Welcoming the World into our classroom

There are many ways that I would love to integrate technology in my classroom. We have learned about flipgrip, chat rooms, google docs, and my favorite, Skype, among other fun resources. A lesson I would like to do is one where we learn about each others cultures. Students don't always understand that we all come from different states and countries. They are curious and they want to know why some students dress differently, why the food they eat is different, why their skin color is different, or even why some students talk and sound different. I value culture so much and I want my students to do the same. I want our learning community to be to learn about where it is our families come from. 

I think it would be great to start by having a classroom culture day, where students are able to dress in custom outfits and bring in something special to share. The students can take pictures and share what they learned on a class blog on google docs. Being able to network through twitter, I would then be able to look for some teachers who live around the world and who are willing to Skype and share with us some interesting things about their culture. As a class we can come up with questions that we would like to ask the students we are skyping with. After our skype, students can reflect on what they learn in a classroom doc. Students will be able to answer questions such as, what do other cultures have in common and what what do they have that is different? This lesson would reach the redefinition level, because instead of simply researching in books that are available to us and writing an essay on paper, I would be going above some levels to help students really understand and get the idea that our culture and way of living is not the only one. Through student's reflections I would be able to see what students are adding to their previous knowledge.