Resource/reflection - an impressive learning community

As a result of researching for my wiki book chapter, I've really become interested in learning communities and inquiry and problem-based learning. So over the past week I've been searching the Internet and found some great websites for online collaborative projects and have posted information about some of them. Another one that I discovered is KIDPROJ which is a part of KIDLINK and enables students through high school to join global educational projects. Some of the projects are very short term, some just involve posting artwork or comments, while others involve a longer time committment. While I was browsing the website I came across a map that showed schools participating in current projects and one marker looked like it was in Missouri. The school is in Hannibal and there's a link to the teacher's website http://www.smithclass.org/. Wow! I want to be in his 4th grade class. He has a page for project-based learning (http://www.smithclass.org/proj/projects.htm) where he writes,
"Project Based Learning in a global classroom is about as close as a kid can get to the real world - while being in school all day! We keep a project atmosphere alive in all that we do. That means we stay open-minded about assignments and discussions, recognizing that everybody knows something about something, and nobody knows everything about everything - even the teacher! Students' great ideas often reshape our whole lesson plans! Kids use their thinking skills and communicate, plan, problem solve, create, and evaluate."
That's what being a learning community is all about. His class has friends in the UK, Pakistan, Japan, South Africa and more. There's a class wiki, blog and podcasts. His class participates in Internet chess and actually has matches with classes from several countries. I would love to visit his classroom and see it in action. Hannibal really isn't that far from St. Louis!

KIDPROJ. Retrieved February 25, 2009 from http://www.kidlink.org/KIDPROJ/index.html

Smith, T. (2009). Terry Smith's 4th Grade 2008-09. Retrieved February 25, 2009 from http://www.smithclass.org/