A Teacher's Journal #6: Global Connections

After many years of saying "someday," I'm finally enrolled in an Educational Technology Master's Program. My current course requires me to keep a journal to document "connectedness" online. Below is my sixth entry. 

One of the best parts about being a connected teacher today is making connections with classrooms and teachers from around the planet. I have found a few ways to do this and feel that it has benefited my classroom greatly.

Twitter: Chats and Teachers to Follow

The first way that I started making global connections was through Twitter. A former administrator had encouraged us to make teacher professional accounts and to find Twitter chats to participate in. Using the "Education Chats" calendar made it easy to find hundreds of potential teacher chats. The Google calendar used can be sorted by topic, day of the week, and even time zone. Clicking on the links gives more details and sometimes links to question lists. Here are a couple of international examples:

• Wondering what educators in Manitoba are talking about? Check out #mbedchat on Mondays at 7pm (PST):

• What about teachers in Africa? An #AfricaEd Slow Chat continues over the course of the whole day.

• What about in Germany? #EdChatDE at 11am on Tuesdays will let you participate. No need to speak German--Twitter will help translate!

• Want to find more international teachers to follow on Twitter? Check out the embedded post below.

Playing around a bit this morning and managed to create this map of my Int'l Educators Twitter list. Check it out and find some new awesome educators to follow! #AfricaEd #internationaleducators #AISQ8 #isedcoach #bfc530 https://t.co/ARVrWS6Ahb

— Ryan Harwood (@rharwood17) June 5, 2018

GridPals

A new opportunity for teachers and students to connect across the globe is called GridPals. Using
GridPals, teachers can sign up to be matched up with another classroom or two from other places. A real teacher uses a Google form to help matchmake between classrooms. 

Once matched, teachers coordinate via email as to topics and timing. We participated this year and were matched up with an Australian teacher currently teaching at an international school in China as well as a teacher in Texas. Students shared three Flipgrid sessions getting to know each other, talking about government, and showing/telling their favorite parts of each school. It was a fantastic way to connect! The other teachers and I are planning on reconnecting with a new batch of students this fall. Here's FlipGrid's blog on GridPals with all you need to know to sign up. Teachers can also use Twitter to search for #GridPals and #FlipGridFever for more ways to connect using this fun, new tool.