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== =Welcome to the Horace Mann State Project Wiki=

Our fourth graders study the United States. As part of their research they conduct an interview with someone from the state they are researching. This "someone" is usually another student or class. In the past, our students have Skyped with others from around the United States to gather research for their project. The project started in 2008 and we were able to chat with students and classes in almost 30 states. In 2009, that number increased to over 35. In 2010, we did not do the project due to some curriculum changes at our school, but plan on resuming the project during the 2010-2011 school year. We are hoping to chat with every state if possible.

Our interviews usually last about 5-15 minutes. The students on our end have a set of questions to ask. In most cases, we emailed the questions to the other class ahead of time so they could be prepared for the interview. The students have always enjoyed the chats. For most of our students, this experience is their first time with any type of video chat/conference. Overall, it has been a great experience for everyone involved and certainly a real world/21st century approach to research.

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