Collaboration project with Alaskan students

For the last month or two we’ve been doing a collaboration project with an Alaskan class about World War 2. It’s my first time doing something like this, and it’s been a new experience. We worked in groups of 4-6 and made a text, narrated video or presentation for the Alaskan students, who invited us to do this collaboration project for their history class. To get to know each other we made videos introducing our school and ourselves, and they replied with a similar video.

The big difference between this project and any other school assignment, I think was the fact that we did this to educate someone else. Usually these projects are to be handed in to the teacher who evaluates them, but this time we actually taught someone. I think the project is relevant to both our international English course and the Alaskan history class, seeing as we interact with international English speakers and they get an insight to our view on WW2.

Whether or not Norwegian students know more about WW2, I don’t know. From what the Alaskan students answered on our questions, it seems they know a fair bit about it. However, since Norway geographically was so much closer to the center of the war, it’s unheard of for anyone to not know the history.

The collaboration did exceed the topic of WW2. What I have come to realize is that very few people outside of Scandinavia are familiar with Norway, our politics and customs. Norway is a great country to live in, and we Norwegians are very proud of that. I feel I have a good grasp of how it is to live in America, but it doesn’t seem to be mutual regarding how the Alaskans perceive Norway.