ChristinaV+Parent+Permission+Letter

Dear ELL families,

We are excited to announce that starting this month, students will begin a multimedia project about travel and culture. As you know, culture is more than food and music. It is about knowing the heart of a place and the people who live there. Learning how to live and go to school in United States culture is an important part of our program but we also hope that your children can teach the students here what culture means to them.

In our project, students will collaborate to create a “trip” to their home country or to a place in the U.S. Students will plan and present a “trip” with activities that help people to know the real culture of the place using some wonderful tools including:
 * District netbook computers
 * Google Earth (to “virtually travel” to new places)
 * Google Documents (to collaborate on ideas and share documents, photos, etc.)
 * Qwiki (to create professional videos advertising their trips)

During this time, students will learn and apply research techniques, work on persuasive writing and practice public speaking, all of which will help them participate more fully in their classes. Students will also work with our World Language and Social Studies departments to present their completed projects to a wider audience.

Please review the enclosed timeline and project details. There are several important ways you can help your child to be successful in this project.
 * 1) Please remind your child to bring his/her netbook to school each day, charged and ready to use.
 * 2) Share your stories! Students will create or collect personal testimonials from people who know their culture. Please consider contributing your ideas. We would love to see you or your words in the final project!
 * 3) Talk to your child about internet safety. For our project, students will use internet-based programs that allow them to create and share information. We will use private, password-protected accounts and I will have access to all accounts. However, please help us at home by reminding students to use their accounts for schoolwork only and to follow all WCASD rules on computer usage.

We look forward to sharing our projects with you in early March! In the meantime, please contact me by phone or email if you have any questions or concerns. As always, thank you for your support of your child’s education!

Sincerely,

Ms. Christina Vetre Ms. Ana Laura Gonzalez-Quijano ELL Teacher ELL Assistant

Please tear off and return this form to Ms. Vetre by 2/28/11.

My child and I have reviewed this letter and the project requirements.

Parent or Guardian signature _____________________________________

Student signature _____________________________________