I instructed them that for this week anyway it was “Hey” instead of “Hi” and American Idol instead of Pop Idol.