Nancy von Wahlde from the American School of Madrid and I have been trying to collaborate on a project for a while now. We finally settled on connecting two of our first grade classes (Allison W. & Meghan M.)
We started looking at each others curriculum maps for the next few months and paid attention to [...]

Around the World with 80 Schools is making waves around the world.
Check out some of the sites that have blogged about the project. Thank you bloggers for spreading the word!

Bulgaria

Teacher Blog

Israel

Israel Teacher Ning

Portugal

Around the world with 80 Schools :: ZarcoEnglish

England

Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:: Around the World with 80 Schools Project

USA

School ‘langwitch’ teacher to [...]

In the process of Skype becoming more and more popular in schools and  teachers are becoming more comfortable in using it with their students. there seems to be something else emerging:
Rituals
Two of the Around the World with 80 Schools participants have let me know of a ritual  that they are observing at the start of [...]

All of our teachers at my elementary school maintain their own classroom blog.  As I wrote about in Blogs vs. Static Website and Changes in Classroom Blogs, we still have a long way to go as we need to move forward from merely a one sided communication tool to an online learning space that encourages, [...]

Third Grade studied endangered and threatened animals of Florida in their science curriculum. TechConnect, together with the classroom teachers planned to take this unit to the 21st century and have students, not only research facts, but become experts in their assigned animals and make a difference by share their knowledge with others. They were to [...]

At the beginning of 2008, I started a collaborative VoiceThread project “What Could It Mean?”Almost 1700 views and over 350 comments later, I have added two more images from Perú and I am inviting you and your students to add their comments on (from their perspective) what it could mean?
It is a perfect opportunity to [...]

So, while I was listening/watching Kim and Jen’ presentation  Connecting Classrooms Across Continents: Planning and Implementing Globally Collaborative Projects and taking notes, my thoughts were with our current collaboration project with Argentina.
We started out with a shared Google Document (screenshot below) to create a time line of shared activities as well school specific tasks [...]

Connecting Classrooms Across Continents: Planning and Implementing Globally Collaborative Projects
Kim Cofino and Jen Wagner
Here is the teaser of the presentation

While listening to the Kim and Jen’s presentation, I took the following notes

Getting started

You need a technology toolbox- become familiar with different types of tools
Get connected yourself- then your class- use existing network

Implementation

Create your [...]

Have you ever had this “real” feeling that something you did had an impact on someone else? That is what we as teachers and parents live for. Right?
Well,thanks to Melanie Holtsman and her team of teachers at Chet’s Creek Elementary school, I got goosebumps, when I received the link to the following VoiceThread.

It gave me [...]

We all know that collaboration and communication are 21st century skills. We all want to incorporate these skills. What pushes us? What holds us back? What works? What seems to stall?
At the beginning of this year (January 2008), I wrote a blog post titled Collaboration Projects- Doomed to fail? that drew many comments.  I was [...]