Meeting Replays, Facebook Group, New Groups

Just wanted to bring your attention to new things here in the GEC.... First, you can view our online meeting replays here: http://fm.ea-tel.eu/fm/af1f33-15821 http://fm.ea-tel.eu/fm/0bfe31-15822 Secondly, I've started a new group for people interested in being mentored or serving as mentors with global projects. New groups are also available for people interested in or using the IB curriculum and for people working with higher ed populations. Feel free to jump into any of these new sub-groups! And finally, in order to get the word out, I've started a Facebook group for the GEC. This space will remain our primary mode of communication, but I thought a Facebook group might help us get more members. You can join this group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=41752449113 if you are a Facebook member. I'd love to have people join me in moderating the FB group; shoot me a message if you'd like to be added as an administrator. That's all for now... thanks to EVERYONE who has joined us for our online meetings. You can see some of these people who are now featured members!

Hi Lucy, Thanks for arranging for the Flashmeetings. It always amazes me when I see how easy it is for people from several places to join in conversation from so many places. One of the points mentioned in the first recording (I didn't have success linking to the second recording..) was that there is an interest in increasing involvement of educators in global projects. I have tried out some global projects over the past few years and have some strategies that have helped me. The first is that I take very small steps and keep the project small. One of my first projects I entitled "Smile Across North America." I asked teachers across North America to send one photo of their class smiling. Simple enough? This photo was shared with all of the other classes involved in the project so all of us had a wonderful collection of images from around North America that we added to the wall map. Although this sounds like an easy task, it took several emails to find teachers interested in the project and some coaching once they agreed to the project. Some teachers had not used a digital camera before and others had not attached a file to an email. When the project was complete, it was great for our students to see classes from around our continent.

The second project that I coordinated was 'The Circle Song Project.' I invited teachers around the globe to sing The Circle Song and videotape it to share on a website that I created. This project was one that I had a special interest in since it was in dedication to a late mentor so the hundreds of hours that went into the project outside of the school day did not really seem like work to me. To find teachers willing to practice, sing and record the song, I contacted hundreds of teachers individually by email. Oftentimes they were teachers who were in the epals program, which had proved to be a wonderful resource for global connections. Once the teacher agreed to the project, it took several coaching emails to help them with the technology end of things. Some teachers who initially agreed, were not able to follow through to complete the project for many reasons. Fortunately other teachers made incredible efforts to complete their part of the project. Longterm friendships grew from the hours of work that we did together. I think if passion drives the project, it is almost certain that it will be successful.
This school year I have been involved once again with the Ocean Challenge program. Skipper Rich Wilson, a former math teacher, is sailing around the world in the Vendee Globe. (He's the only US competitor in the race that began with 30 sailors...now there are 15.) As he sails, he is connecting with classrooms through the Newspapers in Education program, his sitesALIVE! program, and through the Thinkfinity Portal http://ehrweb01.aaas.org/sail/ Since I have followed Rich through 3 successful voyages, beginning in 2001, I am volunteering my efforts to encourage other teachers to come on board. If someone has never been involved in a project before, this might be a good place to start since it is happening right now, and will be going on for the next 50 days or so. The simplest way to follow the project is to follow Rich in Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Rich_Wilson to get updates and to use the racetracker on the Vendee Globe site http://tracking.vendeeglobe.org/en/ to check his progress. That's it! If you check in on those two sites every couple of days (or better yet, have a student check in on the links) to see Rich's progress, I hope that you'll enjoy and be as inspired by this pioneer in technology integration as I have. Thanks!

Replies

mick conlan March 23, 2009 at 11:17pm

Hi Ihave just joined the site and want to become involved in all kinds of interschool collaborations what about the mentor program, Im sure I need one.
mick conlan
brauer college
Warrnambool Victoria
Australia
N. Miguel Seabra January 4, 2009 at 11:50am

Hi Lucy,

The second chat link isn't working... It gives the error: "Error: no meeting bookings match this url. Please correct and retry." :-(
Congrats again and keep in touch
Hugs
NMS
- Co-Chair
  
  Lucy Gray > N. Miguel Seabra January 4, 2009 at 12:07pm
  
  Oops, here it is:
  
  http://fm.ea-tel.eu/fm/0bfe31-15822
  - N. Miguel Seabra > Lucy Gray January 4, 2009 at 1:26pm
    
    ;-D Thanks!
    c u soon
    NMS
Lorraine January 3, 2009 at 5:31pm

Hi Lucy, Thanks for arranging for the Flashmeetings. It always amazes me when I see how easy it is for people from several places to join in conversation from so many places. One of the points mentioned in the first recording (I didn't have success linking to the second recording..) was that there is an interest in increasing involvement of educators in global projects. I have tried out some global projects over the past few years and have some strategies that have helped me. The first is that I take very small steps and keep the project small. One of my first projects I entitled "Smile Across North America." I asked teachers across North America to send one photo of their class smiling. Simple enough? This photo was shared with all of the other classes involved in the project so all of us had a wonderful collection of images from around North America that we added to the wall map. Although this sounds like an easy task, it took several emails to find teachers interested in the project and some coaching once they agreed to the project. Some teachers had not used a digital camera before and others had not attached a file to an email. When the project was complete, it was great for our students to see classes from around our continent.

The second project that I coordinated was 'The Circle Song Project.' I invited teachers around the globe to sing The Circle Song and videotape it to share on a website that I created. This project was one that I had a special interest in since it was in dedication to a late mentor so the hundreds of hours that went into the project outside of the school day did not really seem like work to me. To find teachers willing to practice, sing and record the song, I contacted hundreds of teachers individually by email. Oftentimes they were teachers who were in the epals program, which had proved to be a wonderful resource for global connections. Once the teacher agreed to the project, it took several coaching emails to help them with the technology end of things. Some teachers who initially agreed, were not able to follow through to complete the project for many reasons. Fortunately other teachers made incredible efforts to complete their part of the project. Longterm friendships grew from the hours of work that we did together. I think if passion drives the project, it is almost certain that it will be successful.
This school year I have been involved once again with the Ocean Challenge program. Skipper Rich Wilson, a former math teacher, is sailing around the world in the Vendee Globe. (He's the only US competitor in the race that began with 30 sailors...now there are 15.) As he sails, he is connecting with classrooms through the Newspapers in Education program, his sitesALIVE! program, and through the Thinkfinity Portal http://ehrweb01.aaas.org/sail/ Since I have followed Rich through 3 successful voyages, beginning in 2001, I am volunteering my efforts to encourage other teachers to come on board. If someone has never been involved in a project before, this might be a good place to start since it is happening right now, and will be going on for the next 50 days or so. The simplest way to follow the project is to follow Rich in Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Rich_Wilson to get updates and to use the racetracker on the Vendee Globe site http://tracking.vendeeglobe.org/en/ to check his progress. That's it! If you check in on those two sites every couple of days (or better yet, have a student check in on the links) to see Rich's progress, I hope that you'll enjoy and be as inspired by this pioneer in technology integration as I have. Thanks!

This reply was deleted.