This month’s topic comes to us courtesy of David Potter (@iearnusa) in California.
Eating Frogs for Global Classrooms
Last week’s Global Education Conference generated a boatload of future #globalclassroom chat topics! The sessions were remarkable: inspiring, thought-provoking, entertaining, spontaneous, classroom-friendly, and inclusive of all time zones, ages, and viewpoints.
Throughout the week, I kept thinking, why aren’t thousands of classrooms worldwide joining these totally awesome free, anytime, anywhere sessions this week? And, more to the point, why aren’t millions of teachers and students collaborating with partners worldwide every day? As @ktvee put it during #ntchat:
Perhaps not that easy for most educators yet, but after this December’s #globalclassroom chat, maybe easier!
The chat topic title comes from a nifty Global Education Conference keynote by the awesome social meda maven Beth Kanter. While discussing procrastination, Beth asked us to “eat that frog,” as explained by author Brian Tracy:
An old saying is that “If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long!” Your “FROG” is the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it now! It is also the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment.
Click on the photo to take you to the youtube video “Eat that Frog” based on a quote by Brian Tracy and uploaded by simpletruthstv … if it’s the WORST thing you do all day … things are looking UP!
To further explore this idea this month’s #globalclassroom chat topic is:
How can we help our peers eat their frogs so they can connect their classrooms globally?
Some of the specific questions we will be exploring include:
- If you have a global classroom, what frog did you need to eat before you went global? A mentor? Administrative encouragement? More flexible curricula? Parental support? Personal motivation? Travel abroad? Host foreign exchange students and teachers? Better bandwidth? Professional development? Freedom to use social media? Classroom time flexibility? Community involvement?
- If you would like to go global, what frog do you feel you need help eating?
- What can frog-eating teachers with global classrooms do to help their peers eat their respective frogs?
- Bonus: eating frogs for global classrooms can be messy. How do we best “learn to learn from each other, not just about each other?”
Please join us for our December chat. The sharing and learning that comes from these discussions enriches our practice and the learning experiences of our students! Check below for the time that best fits with your zone:
The #globalclassroom chats run monthly, starting on the second(-ish!) Saturday of the month.
We normally run three chats at three different time-zones, but will be transitioning to a new schedule in January 2013. From 2013, we will be running 3 chats over the weekend. More details soon.
Chat 1
Saturday, December 8, 17:00 – 18:00 UTC – N America, S America, Europe, Africa
- New York: midday (12:00), London: 5pm (17:00), Cape Town: 7pm (19:00), Bucharest: 7pm (19:00)
- Or click here to find out when this chat runs in your timezone.
Chat 2
Sunday, December 9, 09:00 – 10:00 UTC – Europe, Asia, Australia
- London: 9am (09:00), Singapore: 5pm (17:00), Perth: 5pm (17:00), Tokyo: 6pm (18:00), Sydney: 8pm (20:00), Aukland: 10pm (22:00)
- Or click here to find out when this chat runs in your timezone.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Chat times are displayed in UTC+0/GMT+0 (Greenwich Mean Time – No Daylight Saving)
To convert the UTC/GMT time to YOUR time-zone, please click on the event description, and copy the event to your personal calendar. Or you may calculate the chat time for your area with the World Time Zone converter.
December 3, 2012 at 1:28 AM
Thanks for posting, Laurie!
Hope we can give teachers a leg up on connecting their classrooms.
December 3, 2012 at 2:07 AM
Dave, I love EVERYTHING about this post! I think it is going to be a very LIVELY conversation this month and I can’t wait to see where it takes us! I agree with you … the power of globally connecting our classrooms is UNbelievable. I couldn’t imagine NOT being connected now that I’ve experienced it! Bon appetit!
Pingback: Eat That Frog! at the December #GlobalClassroom Chat | Connect All Schools | Scoop.it
December 4, 2012 at 5:05 AM
Reblogged this on iEARN-USA and commented:
We invite the iEARN community to join the chat this weekend and share their stories of connecting their classrooms globally.
December 9, 2012 at 9:06 AM
Reblogged this on all about learning… and commented:
“If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long!”
December 9, 2012 at 9:16 AM
We only had to see ‘Eat that Frog’ to know that you’d be our type of people. #globalclassroom is such a great idea and essential for building communities beyond the four walls that we teach in, which is why we are so keen to get our schools blogging. Great! BTW if anyone is in any doubt about the importance of Brain Tracey’s book – hop over to our blog (no pun intended!) where we wrote a little piece about it. Ribbit, ribbit
December 10, 2012 at 4:24 AM
Thanks for joining in! You certainly made our day
I couldn’t find a link to your blog post, so feel free to share in the comments.
Cheers,
Michael
December 10, 2012 at 11:48 AM
We had a great time taking part. Our procrastination blog can be found at http://lovetoreadtomyclass.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/back-to-school-saving-time-and-getting-things-done/. Thanks for getting back to us – off now to eat a big warty frog!
The Primary English Team
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