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What an exciting start to the Virtual Book Club! If you couldn’t attend live, here is the recording to the event: Virtual Book Club January 7th. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, January 22nd at 7:30pm EST (Wednesday, January 23rd at 3:00AM GMT), for your time zone, click here. Please note, this is a change from the original schedule.

We had over 30 teachers participating live from five countries and four continents and “a whole mess” of states across the United States. It was lively with a very active chat, loads of folks taking a turn at the microphone and more than a couple of technical glitches. Here are some highlights:

• A huge thanks to Theresa Allen for co-moderating with me. She kept things rolling when my computer decided to challenge me and supported new-comers with Blackboard Collaborate tips and tricks.
• Another big shout-out to Lisa Durff for setting up the Blackboard Collaborate room and checking in on us to make sure things were working, and for spreading the word about the club.
• Big virtual hugs to Michael Graffin and other Global Classroom Project teachers for jumping in and sharing ideas and inspiration about how global projects can be tackled by anyone, anywhere.
• Deep and heartfelt thinks to author Julie Lindsay for being a part of our first discussion. Your presence added depth and meaning to the conversation.
• ACPS super-teachers that reached beyond their own comfort zone to try out new technology, shared their challenges, asked their questions, and connected easily and powerfully with educators around the world
• Each educator that took time out of their busy lives to spend an hour sharing stories, connecting and lending their digital support to the concept and work of global projects. As we said last night “We might all be crazy, but this way we can be crazy together.” *smile*

Highlights of the discussion:

• Finding ways to show that all students, all ages can be empowered by and be powerful through global projects
• Being creative with the technology that is available and maximizing what you have
• Learning about successful projects that are already running and available to join
• Thoughts about how to have global project running in many grades so that students have repeated exposure to the opportunities to collaborate across classrooms
• Stages of global projects, from exchanging information between classrooms to have students co-creating with classrooms around the world
• The challenges of researching global projects, specifically what needs to be measures in education and where higher ed is vs. K12 teachers
• How global projects will continue to evolve with new technology

If you couldn’t join us, we hope you can make it next time or leave some comments on this blog!