WHAT IS “INTERNATIONAL WRITERS' WEEK”?
This event is one of the projects of the “CPAW (Computer Pals Across the World) Global Educational Network”, which began at Turramurra High School in Sydney in 1983 and has been serving teachers, students and the community for over twenty years. It exemplifies how the New South Wales Department of Education has endorsed projects to pioneer the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in teaching and learning.

When students from Turramurra High School were writing online, to their Alaskan computer pals at Alak High School in Wainwright ( on the Arctic Coast of Alaska), asking them questions about the natural environment described in the book, “Julie of the Wolves” by Jean Craighead George, to the students’ surprise the author herself was visiting Alak High School and replied to the questions “in person”!

This amazing coincidence was the beginning of the annual “CPAW International Writers’ Week”, with Ms George as its official Patron.

The project has two main aims:

•  to provide an opportunity for students to share their writing with fellow students and professional writers throughout the world;
• for students to have the opportunity to question writers about their works and craft
  
  Queanbeyan High School was asked to coordinate this year’s event with its theme:

Queanbeyan High School was asked to coordinate this year’s event with its theme: “Poetic Culturescapes”, has a particular focus on poetry, where the aim is to look at how poetry, can capture and reflect the land, the people and the culture of  countries around the world.

As a model for teaching and learning in the global classroom the project:

·        Promotes real life experiences in the classroom;

·        Provides a publishing medium;

·        Promotes parental and community involvement;

·        Impacts on the range of skills required by students;

·        Promotes collaborative learning based on real life experiences.

The major skills include:

• Effective use of Real-World Tools:

Students use real-world tools (i.e., the hardware, software, networking, and peripheral devices used by information technology workers) in real-world ways:

• Information Literacy: Encourages students to evaluate, locate, synthesize, and use information effectively, and accomplish these functions using technology.
• Multicultural Literacy: Allows students to understand and appreciate similarities and differences between the customs, values, and beliefs of their own culture and the cultures of others.
• Teleliteracy : Students have been encouraged to develop teleliteracy skills, as they question the idiomatic use of language, relating to different countries and think about the effectiveness of their own writing for a global audience.

This “showcase” will give you a glimpse of how today’s technologies can be used to promote global communication in the classroom, essential to our future while improving students’ literacy.

We hope you enjoy this sample of a few of the outcomes of this year's "International Writers' Celebration".