To Our Dear Global Friends:
Ten years ago this November the two of us started the Global Education Conference, a fantastic, grass-roots virtual event that came out of our passions to help students, teachers, and organizations connect globally. We did something that was incredibly unique: we created a free online conference that let educators from around the world present to their peers at a convenient presentation time based on their local time zone; we let attendees see the schedule in their time zone calendar, and attend live sessions at no cost; we made the recordings available immediately after live presentations. That first year the conference ran for five days, 24 hours a day, with over 450 presentations and keynote sessions. It was a life-changing experience.
Over the past ten years, we have accumulated a combined audience of over 30,000 from 190+ countries, we’ve developed an open repository of recordings of every session presented, and we’ve maintained a global online community. Additionally, we have held other interactive online and physical events that have helped to elevate the profiles of many global education organizations.
During this time, some very thoughtful organizations have sponsored the Conference and our events, but that has never been enough funding to cover our labor and time-intensive work. As a non-profit organization, we have been committed to keeping the Conference authentic, open, and accessible with the hope that like-minded organizations would share our mission and value our work. The continuation of the Conference reached a crisis point last November when we had to cancel our flagship event because we could not raise the bare minimum to host the event.
After much deep reflection, we have decided to become a member-supported organization. Do not worry--this is voluntary support! We know that many of our members who are committed to global education face the same budget constraints that we do, so you do not have to contribute to stay a member of the conference network or attend our free events. However, for those that are in a position to help, we have created a structure for $10, $25, $50, $100, and $250 donations, with some fun ways of recognizing contributions. Please consider clicking HERE to see the member-contribution information page that also allows one to contribute immediately.
We have also set up a structure for very-reasonable non-profit or non-commercial “partner” commitments. If your organization is open to helping in this way, or you represent a commercial organization wanting to help, please email steve@learningrevolution.com.
Also, we are reconfiguring our next set of events including a series of day-long mini-conferences. Here is what is coming!
- Global Education Day at #ISTE 19 - Philadelphia, PA - June 23, 2019
- Global Project-Based Learning Online Mini-Conference - August 1, 2019
- Global Collaboration Week - Online - Week of September 23, 2019
- GlobalEdCon Around the Clock Online Mini-Conference - November 19, 2019
- Student Empowerment Online Mini-Conference - February 13, 2020
We are so grateful for our global education community, and we want to find a way to have the next ten years be as exciting as the first ten have been. We hope you will consider helping us to do so!
Here's to a more globally-connected world!
Steve & Lucy
Steve Hargadon
steve@learningrevolution.com
www.stevehargadon.com
Lucy Gray
lucy@lucygrayconsulting.com
www..lucygrayconsulting.com
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