A blog2buds face2face

Mrs. McKenzie's email said that a student of hers was in our area on vacation and wanted to visit our school.

Whaaaaaat?! This wasn't your typical pen-pal operation. We had launched our blog2buds initiative at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year after connecting with Mrs. McKenzie, a sixth grade teacher at Trinity Christian School in Canberra, Australia.

Blogging abroad is a brand new experience for students at Ripon Christian, and my sixth graders get a kick out of me jokingly calling them my guinea pigs...but they've taken the bull by the horns, proving their worth. And it's an understatement to say that I was excited to know they were going to be rewarded for their efforts.

Because of our hemisphere separation, our schools are opposite in seasons. While my students were sad to see Mrs. McKenzie's previous class move on after the Christmas holiday, they're excited to connect with a new bunch of "Year 6 Aussies", a group that began their new school year when we entered our spring season. The idea is to finish up our year with the new group and then have my incoming 6th graders connect with Mrs. McKenzie's current class next fall.

Ben, one of Mrs. McKenzie's new students, had flown into San Francisco with his mom and dad last week and had shown an interest in visiting our school, if possible. When they saw that our school was partway through their direct route from San Francisco to Yosemite, we together determined that it was meant to be. They would arrive Wednesday around 10:30, drop Ben off to experience school with us, and return a few hours later after lunch and recess to pick him up.

The visit was thrown together quickly, but I was amazed at how perfectly it went. When I told my students Tuesday that we were going to have a visitor from Mrs. McKenzie's class the next day, they were stoked! We made some loose plans for Ben and decided to be flexible with our school work.

When they checked in on Wednesday at our school office, it was just before our morning break. I walked over with two boys, Danton and Erik, and met Ben and his parents. After we exchanged our excitement over this unexpected opportunity, Danton took Ben to Band. When Band was over, Ben visited my English class. He wasn't shy to answer questions and share about his life in Australia with us or ask us questions about ourselves. For about 25 minutes he captivated his audience, showing us some Australian money, giving us a few mementos from Canberra, and telling us about kangaroos, school, and much more.

We then headed to the computer lab because we wanted to show him our blogging platform. He buddied with Erik and watched as Erik put his essay up on Kidblog.

My homeroom took a class picture with Ben, we ate lunch together, and then Ben roughed it with a bunch of kids at recess and played a little soccer. He visited Math class for a bit, and then his parents returned to pick him up. And that was it, a whirlwind of a tour!

The wonder of this blog2buds encounter would never have been possible without the concerted effort to reach out to a class across the world. And the wonder continues. As I mentioned, Ben is in the "new" class, so we will be able to connect with him when he returns to Canberra and gets blogging with his classmates. Perhaps we'll even attempt a Google Hangout between classes. It seems that the opportunities are endless.

Ben's mom, Ben, his dad, and me (Mr. T.)

I've set up a website called blog2buds that not only documents the beginnings of our blogging adventures but also gives tips on how to begin blogging with your class. I think the really cool part, though, is the Google Plus page you can link to from blog2buds where you can connect in discussion with other like-minded teachers. Take a look and perhaps you'll be able to connect online--maybe even face2face down the road--with some students abroad. Or use the #blog2buds hashtag on twitter (make sure to tag me @terpsmak) to start talking up your ideas with other teachers who also want to try out blogging with their classes.