The Sounding Board process is a very easy, fun and eye-opening way for younger students (upper elementary, middle, and lower high school) to participate in one of these amazing, global projects. Basically Sounding Boards act as peer reviewers for the students participating in the project. Small groups of students in the Sounding Board classrooms will review one NetGenEd student group’s work and offer very simple peer feedback.

This time around, I have to admit, the project is even more exciting because it’s part of a larger project organized by Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. Here’s his intro to the wider project:

And check out this phenomenal keynote for the project created by Peggy Sheehy and her students at Suffern Middle School:

This will be the fourth time I’ve participated in the Sounding Board experience with a group of students and every time it gets a little bit better. We are looking for as many classrooms as possible to join us in this quick and easy, but exciting project!

Usually the time commitment for teachers and students is about 2 – 4 hours depending on the age group you’re working with. For my 5th grade groups, we usually spend closer to 4 hours, when I worked with 8th grade, we took just around 3 hours. Our aim is to make it as simple and easy to participate as possible!

We are looking for Sounding Board classrooms to participate in the review process during the first two weeks of April 2009. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to have a planning session in Elluminate in late March (like we did during the November SB process – it was very helpful to get us organized and answer any lingering questions).

Update: We will have a quick organizational meeting in Elluminate (link coming soon) on Sunday, March 22 (10 am in Bangkok – check your local time here). For those who are new to the project, this is the perfect time to check in and get the basics.

If you’re interested, please join the NetGenEd wiki and add your name to the Sounding Board page! Please feel free to send any questions my way or leave them here in the comments. Looking forward to working with another amazing group of teachers and students!