Connecting Globally from a Remote School – Travelling Rhino Project

For the past fortnight we have been hosts of Lesedi, one of five travelling Rhinos sent round the world by Karen Stadler, who I have neer met, but connected with through email and twitter. Hawea Flat is a small rural school in the South Island of New Zealand and the closest Rhino to us is in a Zoo 5 hours drive away. We knew what a Rhino was and we knew who a poacher was, however we had no comprehension of how the two fitted together and what the devastating consequence of their connection was.

When Lesedi arrived in the mail we had to begin at the beginning. We read books, watched YouTube clips and researched on line. Quickly made connections to the horrific truth and the selfish reasons behind the problem. I have never seen a group of children become enraged so quickly over an issue.

So I simply asked “What can we do about it? We are to far away!” and showed them the distance between South Africa and Hawea Flat on Google Earth.

That is where the kids took over. They showed me that the skills that we have learned in class – ways to solve a problem and find a solution – were important and that when needed the kids could call upon them. In groups they thought of raising money, but then realized that money was not the problem, people were the problem and that not enough people knew about the issue (Kids came up with this – not me).

So, again I said “Ok, it is a people problem. We cant fix that!”

Then the class was off again…

“We can make a petition.”
“Put it on a Google Form.”
“Tweet it on our class Twitter and Mr Dyers Twitter.”
“Email it to all the parents.”
“Get them to like it on face book.”
“We can tell the parents at assembly too!”

…and like that the project made an impact on my class and our community. We blogged, tweeted and emailed. Posters and placards were made. Then, we received emails from the local paper asking for interviews. The class and myself have been stopped in the street and told that what we are doing is awesome.

If you have not added you name to this petition then click here to get to the form.

Through my classes participation in Karen’s Travelling Rhino Project we have learned firstly about the plight of the Rhino and raised the awareness of it to our community, but secondly that through projects such as this classrooms no longer need to have walls.

The Global Classroom is a reality and achievable for any educator and all you need is a concept or cause and a PLN to connect you with the world. You can collaborate on a blog, email, Skype, trade letters or tweet with another class, as the technology we have at our classrooms removes the barriers of distance, borders, language and timezone. This project only lasted two weeks, but it changed the way that I look at education and changed the way my class looks at the world.

Connecting & Collaborating in Early Childhood (May #globalclassroom Chat)

To celebrate the publication of our first Global Classroom Project feature article, in the K-3 Class Ideas magazine here in Australia, this month’s #globalclassroom chat is dedicated to exploring the possibilities for global connections and collaboration in Early Childhood (K-3). (You can read the article here.)

Guiding Questions

We are lucky enough to have some amazing early childhood educators in the #globalclassroom community, and its time to give their stories and experiences centre stage. If you know of an early childhood educator, please let them know about these chats! We’d always enjoy meeting new faces!

• What online communities and projects do early childhood teachers find useful for connecting and collaborating globally?

• How do we ensure that our students have the skills and understanding necessary to participate in a global collaboration project?

• What strategies and tools can we use to support very young children’s participation in global projects?

• Can you share your stories and advice for K-3 teachers interested in exploring the possibilities of global connections?

• What options are there for K-3 classrooms without reliable Internet connections to get involved in global projects?

Chat Schedule & Times

Chat 1 ~ Saturday, May 11th, 10:00 – 11:00 UTC

• 11:00 London, 12:00 (noon) Cape Town, 15:30 New Delhi, 18:00 Perth, 20:00 Sydney, 22:00 Auckland
• Click here to find out when this is in YOUR timezone.

Chat 2 ~ Saturday, May 11th, 18:00 – 19:00 UTC

• 11:00 Los Angeles, 14:00 New York, 19:00 London, 20:00 Cape Town, 06:00 SUNDAY – Auckland
• Click here to find out when this is in YOUR timezone.

Chat 3 ~ Sunday, May 12th, 01:00 – 02:00 UTC (Saturday in N & S America!)

• Saturday night – 18:00 Los Angeles, 21:00 New York
• Sunday – 06:30 New Dehli, 09:00 Perth, 11:00 Sydney, 13:00 Auckland
• Click here to find out when this is in YOUR timezone.

Visits from friends: Global Connections in South Africa

We are very privileged to have a visitor from Pennsylvania, USA at the moment. Flat Tyler is from Mrs Tina Schmidt’s class and he has come to find out about our children and our school. We are all very excited and the class teacher  has been taking photos for a slide show that the children will present to the rest of the school on Tuesday.

We have a visitor from the usa from Brenda Hallowes

These global projects are wonderful for developing literacy in a real world way. The children have to read about their friend and write about their adventures and they do so in a motivated and unstressed way. They also learn about continents, hemispheres, day and night and time zones by participating in global projects. This particular class are now going to make their own flat friends and send them out to classes around the world.

We have another Grade 2 class waiting for the arrival of a Travelling Rhino.  Through this project they will be made aware of the plight of rhinos and the scourge of poaching.

Our other two Grade 2 classes are participating in a Global Pen Pal project in Edmodo. Edmodo is a Facebook social network look alike for children. It is a closed environment but through the class teacher we are able to make connections with other classes.

We are excited about all the connections we are making and the children love to pore over our large wall map of the world and a big atlas we have in our library. Technology helps us to flatten our classroom walls and make connections whilst we learn and grow.  The technology at our school is only available in the lab where we have 17 six year old PC’s and an internet connection but it’s amazing what one can do with a little. My dream for our school is to have a laptop and a large monitor for every classroom so that teachers who catch the vision for integrating IT into their lessons can do so. One day …..

Tonight! Meeting #5 of Virtual Book Club – How do you celebrate?

I can’t believe our 5th meeting of the Virtual Book Club discussing Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis is already this Monday, March 4th at 7:30pm EST (that’s Tuesday, March 5th at 12:30am GMT)! For your time zone, click here. We will be discussing Chapters Nine and Ten – Celebrating, Designing, and Managing Global Collaborative Projects.

Add your voice to our group! Use this link (
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0
) to log onto the live session or watch this space for a posting of the recording afterwards.

I am really looking forward to sharing ideas about how to best celebrate student projects. This is a weak point of mine so I’m excited to review the ideas in Chapter Nine with teachers. And I’m already thinking about how we can celebrate the closing of Virtual Book Club at the following meeting. Ideas welcome!

Chapter Ten also has so much rich material for discussion. This chapter really walks you through how to design and manage a global project. It will be so meaningful for our network of teachers to share what they have done that works, what new ideas they got from the book and what questions they still have.

Join us and add your expert or novice voice!

You’ve Found a Global Project. Now What?

There are so many great organizations and global collaborative project options, so just jump in! Once you get your feet wet and figure out the terrain, it’s time to make global projects work for you by specifically addressing your curriculum. You’ve opened up your classroom to the world to allow your students to connect and learn with kids all over, but curriculum standards are different around the world. It is easy to make the project not only collaborative, but also individual to suit your needs.

I’ll take a project my class finished recently to demonstrate how to tailor a project to fit your own needs. Using Data to Understand the World was a collaborative project between Illinois, Alaska, Taiwan, Canada, Costa Rica, Ireland, and Australia.  It spanned grades 3-6. On the surface, it was a project to compare geography throughout the world by tracking data (temperature, precipitation and sunlight), and then discussing topics (animals, plants, and land forms). Each participating teacher agreed to provide the data and to participate in a conversation between classes. I could have left it there, but I used the project as a backbone to integrate my 5^th grade curriculum.

In our district, the 5^th grade curriculum includes:

1. Ecosystems (Science)
2. Compare and Contrast writing (Language Arts)
3. Informational writing (Language Arts)
4. Data and graphing (math)

5. Culture (Social Studies)

So to address those things, I included these aspects:

1.  Ecosystems: I used my science text-book as we worked. Then I assigned deeper investigative research on the relationship between sunlight, location to the equator, hemispheres, and the ecosystem.
2. Compare and Contrast writing: Students chose two countries to compare and contrast animals and discussed how geographical location effected animal population.
3. Informational writing: Students chose a country’s plant posting and wrote an informational piece after researching.
4. Data and graphing: We used the data from around the world each month to graph and chart. We learned about mean, median, mode while comparing the counties and relating that to distance from the equator. I used my math book to teach these lessons while we worked.
5. Culture: throughout the project, we discussed culture as we Skyped, discussed, interacted with kids and teachers.

 

In addition, we used edmodo.com as a place for students to interact directly. I taught digital and global citizenship, collaboration, and technology while we worked online.  Schools participated on different levels and to different degrees, so I used that to frame my collaborative connections.

I chose Using Data to Understand the World in this example, but this can be done with any global project. So far this  year, we have worked with iEARN and Flat Classroom, and through kidblog.org. This individualization can be done with any project, so start small. Also, take advantage of the other teachers out there. Educators that are online in global projects are  there to mentor and help as well. There is an amazing network of teachers online that welcome questions with open arms, so don’t be shy! Professional generosity is abundant. Jump in!

Here are some great places to start:

The Global Classroom

iEARN

Flat Classroom

 

Meeting #4 of Virtual Book Club – Add Your Voice!

Looking forward to our fourth meeting of the Virtual Book Club discussing Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis Monday, February 18th at 7:30pm EST (that’s Tuesday, February 19th at 12:30am GMT). For your time zone, click here. We will be discussing Chapters Seven and Eight.

Add your voice to our group! Use this link (
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0
) to log onto the live session or watch this space for a posting of the recording afterwards.

We have had some powerful conversations so far about digital citizenship (see The Making of Digital Citizens), building and maintaining a Personal Learning Network (see Launching into a River of Information), and starting and joining global project (see The Virtual Book Club Has Launched).

This is a community of teachers sharing with teachers: reflecting, listening, sharing, questioning. Join us!

Handshake

I am new to the Global Classroom Project but have found the content and ideas fascinating. I am hoping to invest some of our limited library time to pursue some of the activities. After looking through some of the “handshakes” that others have posted, I showed them to a group of fourth graders. A group of kids that can be easily distracted was fascinated by the descriptions of the other classrooms. When I had them brainstorm ideas of what WE would tell others about us, they were quite creative. They were also still engaged the next week when I had them write descriptive sentences about the things they want to tell others about them. Hang on, out there. We’ll get those handshakes posted yet!

The Making of Digital Citizens

What a rich discussion we had during Session #3 of the Virtual Book Club! If you weren’t able to join us, listen to the recording here: Virtual Book Club Feb 4th/5th and please share your thoughts on this blog: Virtual Book Club. We have been reading and discussing Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis  and our focus this time was Chapter Five (Digital Citizenship) and Chapter Six (Contributing and Collaborating).

We confessed, bragged, questioned, shared tips and traded resources on the topic of Digital Citizenship. It seems there is always more to consider from using images in our presentations to setting our privacy settings but we all agreed that we need to model strong digital citizenship for our students and explicitly teach them how to be a thoughtful contributor in the digital world.

• Connie shared “Just as we model and teach ways to effectively present and collaborate in face to face groups, digital citizenship is just another layer.“
• Joseph agreed and asked, “Students need to understand that there are differences in communicating on facebook, twitter with friends versus using this type of media in school…but how to teach?“
• Elena commented, “It[digital communications] also provides an opportunity to evaluate how we interact with each other face to face. Sometimes in the middle school environment, speaking to others with a certain tone or attitude can become the norm.“
• Amy agreed, “Not only do we need to relate to our students using technology but we need to teach them how to communicate in positive ways using technology“

Some of the great resources that were shared to help with teaching digital citizenship were:

• For images: Creative Commons, Pic4Learning, MorgueFile
• For music: Royalty Free Music, Free Play Music, Sound Bible
• For teaching about Digital Citizenship: Common Sense Media, Digital ID, Read. Write. Think.

Some tips given about getting students to care about digital citizenship:

• Use real-life examples (read Chris’ story here) and facts (thanks to Laurel for sharing that 70% of employers look at digital footprints)
• Have students create Digital Citizenship materials (Digiteen and Digital ID are examples)
• Provide an authentic audience (when students see that others are actually reading/listening/watching their work, they care more)
• Make it easy for students – provide them with music and images that they can use
• Model by adding the URL for photos within classroom presentations
• Use your librarians! They often have lessons ready to go on this topic
• Start with a private wiki or an Edmodo class where you can monitor and give feedback to students before collaborating with another classroom.
• As Rocky has done, actually contact authors and artists to request permission to use their materials. (Read more about what Rocky has done here)

We wrapped up by sharing a bit of advice about getting started with global projects and we all got really excited about trying Mystery Skype. And, as usual, the time flew by. I never knew an hour could pass so quickly!

A huge thank you to Vicki Davis for joining us in between prom planning and Flat Certified teacher training. Your professional generosity is unending. Another thank you to Jim for picking up as co-moderator. It is so helpful to know someone else is listening, reading, typing and talking as fast as I am! And a thank you to all the busy educators who took time out to share, question, and connect.

I’m looking forward to our next meeting on Monday, February 18th at 7:30pm EST (that’s Tuesday, February 19th at 3:30am GMT). For your time zone, click here. We will be discussing Chapters Six (Choice) and Seven (Creation).

Join the conversation! Virtual Book Club – Session #3 starting soon!

Our next meeting of the Virtual Book Club, discussing Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, will be Monday, February 4th at 7:30pm EST (that’s Tuesday, February 5th at 3:30am GMT). For your time zone, click here. We will be discussing Chapters Five and Six.

Join the conversation! Use this link (
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0
) to log onto the live session or watch this space for a posting of the recording afterwards.

KNOCK Those Classroom Walls DOWN!

WAIT a minute … before you take that TOO seriously, PLEASE continue reading. Put that sledge hammer down … we’re not talking demolition … we’re talking global connections! That’s right … you can’t BUILD global connections without FLATTENING those CLASSROOM walls!

There is something SO empowering when students feel personally invested in their learning journey!

This month, our #globalclassroom chat will focus on the POWER of blogging with your students. We are SO fortunate to be teaching in an age when the SKY is the LIMIT with technology. Skype has become a staple in MANY classrooms. No longer are BOOKS our sole way of learning about the world … and, while relying on Google to enrich our inquiries is STILL important, we are NOW able to connect in REAL time with others around the world. This ability to connect synchronously and asynchronously, collaborating with other classes on the other side of the WORLD, has changed our learning FOREVER. We are NO longer just learning ABOUT the world. We are in an age where we are learning WITH the world.

Writing for authentic reasons creates MAGIC moments when your students chant “We should BLOG about this!”

Some things to think about PRIOR to our February chat:

• Why is blogging a valuable tool for connecting and sharing global inquiries with a global audience?
• What skills can students develop by sharing their learning with a global audience?
• If you don’t have access to an NGO, (Non-Government Organization), where do you find collaboration opportunities? How can you find projects to join?
• How can you create you OWN inquiry to share?
• How do you fit it into EVERYTHING else you need to accomplish in a day?
• How do you come up with “post” ideas for your blog?
• What are some resources you use? Books? Sources of inspiration?
• How do you address digital citizenship? Global citizenship? Online safety?
• How do you attract readers to your classroom blog?

If you are interested in learning more about flattening YOUR walls and creating a global classroom for your students, you should DEFINITELY check out the Global Classroom Wiki and the Global Classroom Blog! This learning community is ALL about sharing and mentoring, and there are projects already on the go to help you get your feet wet or to continue to enrich you and your students’ learning journeys! TRUST me … once you START blogging with you students, connecting and learning WITH the world and no longer just ABOUT the world, you will NEVER look back!

After you’re done checking out THOSE awesome resources, mark the February #globalclassroom chat on your CALENDAR! See the times below … we’re looking forward to CONNECTING with you!

Chat 1 – Saturday – February 9th (10:00 GMT)

• 10AM London, 3.30PM New Delhi, 6PM Perth, 9PM Sydney (AEDT), 11PM Auckland
• Click here to find out when this is in YOUR timezone. 

Chat 2 – Saturday – February 9th (19:00 GMT) 

• 11AM Los Angeles, 2PM New York, 7PM London, 9PM Cape Town,
• 8AM SUNDAY – Auckland
• Click here to find out when this is in YOUR timezone.

Chat 3 – Saturday – February 9th / Sunday – February 10th (02:00 GMT) 

• Saturday night – 6PM Los Angeles, 9PM New York
• Sunday – 7.30AM New Dehli, 10AM Perth, 1PM Sydney, 3PM Auckland
• Click here to find out when this is in YOUR timezone

Launching The Global Classroom Mentors Project

After several months in the making, it’s time to formally launch the new Global Classroom Mentors project, fulfilling a key goal of Global Classroom 2012-13. 

We know what it’s like to get started with ICT and global projects … It can be a very difficult, challenging road; yet almost all of us have been informally mentored along the way.

Connecting and working with an experienced mentor makes a HUGE difference, and this is something we are hoping to share more widely through our new Mentor Teacher Contact Directory; helping teachers new to ICT and global projects find a source of support and guidance as they embark on their global journeys.

The directory, which can be accessed via our project wiki, is designed to help teachers find a mentor who works in a similar grade level and time-zone. You can connect with a mentor through email, Skype, Twitter; and request advice or assistance in areas where you need support. It could be a one-off contact, or the start of a long-term relationship – it depends on your learning needs and preferences.

We are also delighted to announce the addition of an online mentoring community group, run by Keith Tompkins from @Groups4Schools, which you can join here.

Do you have skills, or need support in these areas? 

Global Connections & Collaboration 

• Designing Global Projects
• Digital Handshakes
• Project Management Tools
• Personal Learning Networks
• Digital Citizenship
• Project Celebration

ICT Skills

• Use of ICT in Early Childhood
• Multimedia (Video, Audio projects)
• Skype / Video-Conferencing
• Blogging
• Wikis
• Edmodo

Can you help? 

If you’d like to become a Mentor, please register your interest here. All you need is a little experience, and a willingness to share.

We’d really appreciate it if you’d help spread the word through your social networks, and you are most welcome to add our Mentor’s Badge (above) to your blog / website. Please include a link to this post, or the permanent Global Classroom Mentors page. Thank you!

Do you need some advice or support to get started with global collaboration?

We’re here to help1 You can join the @Groups4Schools community, and access our Mentors Directory via our Global Classroom 2012-13 wiki – following the instructions here. (You will need to join the wiki to access!).  You can contact a potential mentor via email, Skype, or Twitter, and go from there.

If you have any questions, please send us an email at globalclassroomorganisers AT gmail.com.

New Project: On The Same Day in March

Marilyn Singer wrote a children’s book “On The Same Day In March” that describes the weather and climate for countries around the world. I would like to give elementary classrooms an opportunity to compare the climate and weather in your area with others around the world. You can also add pictures and tell a little about your area.

Join us for a project based upon the book: On the Same Day in March by Marilyn Singer. Classrooms will compare weather with each other. This can be as simple as adding data to the page and writing about YOUR school or you can go a step further and pick out other activities to do.   Are you interested in joining the project?

The project is located at:
http://samedayinmarch2013.wikispaces.com
, and you can contact me on Twitter – @chrisgrnbc.

Edmodo Pen Pal Project – Round 2

Edmodo is an excellent platform for creating connections between classrooms in different parts of the world.  In the past, I’ve always had “snail mail” pen pals for my 3rd grade students, but once I found Edmodo, I realized it was the perfect place for online pen pals.  So last year I created the Edmodo Pen Pal Project for the Global Classroom Project.

How Does It Work?  Classrooms are grouped into age appropriate clusters of 4/5.  The teachers of those students will create an Edmodo group for that cluster and take turns providing discussion topics for the children.  Sample topics might include favorite foods, holidays, school subjects, free time activities, sports, etc.  Upper grades might discuss current events or topics for a certain historical event.  Teachers in a cluster may decide to put students into small groups for a book discussion or to collaborate on a writing project.

Join Now! The next round of the Edmodo Pen Pal Project will begin in February and run until about May.  It is appropriate for students ages 7 to 18 and will help students learn to respect and appreciate the opinions, cultures and customs of others.  To get more information and sign up visit the WIKI page.

Launching into a River of Information

We had a wonderful second session of the Virtual Book Club discussing Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis,.  Our focus this time was Chapter Three and Four which discuss ways teachers and students can connect and communicate with a global audience. If you weren’t able to join us, listen to the recording here: Virtual Book Club Jan 22nd/23rd and please share your thoughts on this blog: Virtual Book Club.

We had fun exploring different social media tools that we each use to broaden our PLNs. Some of the tools that were highlighted were: Google Reader, Flipboard, Zite, Diigo, Twitter, LiveBinders, Scoop.It, Storify and two that were new to me: Paper.li and Feedly. We all agreed that these tools helped us curate the web and share what we are learning with others. However, we also discussed the feeling that as we reach out to take a drink from these nourishing waters, we are sometimes met with a firehose blasting back at us with an overload of information!

Suggestions for dealing with this “River of Information”

• from Michael in Australia – “Follow Quality, Get Quality, Quality Beats Quantity.” That might mean only following 4-5 blogs in your Google Reader or using hashtags to search in Twitter instead of following 1,000 people. (#globalclassroom, #flatclass, #sschat, #2ndchat were all mentioned)
• from Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis – designate two times a week where you read through posts and links for 15 minutes. Think of it as a PLN workout.
• many thought that starting with Diigo was a good plan. Here two groups to follow: Flat Class Educator’s Group and EdTechTalk.
• from Sharon in Mumbai – don’t suffer from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). You can’t read everything.  It is okay.
• from Theresa in IL – sometimes you need to “Mark as Read” and move on. See above point about FOMO.

After sharing what the term “teacherpreneur” meant to us, we engaged in some thoughtful conversation about how to work with Standards, Administrators, Colleagues and Hardware limitations. There was definite collective agreement on the following:

• “teacherpreneurs” can and should embrace state or national standards for their curriculum and expertly weave these in with innovative, collaborative projects.
• reaching out to administration and colleagues is important and necessary for long-term sustainability of projects but it is hard and takes resilience
• hardware might  not be exactly what you want, but make it what you need
• connecting with other “teacherpreneurs” keeps you motivated and inspired. As Michael said:

when you are part of a community, you will surprise yourself. this is not something you need to do alone

Finally we talked about getting started with global projects. Here are some of the resources and projects mentioned. We will definitely talk more about these as the weeks go on. And remember to check out the numerous projects mentioned in the book!

• Flat Class Project
• Global Classroom Project
• Quadblogging
• Student Blogging Challenge
• 100 Word Challenge

Thank you to everyone who joined us or who has been posting on the blog. It is wonderful to hear and read the insights, doubts, mantras and beliefs of teachers who care about the work they do with students. Your students are lucky to have you!

Our next meeting with be Monday, February 4th at 7:30pm EST (that’s Tuesday, February 5th at 3:30am GMT). For your time zone, click here. We will be discussing Chapters Five and Six. Hope to “see” you there!

January #globalclassroom Chat Reflections: a HUGE Celebration of Collaboration and Community!

Photo shared by the Global Grade 3s.

#globalclassroom Vision: to uphold our new class motto: we learn WITH the world, not just ABOUT the world.

— brette lockyer (@brettelockyer) January 13, 2013

It’s hard to believe that the January #globalclassroom chats have already come and gone! The new schedule proved to be a huge success, with all three chats occurring within a 24 hour period. Although it was certainly a celebration, it was a powerful work party as well.

It was a WONDERFUL opportunity for participants to share their  highlights and SUCCESSES in a #globalclassroom as well as some of the FROGS that @iEARNUSA got us thinking about and sharing during the December “Eat that Frog” discussion. This specific “frog” chat was a highlight for MANY!

@rentonl A1: My favorite chat was about eating frogs! Overcoming the obstacles that get in the way of global activities. #globalclassroom

— Louise Morgan (@MrsMorgansClass) January 13, 2013

@rentonl My students learn as much when things don’t go as planned and that happens a lot. They roll with it now. LOVE THEM #globalclassroom

—Karen Lirenman (@KLirenman) January 13, 2013

Several fantastic suggestions were shared for future chats and have been saved in order to guide our journey going forward. Please remember that this is ALWAYS a working “document” of sorts, morphing and changing with the needs of our #globalclassroom participants. If you think of a topic that you would like to see explored you are urged to share it on the wiki or to contact @mgraffin!

@rentonlIdea for #globalclassroom – sharing literature to enhance global understanding

— brette lockyer (@brettelockyer) January 13, 2013

As I said this afternoon, would like to hear about international cross-curricular projects. #globalclassroom

— José Popoff (@JosePopoff) January 13, 2013

The #globalclassroom community is a vibrant, collaborative and generous one. People share willingly and eagerly. Even if you do NOT have a #globalclassroom, this is the place to begin discovering how EASY it is to bring the WORLD to your students, within the supportive #globalclassroom environment! After all, learning WITH the world, not just ABOUT the world, makes our learning authentic, personalized and meaningful!

@rentonl I just can’t believe how much my teaching has changed since I got connected. Lots of true friendships formed too.#globalclassroom

—Karen Lirenman (@KLirenman) January 13, 2013

Be sure to check the archives of these chats. Each contains a WEALTH of information, links and on-going projects! Thank you to EVERYONE for making this January chat a HUGE success! We COULDN’T do it WITHOUT you! We are looking forward to seeing you at the FEBRUARY #globalclassroom chats!