Is This France? Wait I Thought We Were in Illinois!?

"My students cannot travel to France, so I want to bring as much of France as I can to them! I am teaching in a large school in Illinois that struggles with monetary poverty but is blessed with personal richness. My students are amazing and want to explore the world. Unfortunately their status in ou..." more»

"My students cannot travel to France, so I want to bring as much of France as I can to them! I am teaching in a large school in Illinois that struggles with monetary poverty but is blessed with personal richness. My students are amazing and want to explore the world. Unfortunately their status in our country and their money restrictions make it so difficult to keep their head high and motivation higher. I'm always looking for new ways to inspire them.

I was so lucky to have lived in France for 2 years and have so many things to show my kids through the Internet, pictures and videos. In the past we've watched real French news broadcasts, weather reports, music videos and web cams of cities in the French-speaking world. We've had Internet pen pals with classes from France who are learning English. Even more, we raised money for schools in Haiti last year. All it took was a few images and a video I showed them in class to move my kids to help the struggling country. It's amazing to hear my kids say, "Wait, that person is French? I thought all French people where White!", "Wow, I want to speak like that!" or "This music video is just like ours are, only in French."

I really want to do a video conference between my classes and my kids’ French pen pals over the Internet in class. We could connect to them over the Internet on the big screen and see them too! Each class could ask questions and answer each other "face-to-face"! But all this is becoming more and more difficult.

Now we only have 1 LCD projector for 13 teachers and recently lost our computer lab making it so rare for me to bring these awesome experiences to them.

This is where you come in! By having our own LCD projectors, my students and I will be able to turn our classroom into a French oasis. They ask for the activities we do with the projector every week! We've only been able to use it 3 times this school year.

Bringing French to my students on a big screen really captivates my kids. It makes something so unreachable, so close they can almost taste it. It inspires them to make changes in their lives, our government and their life goals so that one day they too can experience more of their world outside of our struggling neighborhood.

Although we find our rich culture here in our neighborhood, the visual realness of a world outside our block is so inspiring to them. It brings their detached textbooks to real life! hide»