Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Global Class Connect

A little less than a month ago, I participated in #GlobalEdChat.One of the questions posted to the chat was "What challenges exists to connecting your class with others across the world?". Some of the responses included permission from school/administration/parents, time zone differences, and where to find global partners. This is what sparked my interest...

As a moderator of #ILEdChat, one of our standard questions that we ask is "What can you take from this chat and DO tomorrow?". Our goal is to make the chat into something actionable and not just an ethereal discussion of the state of education. Taking that thought process, I said to myself, "Self...do something about this!"

While I cannot change the rotation of the Earth and global time zones, I did want to see what could be done about getting more people connected. I went to Google Drive and made a very simple form that people could fill out with some basic information about where they are, what they want to accomplish, and how they can be contacted. Simple form...it took less than 5 minutes to make.

It has been a month since that chat and I am so thrilled that I made that simple form. As of now we have approximately 230 educators from 16 different countries spread across 6 continents! I have made a Twitter handle for Global Class Connect (@Global_Class_1) and have been using the hash tag #GlobalClassConnect. I have even started a Google site about #GlobalClassConnect 

If you are interested in becoming a part of this global connected network, you can sign up directly here

I look forward to seeing the list continue to grow and the map get more connection points.  Please share this with your colleagues and encourage them to sign up. Let's show our students their place in a much larger world!

Global Class Connect

I want to use this post for #GlobalClassConnect users to share their successes, so please comment in the comment section!