As we look forward to the official webinar launch of Global Classroom (2011-12) in two weeks time, we’re celebrating the creation of our project blog with a post about the origins & vision for the Global Classroom Project.
Our Beginnings
The Global Classroom was born in the minds of Deb Frazier’s (@frazierde) young students:
“Our first grade class [in Ohio, USA] was thinking about the ways people around the world meet their needs. We began to do some research, diving into books about various cultures.
While sharing new learning about India, Puju, whose family is from India, commented “My dad says that’s not really true.”
From there we knew we needed more than books.
We needed to talk with people in other cultures to really discover the many ways in which they meet their needs.”
And thus, the Global Classroom came to be … Deb published a blog post on Primary Perspective, and shared it on Twitter. A few retweets brought together 6 teachers from 5 countries, and led to the creation of an amazing global project:
“Through Twitter, we worked collaboratively to connect our classrooms using one single VoiceThread.To date, this VoiceThread has had over 1,000 views and nearly 200 comments from kids all around the world! Not too bad for a project which was developed and ran for only four weeks due to the end of the American school year!
The power kids felt in being free to question their learning gave them ownership and motivation. The questions and the voices of children gave Global Classroom authenticity.
VoiceThread and the Global Classroom Wiki made a powerful impact on kids around the globe!”
