1001 Flat World Tales update: Michele, Chris, and I seem like three shepherds trying to herd 130 cats in three different timezones. (I know I'm mixing metaphors--call me avant garde.)
Here are the things I'm noticing from Week 2 of the first HS world writing workshop that I hope we reflect on this weekend when we Skpye:
1. Flat World Time Management:
"Thursday midnight deadline" for peer response means this in World Time:
1. Korea: Thurday midnight (2400)
2. Denver: Thursday 0800
3. Honolulu: Thursday 0500
Doesn't seem like a problem, right? But..."Revise your stories, based on peer feedback, between Thursday midnight and Sunday midnight" means this, for my Korean students:
1. Denver's peer responses for my story won't be done until Friday 1600 Korean time
2. Honolulu's peer responses won't be done until Friday 1900
So really, my students don't have "Friday through Sunday." They have "Friday night through Sunday." They lose 19 out of 72 hours for revision time due to time zone differences.
We need to fine tune that. I notice, too, that the Thursday feedback/Sunday revise deadlines seem misguided: we're giving four days (minus lag time) for feedback, and three days (minus lag time) for re-writing? It should be the other way around. So I'll vote for Wednesday deadline for peer response, so the majority of the weekly round is devoted to re-writing, not responding.
We need to all learn, young and old, how to understand world time and work cycles. My students are "reporting" partner classroom students for late feedback because they don't see feeedback by their own Thursday midnight.
I want a parent who works in a multinational team to talk to my classes (Skype?) about how this looks in the real world. Would it make more sense for us to all use GMT/UTC time to coordinate this work?
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