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Middle School Principal Jim Asher shares his value of social media in the classroom, school and district. Asher shares different ways his teachers and students are connecting with the world. My connection is with Middle School and being a tech leader in our building and district. Similar to Asher, sometimes the push has to start with one person, as I often feel that "one person" is, me!

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When I started at Burley four years ago, the school had a Twitter account for informational purposes, and few teachers had accounts. I then opened an Instagram account for the school and went "paperless" for school and administrative communications. I started a Blackboard account for faculty and staff, and began using that for weekly communications, faculty meetings, staff professional development, and more.

Over time, more teachers began using Blackboard (now it's an expectation for all of our teachers), and more of them started using various forms of social media, mainly Twitter and Instagram. To be honest, social media is becoming a fundamental part of our entire district -- from our superintendent, Dr. Pam Moran, and others at the district level, to principals, teachers, and even students.

Here are some tips and ideas for bringing social media to your school.

Social Media and PD

Twitter is a great tool for exploring a wide range of possible resources and materials for PD, or for ongoing professional growth through real-time chats.

Use Twitter as your personal learning network (PLN) where you can build relationships and share ideas and materials. Teachers participate in various scheduled chats involving conversations about general topics (21st-century learning, engagement, using social media, etc.) and content-specific exchanges (AVID, PE, math, language arts, etc.).

Twitter also offers a full spectrum of materials, resources, and "current thinking" for use and/or discussion with PD or team meetings. For instance, to start discussions on the 21st-century classroom and technology, I used "8 Things to Look for in Today's Classroom" from @Ben_Duggan and "What do you want kids to do with technology?" from @Glennr1809. When discussing authentic experiences with digital writing, I used the "Blogging with Students" graphic from @Gaggle_K12 via @langwitches. Of course, there are countless professional articles on current thinking and practices as well.

The Benefits of Social Media in the Classroom

As we at Burley have increased our social media use, teachers now recognize benefits well beyond sharing thoughts, graphics, and articles. Now we're engaging students and extending learning.

Use a classroom Twitter account to connect students with the world. They can have real-time dialogues with experts, museums, publishers, journalists, and more. I remember the excitement when a major library retweeted information about a project one class was working on. Also, in a PBL summer school program, the class promoted student work via Twitter, and students were amazed by all the responses from around the world. (One student even said, "If I'd known someone from Australia was going to see this, I would have done a better job.")

You can also use Instagram in a variety of ways. Support classroom learning by posting supplementary visuals to augment what has been covered in class. If students are too young for accounts, the parents can start an account and review and discuss the information with their children. Parents will no longer have to inquire at the dinner table, "What did you do at school today?" Instead, they can ask about the car made from recycled materials, the textile and stencil work, the hollow bullet used to hide messages during the Revolutionary War (which students replicated with a 3D printer), or the lab work on the water in the creek behind the school.

Instagram can also showcase student learning. One of my favorite uses was when a social studies teacher had students write haiku about the Colonial period in U.S. history. He then took videos of student artwork while the artists read their haiku and posted these to Instagram.

Social Media and Community

Of course, social media is a great tool for building community within the school or even within a single classroom. Students love it when we feature their work on Instagram. Here are some other ideas:

Share updates and student work to offer parents insight into what their kids are doing in the classroom.

Keep families more engaged by sharing upcoming dates and/or work to be completed.

Participate in global stories, connections, or challenges. One such venture via Twitter challenged students to construct a tower from 20 sheets of paper. (Our students built one that was 70 inches tall.)

Showcase fun special events. One of our PE teachers shared video of a drone fly-over for our Field Day (he had mowed "BMS" into the grass), and it added a lot of buzz to the event.

Further Exploration

Our students have been connected within the building, throughout our county, across the state, and around the globe with Skype or Zoom. They've toured the first bookless library in the U.S. and shared stories with students in France. They've seen artifacts during virtual museum visits, and they've asked questions of experts in every field we've studied. Our band Skyped across our county with another middle school band to critique each other's musicianship. Our ESL students have Skyped with other ESL students in other states.

As more of our teachers explore and use social media, their work is transforming the way in which they present information and engage students. For more information, of course, there are endless Twitter accounts to explore. I recommend starting with @doccarpenter. His Twitter profile states, "Teaches future teachers @Elon U. Researches social media in education." (Plus, he's an all-around great guy!)

How does your school use social media?

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Making the Case for Social Media in Schools

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When I started at Burley four years ago, the school had a Twitter account for informational purposes, and few teachers had accounts. I then opened an Instagram account for the school and went "paperless" for school and administrative communications.

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Tech savvy middle school, English teacher Jenna Smith decided to add a twist to her literature circles and had groups of students Skype and discuss a common read with students in another class, at another school. I connected with this article as I also teach middle school and run a techie classroom. I plan to work on arranging this for my students ;)

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On a scale of 1 to 10, how techie would you say you are as a teacher? Personally, I'm pretty tech-savvy. I use Google for a lot more than questions, I handle Adobe like a boss, and at this point, Siri might know more about me than any actual human being!! But, technology in my classroom? Well, let's just say that it's not nearly as advanced as I think it should be!!

Now, it's not for lack of technology! My school is super tech-immersed! We have access to lots of computers, laptops, iPads, etc. whenever we need them. We also have a great technology teacher in the building and helpful tech support throughout the district. So, why so little digital happenings in my room? Yup, you guessed it! TIME!!!! The time it takes to put together tech-dependent lessons is unreal and frankly, nonexistent!!

(Why, oh why, is TIME always such an issue? I was recently reading an article (on my iPhone!) about how "busyness" is a sickness. So true, right!? I suffer from chronic busyness. All day long, I run from one thing to the next, cram as many tasks into a minute as I can, make and make and make "To Do" lists just so I don't forget to do all.the.things! And at the end of the day, when I collapse on my couch literally as soon as my kids go to bed in the evening, do I really have all that much to show for my relentless "doing?" Ugh!)

Anyway... for the last two weeks, my classroom has been the super tech-savviest!! We have been participated in literature discussion via SKYPE!! We've teamed up with another 6th grade from a whole state away, and every few days the kids meet up for discussion about the book Maniac Magee.

So far, the kids have loved it! The first day, we had the students do a getting-to-know-you activity. After they were finished, my students were all abuzz about their conversations. The biggest revelations: the students in the other school get to go on field trips (our district does not have field trips), BUT they don't have dances (they have to wait until they are in 7th grade to attend school dances, whereas my students have a 6th grade dance once a month).

At the end of class the day of our first meeting, one of my students came up to me and said, "The kid in my group plays soccer! I play soccer, too! I never though I'd have so much in common with a kid from Pennsylvania!" (It's that the cutest!?!)

Anyway, we've had two meetings so far and are hoping for two more before the end of the year. It's really been the best experience... the kind of experience that I'd plan all the time if only I had more TIME!! (The only reason this has worked so well is because the teacher of the other class is my best friend, so we were able to coordinate it through a series of late night phone calls and text messages!)

So, how techie are you? If your classroom is not where you'd like it to be, why is that? Lack of resources? Lack of confidence? Lack of time? I'd love to hear from you!

Congrats to all those who are finished (or almost finished) your school year! We still have about three weeks to go!

To all those still at it, Happy Teaching!!

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On a scale of 1 to 10, how techie would you say you are as a teacher? Personally, I'm pretty tech-savvy. I use Google for a lot more than questions, I handle Adobe like a boss, and at this point, Siri might know more about me than any actual human being!!

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Teacher Alice Keeler set up a class Twitter account and tweeted that her students needed soil samples to test. The class asked for soil sample to be sent to them- how fun! I couldn't help but think of how I could bring this idea into a Language Arts setting. Perhaps, this is a way to connect with our community and get new/used books for our classroom library :)

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@alicekeeler We are comparing soil across Canada. Can you please ask your Canadian followers to send a #soil sample! Enough to fill a cup.

- MsKranenburgsClass (@MsKsGr3and4) September 16, 2015

An elementary class in Canada sent out a plea on Twitter to have people across Canada send them a cup of dirt. The students are going to analyze the soil samples. By having a class Twitter account you are able to connect your students... globally. Twitter is an invaluable resource when you are having your students do authentic projects. How do you find other classes to collaborate with? How do you find professionals in the field? How do you gather data from locations that are not in your community? Twitter can facilitate this.

The class Twitter account is different than your Twitter account. You use this with your students.
Go to http://Twitter.com and create a new Twitter account. Use something like @schoolGR4 or @teachernameG4. Something that shows it is a class and not a person. Have a photo of your classroom or something that is significant to your classroom. The description should say that this is a class twitter account for grade ___. Make sure you put a broad region (like California or United States or Canada) for location. Other classes will want to know what region they are interacting with.

Twitter attempts to make you follow a bunch of people and do hoop jumping when setting up an account. I recommend you skip these steps. Simply go to Twitter, setup the username and password and then skip the rest. Close Twitter.

Go back to Twitter and you have successfully skipped the setup steps. In the upper right hand corner is your profile picture (or lack there of). Choose "View profile."

On the right hand side is a button to "Edit profile." Click on this to add a class photo and description.

In addition to having a class Twitter handle, you will want a class hashtag. This will allow parents and other stakeholders to Tweet awesome things about your class on their own Twitter handle. Having the hashtag the same as the Twitter handle is a good idea. There are good reasons to make them different also. Make sure ALL tweets have the class hashtag.

Previously I wrote a blog post on how to have your STUDENTS tweet on the class Twitter account using the class hashtag. In the post I have a template that allows the students to write the tweets. The teacher is logged into the class Twitter account and clicks on the link automatically generated for each tweet the kids write. The teacher launches the tweet, but the students write the tweets. I recommend using a fresh template for each activity.

Use the class Twitter account to

Tweet class announcements. "Bring books tomorrow."

Show off student work. Tweet pictures!

Give parents a window into what their child is doing that day, tweet pictures of students actively engaged. (Blur out faces if that is a concern.)

Tweet the learning objective, let parents know what their children are learning.

Share student quotes. (Only use first names or just initials.)

Ask questions! When your students wonder something "Let's ask Twitter."
Make sure you use hashtags to aim your question at an audience.
At mention key people in the tweet who can help get the question answered.
Hint to put the at mention last in the tweet, not first.
Example:
How does Google Cardboard work? #teacherGr5 #GoogleEDU #edchat #5thchat @jrochelle

Student take aways from the lesson. "What did you learn today, let's tweet it."

Ask for data. Need information for a project? Ask for it.

News from field trips.

Project reminders.

Birthdays.

Articles to read.

Things you find online that you want to share with your students/parents.

Tests upcoming.

Create math (or other subject) challenges between classes.

Tweet to book authors. Oftentimes, they will tweet back. The ability for students to interact with the author of the book they are reading can be a big deal.

Quotable kids of funny or timely comments.

Give your students a public audience. Tweet project samples and ask for input.

Get in the habit of saying "Let's put that on Twitter." You can tweet right from your smart phone. Twitter allows you to tweet from multiple accounts. Add your class Twitter account to your Twitter app and tweet from the class account.

Your Twitter stream is what you see when you go to twitter.com. The flow of tweets. The only tweets that should be in your stream are the tweets of people you follow (and advertisements.) Have your class Twitter account follow other classes. Follow local news agencies. Follow reputable organizations such as NASA, Geological society USGS , Discovery channel. Follow book authors such as Peter Reynolds. If you choose carefully who you follow you can project the class Twitter stream. This can be a source of discussion topics and a great way to highlight the accomplishments of students in your class.

http://tinyurl.com/ListClassTwitter

If you have a class Twitter account, add the Twitter handle to the spreadsheet. Find other classes to interact with!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2015

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Why a Class Twitter Account - Teacher Tech

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@alicekeeler We are comparing soil across Canada. Can you please ask your Canadian followers to send a #soil sample! Enough to fill a cup. - MsKranenburgsClass (@MsKsGr3and4) September 16, 2015 An elementary class in Canada sent out a plea on Twitter to have people across Canada send them a cup of dirt.

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Scroll down to #6 and you will find Orono Middle School who started a Tech Wiki for students and teachers alike. The school (students) have created a space/blog where students and teachers can ask questions and find answers. I would love to see something like this on my 1:1 team, or in our building. The building could start a club, or intramural to gain interest. The best part is the teacher-student connections, as there is no differentiation between because we are all learners.

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Social media is the thing right now. It provides a way to connect people of similar (or dissimilar) interests from around the world. Social media also provides networking tools for professionals and even for job hunters. And it offers a platform for friends and family to keep up with each other.

But social media isn't just for professionals, computer geeks and families who prefer not to send email; increasingly, social media is becoming a part of the classroom. It is possible to use social media in such a way as to enhance the learning environment, and to provide an education. Here are 13 case studies that show that social media does have a place in the classroom:

1. City University of New York: Newsgathering with Social Media

It isn't surprising that social media is used in newsgathering. Indeed, it's fairly clear that many journalists are finding use in social networks when it comes to locating sources, finding supplemental information and learning about items of interest. As a result, Jeff Jarvis, a professor at the City University of New York, is teaching a class on using social media for newsgathering.

This is a graduate level class in the Graduate School of Journalism that teaches students that they can use real-time searches to find breaking news - and to find comments on that breaking news. Examples of social media search used in the class include Twitter, FriendFeed, Scoopler and SearchMerge, a service that allows you to search, in real time, a number of sites. Practical, in-class demonstrations are helping the next generation of journalists learn how to make use of all the tools at their disposal.

2. Stanford University: Showcasing Faculty and Student Work on Facebook

Many universities are interested in sharing projects with the world - not to mention educating others in the school. To that end, Stanford University is providing access to faculty and student projects on its Facebook page. Students looking for inspiration for projects can see videos, pictures and other previously done projects.

Also, gathering this information into one place makes it a little bit easier to search for news and research being done at Stanford. The university has multiple pages, making it easy to locate information on the Green Library, hospital and a number of the colleges and departments. Stanford University also offers Facebook office hours, at which time faculty is available to answer questions on Facebook.

3. Vestavia Hills High Schol in Birmingham, Alabama: Twittering Lesson Plans

Chris Copeland is all about using Twitter to help his students. He has a Twitter profile (@ccopeland), and we Twitters lesson plans and notes, as well as answers questions. He teaches language arts in Birmingham, Alabama, helping students learn more about literature and how to love it. His tweets make it easier to keep up with what's going on.

Additionally, Copeland points out that using Twitter to share lesson plans can help other teachers get good idea for their own lessons. And, it helps teachers keep things straight. It can also serve as a record of what has been happening in the classroom, which means that absent students can get an idea of what they are missing, and prepare for lessons when they return.

4. Northwestern University: "NewsMixer"

In a class with a practical application, students at the Medill School of Journalism created the " NewsMixer." The idea was to pull local, national and global news from a variety of sources. There are places for users to connect, integration with Facebook, the opportunity to write letters and share quips. It is basically a social network created by the students. The Web site is pretty much dead right now, but the practical application of creating one's own social network, right in the classroom, is definitely an inspiration.

Encouraging students to explore using technology, and use their own creativity to create their own social network, is a great, hands-on activity that can translate into the "real world," teaching technology skills, and providing valuable marketing knowledge and offering insight into how social media works.

5. Stockholm University: Streaming Seminars

Sometimes, students can't make it to seminars and other events. Broadcasting these events is a good way to help them reach a wider student audience. Stockholm University in Sweden provided a live streaming video of an environmental seminar that allowed students to watch remotely, or save and watch later. The university also used this technique for a seminar on file sharing.

It is easy to see that such a use has immense application in the classroom. It would be possible to watch presentations from other schools, and to "attend" lectures remotely. Additionally, it would be useful to students to be able to replay seminars and lectures to look for information they might have missed the first time around.

6. Orono Middle School, Long Lake, Minnesota: Tech Wiki

Orono Middle School has a great tech wiki that can be used by students and teachers alike. The tech wiki is a great place to ask questions, and find answers. It includes interactive tutorials on a number of subjects, as well as provides information for students.

Caitlin Cahill (@CCahillMN), one of the technology folks at Orono Middle School, suggested that it is possible to use Twitter in the classroom to help students learn about a certain subject. Students compete to find resources, and be the first to post to Twitter. It's like a kind of scavenger hunt, and it teaches students research skills.

7. Duke University: Mobile Web Client

If you are looking to register for classes, check email or even access class notes posted up from professors, it is possible to do so with a mobile Web client. Duke University (as well as Georgia Tech and several other schools) is making it easier to complete a number of tasks using a cell phone. Enhanced learning from anywhere can take place using social media networks and Web clients.

8. Birmingham City University, Great Britain: Degree in Social Networking

If you want to be able to teach social networking like a pro, there is now a place you can turn to. Birmingham City University is offering a year-long Master's degree in social networking. As you might imagine, course offerings include Facebook and Twitter, as well as other social networks such as Bebo. The idea is to help people learn how to use social media in a number of ways to benefit them, whether it is study skills or marketing skills.

9. Cardiff University, Wales: Tweprints

Looking for help finding peer-reviewed information for a science paper or project? Tweprints can help. Robert J. Simpson, a Ph.D. student at Cardiff University, began a project that puts twitter information about scientific papers in one place. It even includes the arXiv ID number, so it is easy to track down the papers themselves online. It is even possible to narrow your search by category (astrophysics, maths, condensed matter, etc.) This is a useful tool that students can use for a number of purposes.

10. University Laboratory High School, Illinois: Twittering Dante

Want to learn more about a great piece of literature? Steve Rayburn, a teacher at the University Laboratory High School, had his students consider Dante's Divine Comedy. Students used Twitter to post updates from Dante to Beatrice for inside each of the nine circles of Hell. Not only did it require students to read the assignments, but it also got them excited about it - and thinking about what they would post.

11. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: YouTube

You can put up your own YouTube channel, creating videos and providing ingormation. The University of North Carolina offers a number of helpful videos for students and faculty alike on its YouTube channel. Videos relating to health and medicine, business and information technology can supplement student learning, and be used as teaching aids in thse classroom.

12. Georgia Southern University: Blog for a Social Media Course

Barbara Nixon teaches a course titled " Making Connections: Facebook & Beyond," which aims to teach communication and networking skills. Not only does the course teach one how to use social media, but it teaches the value of communication with others through online assignments using Twitter and Facebook, as well as other social media Web sites. Students are required to start a blog, and Nixon herself keeps a blog on the class assignments and answers questions through here Twitter account (@barbaranixon)

13. University of Wisconsin, Madison: CoveritLive

In order to facilitate more students listening to a lecture on journalism ethics at the University of Wisconsin, Katy Culver encouraged her students to use CoveritLive. This is a social media tool that can be embedded into a blog or Web site and then used to comment on proceedings, link to appropriate content, and even ask questions. This is a great way to provide distance learning for those who may not be physically present, and offer them a way to ask questions and get answers.

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13 Enlightening Case Studies of Social Media in the Classroom

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Social media is the thing right now. It provides a way to connect people of similar (or dissimilar) interests from around the world. Social media also provides networking tools for professionals and even for job hunters. And it offers a platform for friends and family to keep up with each other.

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"By the time they get to seventh grade, "they want to do something else besides presentation. They want to actually make their own videos: downloading them, cutting them and making a presentation, so it's really neat to see."

Co-creating around the world. I have to start thinking deeper with my 1:1 pilot program. Students creating and working with students globally. I loved hearing the success stories and teacher comments from these projects that incorporated Edmodo, Skype, blogging and much more!

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Collaboration & Social Networking | Feature

Global Collaboration Projects that Go Way Beyond Skype

Here's how one program is engaging Web 2.0 skills to bridge cultures and classrooms - one project at a time.

The world is flat, author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman once declared in a bestselling book about the rise of global communications. If Julie Lindsay had anything to say about it, the classroom would also be flat.

Lindsay, an online teacher and former IT director for international schools from Queensland, Australia, is the co-founder - and now sole proprietor - of the K-12-focused global outreach organization Flat Connections (formerly known as the Flat Classroom). She helped launch the group in 2006, with the goal of harnessing the power of online learning to increase cultural understanding and global collaboration among today's students.

The concept of "flattening" the classroom walls is loosely based on the philosophy espoused in Friedman's book The World Is Flat, which posits that the development of global collaboration, new technologies and social advancements are knocking down the boundaries that once kept cultures isolated and self-contained, thereby forcing everyone to come to grips with the changing, interconnected world around them. But where Friedman's work is largely theoretical, Lindsay aimed to build something more concrete - indeed, project-based - for the students and educators who will inherit the flat world.

Lindsay explained that the aim of the flat classroom is to "bring the outside world in and you put your classroom out there. It's about the teacher taking charge of the learning, and the student taking charge of the learning - and being able to use technology to bring those rich opportunities into the classroom."

Flat Connections is not a curriculum per se, but a series of independent collaborative projects. Each project focuses on different skills and grade levels by connecting classrooms from around the world using a variety of social and collaborative platforms. The partner classrooms then co-produce projects such as videos or co-authored wiki pages. A sliding subscription fee offers access to projects based on the number of students registering. "It's based on connected learning, but you have to go beyond that," Lindsay said. "You have to develop authentic networks and authentic connections and real-world experts and other classrooms to connect with."

Connected Students, Connected Teachers
One project, called Digiteen, is designed for students in grades 8-12. Teams consisting of students in two or more classrooms around the world introduce themselves via Edmodo and Skype and then, together, explore different aspects of digital citizenship, eventually co-creating a Wikispaces page on a given theme. Individual schools then work on an action project that students can share with their peers at school, across the street or around the world. Other Flat Connections projects focus on bringing students together for debates or to foster cultural awareness among young learners through the creation and use of multimedia.

"The goal is that schools offer a global collaborative opportunity at every grade level," Lindsay said, adding that teachers often interpret that advice to mean they have to be doing global collaboration projects all the time. "No, you don't," she clarified. "It's hard work. You cannot do it all the time, but it's important that every student at every grade level needs at least one experience."

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Global Collaboration Projects that Go Way Beyond Skype -- THE Journal

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Collaboration & Social Networking | Feature Here's how one program is engaging Web 2.0 skills to bridge cultures and classrooms - one project at a time. The world is flat, author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman once declared in a bestselling book about the rise of global communications.

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Microsoft Innovator and teacher Pernille Ripp shares her experience with bringing Skype into the classroom. Ripp works hard to personalize learning experiences for her students. I enjoyed how she pairs her middle school students with younger elementary learners for writing projects. She also Skyped with a Canadian Iraqi refugee! What a powerful experience and way to bring in global view points to the Language Arts classroom. I'm in!

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Some kids grow up just knowing they'll be teachers one day. For MIE Expert and Skype Master Teacher Pernille Ripp, that wasn't quite the case. She never expected to become a teacher, let alone the established global collaborator she is today. After dropping out of college at 18 for lack of inspiration, she was 22 before re-enrolling with that direction in mind.

Pernille recalls: "It wasn't until I met the man, who is now my husband, said, 'Well, what are you going to do with your life?' that I realized that the one thing I had always told my mother I never wanted to do - because she was a teacher - was the only thing that I did want to do."

Now, nine years into her career as a middle school English teacher in Wisconsin, she admits it's not just that watershed moment she owes to her husband. On one particularly hard teaching day, he gave her the piece of advice she says still guides her today.

" You can't change the kids, but you can change the way you teach."

From that point on, Pernille has been building a classroom experience that her "middle-school-self would want to be part of," she says. Her most notable addition has been a focus on global collaboration, using Skype to create a more meaningful, more relevant experience for all of her students.

"All of a sudden we started to realize that whenever we were having these conversations about science, or social studies, or literature, we could start to connect with other human beings and bring them into our work and really change the process of work that we were doing."

Pernille uses Skype in her classroom often. An old favorite is to connect her 7 th grade students to 1 st or 2 nd graders for personalized writing tasks, but most recently she used Skype to give her classes a glimpse into the human side of the refugee crisis.

"A Canadian Iraqi refugee agreed to Skype with my kids," Pernille says. "It was so powerful for them because all of a sudden it wasn't just 'those refugees' that are going through 'those things, someplace else.' It was speaking to someone who had lived it. That's why I love Skype so much and that's why I'm a Skype Master Teacher and a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert - those two are very much tied in - because they offer me the chance to bring people into my classroom that I could never find in my own community. It also offers me a chance to bring my students out into the world."

Pernille is so passionate about changing the way students learn today and into the future that she's written three books on the topic, the most recent focused on re-imagining literacy through a lens of global collaboration.

"I think we have to start looking at the way we're presenting curriculum and learning opportunities, and wondering how it can be changed by the outside world," she says. "Who can we bring in? Who can we speak to? How can our students have an outside-of-the-classroom experience through the curriculum?

"We live in an incredibly exciting time where we have access to so much out there that can help better our instruction, and so I think that we, as teachers, have to embrace fearlessness."

You can join and follow the connected teacher conversation, with other inspirational MIE Experts and innovators like Pernille, on the Microsoft Education Twitter page.

Our mission at Microsoft is to equip and empower educators to shape and assure the success of every student. Any teacher can join our effort with free Office 365 Education, find affordable Windows devices and connect with others on the Educator Community for free training and classroom resources.

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How an MIE Expert is bridging the gap between classroom and life |

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Some kids grow up just knowing they'll be teachers one day. For MIE Expert and Skype Master Teacher Pernille Ripp, that wasn't quite the case. She never expected to become a teacher, let alone the established global collaborator she is today.

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"I wasn't having my students write enough. In an attempt to follow Kelly Gallagher’s advice that students should write more than we can assess, I decided to have them blog weekly." I was impressed by the success of the blogging exercises in this class, as students' weighed in on their experiences. As a teacher who also follows they ways of Kelly Gallagher, I would like to start having my ELA students blogging. At this time, I just need to decided when and where.

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This year, I admitted a hard truth to myself. I wasn't having my students write enough. In an attempt to follow Kelly Gallagher's advice that students should write more than we can assess, I decided to have them blog weekly.

One Assignment, Many Objectives

After giving students some practice and solidifying my ideas by talking to a colleague and past student, I developed this assignment. I tried to ensure that the assignment would:

Address multiple Common Core standards

Hold students accountable while minimizing stress

Be structured enough to provide clarity while giving freedom to experiment

Be varied enough to keep students engaged

Get students to write for multiple purposes

I introduced blogging to my juniors, reminding them to keep an open mind about this experiment (they could relate to that; I teach in a STEM school that focuses on life science and experimental research). We spent one period creating profiles and writing ungraded posts to get to know the interface. (Side note: students are allowed to make blogs private as long as they provide access to me. As far as I know, no one has chosen this option.) After that, I let them loose.

It. Is. Awesome.

Skill and Enthusiasm

First and foremost, student writing is improving by leaps and bounds. When I read their blogs (which, by the way, are mature, insightful, funny and engaging), I don't find myself pulling my hair out over the careless mistakes they make in formal papers. Not every post is perfect, but the majority are well written and free of grammar and usage issues that I am so familiar with seeing in their other work. If they become sloppy, all I need to do is politely comment about it on their blog, and I don't see it again.

Their improved skills transfer to formal work. Integrating quotations in literary papers has become simple now that we have so much practice with smoothly embedding hyperlinks. Additionally, student response to texts has improved; some of the posts they must write are based on stimulus texts of their choice. Once a student blogs about archetypes in Kim Possible, tackling Pride and Prejudice becomes that much easier.

Students' persuasive writing is improving, too. A mini-lesson and quick in-class prompt using rhetorical questions has resulted not only in well-argued blog posts, but also in students excitedly telling me how they used that technique for their HSPA persuasive task.

Benefits extend beyond the classroom. Introverted students tend to share more online than they do in person; blogging is an invaluable way for me to get to know them better as people and students. It's also great to see reserved students garnering attention from their peers. Furthermore, students understand the importance of hearing many voices. One recently noted that she enjoys the blogs because "[s]ome of the quieter folks during discussion can talk about their opinions too, so we finally get to hear them."

Less Agonizing Pain

It's no secret that students value an authentic audience for their writing. One student enthusiastically posted on my class Facebook wall that his blog post turned his friend into a Dave Matthews Band fan. As the new fan says, it's "the power of the pen (or the keyboard in this case)"! Additionally, I post exemplars on a student showcase, and students are visibly proud when I ask for permission to share their work with a broader audience.

I surveyed students for feedback, and the majority of responses were favorable. Here are a few:

"[I]t forces me to write. I usually try to write a couple times a month on my own but that is pushed to the side when I have too much homework."

"It is a good way to have us write without it being formal or full of pressure. I also like the fact that I have control over what I write about, and that definitely makes the assignment easier."

(my personal favorite) "I don't like any assignments in general. However, I feel like the loose nature of the structure of the assignment makes it less agonizingly painful to do than most other assignments."

If making my homework "less agonizingly painful" than other assignments isn't a success, I don't know what is!

Of course, some students aren't enamored by blogging, expressing frustration with the class-related response (one of the required posts). I can understand their point, though I keep the assignment as written because I want to provide them with different levels of challenge. If the passion and free-choice posts are easy, the class-related responses should be more difficult. This reinforces the fact that writers need to have a broad repertoire when they encounter more challenging tasks.

I believe this assignment can be adapted to every grade and subject area. Encouraging students to blog about topics from other classes helps them see connections among subjects and realize that writing is a worthwhile skill in any field. As an added bonus, blogging addresses many of the Common Core literacy standards that most teachers now need to address.

Have you tried blogging in the classroom? Or will you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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This year, I admitted a hard truth to myself. I wasn't having my students write enough. In an attempt to follow Kelly Gallagher's advice that students should write more than we can assess, I decided to have them blog weekly.

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Lauralee education blogger shares her experiences with social media projects and how they have challenge language use and definitions in the classroom. I enjoyed reading about the realness; the dynamics of debate that came up in the classroom because of social media. I can see this happening in my ELA class as we start to explore social media projects and blogging! A success to say the least- true arguments and conversation.

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Language fascinates me. It confuses some people; read, walk, and talk can all be nouns and verbs? Bits confuse me too, normally right after I feel that I have a strong understanding of the English language. I've found that once you admit to the confusion, fascination has room.

Language always changes. Scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, anyone can notice this change. That's not a negative, and it's worth noting with our students. They use social media, and the discussion can fit into an ELA class. Students may know many more than I've gathered - or completely different ones.

Here are new words or definitions for words that I would argue came about because of social media.

1. "Verses" as a verb. As in, our soccer team is verses Washington tonight.

2. "Couponing." (My spell check highlighted this). The rise of reality television coupon and money saving shows gave us "couponing." Couponing is a sport for certain people at the grocery store.

3. "Adulting." Students may not use this word often, but their parents might. (And again - spell check highlighted this). I adulted hard this weekend; I cleaned the house and went grocery shopping.

4. "Hashtagging." Formerly known as the pound sign, the hashtag provides categories of messages. Are you hashtagging the awards show tonight? The hashtag often leads to... tags...

5. "Tagging." Not your clothing, but rather your friends. Will you tag me in your status?

6. "Fail." Normally present in, #epicfail. "Fail" was once a grade or effort, but now it has replaced "not doing well." I am failing at life today.

People stress about the change in words; remember when "phat" was included in the dictionary? Outrage! Languages change because they are adapting to the speakers' needs. With social media, we English speakers had new needs.

Our language has always evolved and changed with new technology. Let's acknowledge it. At this time, social media has changed our language. And that's ok!

It seems to be the perfect opportunity to connect to students with a familiar topic, and the perfect teaching opportunity. How? Well, I begin by acknowledging my age and lack of coolness. (That is no longer a phrase, and students immediately know where I'm headed). We then discuss language examples from their social media experiences, which is the purpose of this, anyway.

What examples did I not include? What examples did your students give you?

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Social Media Has Changed Our Language | Language Arts Classroom

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Social media has changed our language. Since language is dynamic, include real examples in ELA classrooms. Language fascinates me. It confuses some people; read, walk, and talk can all be nouns and verbs? Bits confuse me too, normally right after I feel that I have a strong understanding of the English language.

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"I wanted out of this project was to have it become an extension of what was already happening in the classroom, not an ‘add-on’. So, we emphasized that the kids should teach Teddy about what they are currently learning." This project is similar to that of "Flat Stanley," as he travels the world and teaches others about that location. Schools have the option of sharing via Twitter or Skype.

English Language Arts standards include communication and collaboration expectations, as I feel there are many ways someone like Teddy could be involved in our classroom. Yes, he could travel the world and teach us of new characters and settings, but also share our love of books and reading!

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Meet Teddy!

Earlier this year my buddy Joe Sergi (@pep073) and I started Traveling Teddy. A project that involves seven early childhood classes in Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, America, India, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia all taking turns having Teddy visit their classrooms. The objective: teach teddy and share what you're teaching him with the rest of us!

The first thing I wanted out of this project was to have it become an extension of what was already happening in the classroom, not an 'add-on'. So, we emphasized that the kids should teach Teddy about what they are currently learning. The other thing I wanted was a way for young learners to have a real hands-on connection (Teddy) to relate with as they learned about places and children around the world. Often, global education limits us because we're communicating on a screen. As wonderful as it is that we are able to do that now, I am sure that most early childhood educators will agree with me when I say that at this young age, hands-on learning experiences are extremely valuable. In Traveling Teddy, all the children involved get to touch Teddy, play with him, show him around their school and really make a connection. So, with this project I hoped to use a real experience that all the classes share, to help us all make valuable connections with each other.

Classes are blogging to Teddy's blog using Easy Blog Jr., thanks to @Phillip_Cowell, @dtaylor2008 and @gueben, the guys behind Easy Blog Jr. (by Easy App Co.) who agreed to help us with this project. Easy Blog Jr. makes it really simple for kids to independently post to a WordPress blog. They also have a Blogger version and other very kid friendly apps.

Participating classes were given the option of using Twitter and Skype in this project. It is optional because some classes tweet while others don't. As for Skype, it's use is dependent upon timezones, so both these options were made available by sharing Twitter handles and Skype names with each other but leaving it up to individual teachers as to whether or not they would incoproate the use of these tools or not. So far I have been able to Skype with our class in Saudi Arabia and our hashtag #globaledted continues to have updates on Teddy's adventures! Currently he's in transit from New Delhi, India to Singapore!

Teddy is also quite tech savy and travels with a QR code in his pouch created by each of the classes to send to the next. He has his own little passport that gets stamped and class pictures are pasted into it. Finally, classes will hopefully contribute to a book made on Book Creator to share Teddy's journey through these past few months.

We've already had many teachers contact us for next year and it is getting exciting to see where Teddy may be heading in the coming school year! We are even considering launching more than one Teddy so that as many schools as possible can get involved! If you are interested in having Teddy visit your school next year please do read through teacher information carefully, then leave a comment or contact us through the Traveling Teddy site.

Picture this -

1. a class of students in a slum/ghetto of Kenya - the largest slum in Africa by both size and population See Boomtown Slum: A Day in the Economic Life of Africa's Biggest Shanty Town

2. students who are orphaned and many of whom have lost their parents to AIDS.

3. visible holes in the decaying walls

4. no power in the classroom

5. no visible seats or chairs for the students to sit on

6. no sign of books and resources

7. volunteer teachers who care passionately about and for these students

Despite all this:

the teacher is amazingly innovative, creative, connected and active with the use of his laptop and mobile wifi

uses skype to connect his students to others across the world

the children are confident and seem happy, singing with gusto and rhythm

the children are given opportunities to learn at the Cheery School - "a place for nurturing students for their better lives".

Technology makes these connections that were previously impossible, possible. Children from the slums of Nairobi, Kenya can learn from others around the world in real time, when they cannot afford books, education or even food etc!This week is multicultural week in Victoria, Australia and Friday 21st is National Harmony Day, which makes even more precious the story that now unfolds.

Last night it was my great privilege to connect with this class of young children aged 5-7 from The Cheery School, Kibera slums, Nairobi, Kenya. Their passionate and caring teacher, Livingstone organised them to individually ask questions of me. They were confident, well mannered and at times shared objects with me to show their culture and the wild animals of Africa. In fact, I thought they had a real snake to show but it was a toy! To complete the connection, the students sang a wonderful song to me in an enthusiastic and joyful manner, showing rhythm and unity.

A toy snake is shared to show some of the local wild animals.

How can we help classes such as these? Will technology provide the ability to learn with and from the world, help them break out of their cycle of poverty? The impossible, may just become possible!

Below are some videos that share more about the Cheery School:-

Background

After eight years of teaching in a technology driven high school and after attending workshops, seminars and conferences worldwide, I thought it was bout time I challenged both my astudents and myself.

I wanted to see if it was possible to find a project that could engage every student in my 11th grade class of English learners and see if we all could work together as a team. Most of all, I wanted to see if they could produce an end product that would be authentic and involve collaboration with educators and students globally.

My thoughts on engagement

Every educator wants to experience the moment of "flow" when all the goals are set and understood and work is moving along easily and naturally. When we read about engaging students in the classroom using technology and social media, authors often leave us with the impression that this work will flow gentle as a stream. When talking about motivation and learning in school, grit is most often left out of the conversation. Yet, according to Daniel Pink, the best predictor of success is grit, defined as perseverance and passion for long term goals.

Our published book proves that when you find the right project - one that really involves all the students - they can find the grit and do what it takes to reach the final objective.

And here's an interesting fact: The most popular topic to write about in this book turned out to be motivation. It is ironic that motivation and innovation are topics we discuss on almost every level in education, from policy makers and educational experts to school leaders and teachers. We are simply missing the most important link here - we do not spend enough time discussing this with our students. My students' reflections in this book show us that we should spend a lot more time discussing important topics like motivation, learning, pedagogy and technology with them. In this book, we provide many great examples and discussion topics to get us started.

I am very happy to say that we have managed to write a book that we think will be helpful for teachers all over the world. It explains how to set up your classroom to get you started. It shows how teachers and students can set up blogs, make a Twitter account, use Skype in education and connect with others. I think more teachers should try to open up their classrooms to all the possibility we have with the use of technology!

Our publication of the 200-plus page collaborative book Connected Learners: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Global Classroom.As our press release says, this interactive eBook is

a unique compendium of stories, advice and how-to articles designed to help high school teachers and their students around the globe shift from classrooms that are isolated and teacher-centered to digitally rich environments where learning is student-driven and constantly connected to the global internet.

There are many books on the topic "learning in the 21st century," and I think I have read most of them. The authors are educators and educational experts I know and admire. Many write about what students want and how students learn. What occurred to me was that there are no books about this topic written by students.

Let's listen to the students! Want to buy the book? Click on the picture of the book. We are saving up for a field trip and would love to visit one of the schools we have been collaborating with! Text previously posted at Powerful Learning Practice . See full text here:

This is a guest post from @JosePopoff, an amazing Science educator from Honduras. He blogs at http://www.josepopoff.com/, and this post was originally published here.

Yes, I know. You have probably read an article with a like title before. But I promise you I have not read any and this is a list I came up from my own personal experience and that of those other amazing educators that I take pride of being connected with.

So, you are a connected educator and let´s face it, something in you has changed. You don´t even speak the same way you did when your classroom had those wooden or brick walls that you have brought down. I collected some symptoms that you may have been through since you decided to go international. In no particular order, here they are:

You are on Twitter. I've read remarkable teachers tweet that this social network has expanded their knowledge in a few months much more than five years of college preparation. They can't be wrong.

1. You find tremendous value in global connections and understand how great and valuable these experiences are for your students.

2. To you, the world is flat! Period.

3. You blog and comment on blogs. You've understood that blogging is an amazing way of sharing your knowledge and experiences with the world and building together.

4. You make an extra effort to report your measurements in at least two units. This one is especially easy if you are a Science teacher. But you are sensitive enough to understand that, unfortunately, not all of us are familiar with the same units.

5. Every time you meet a teacher from a foreign country you think: "Mystery Skype!" Or am I the only one?

6. Remember when you used your fingers to count and add in elementary school? Now you use them to count time zones and figure out how many hours ahead or behind your new contact is from you. You know you do!

7. Your plans for the future include visiting some members of your PLN. Of course you are already practicing all your "oh, you look so much better in person's, "you look so much younger"s, "I didn't recognize you's, etc., for when that moment comes.

8. You have realized how international the English language is. Of course, you respect those who speak it with funny accents because that means they speak at least two languages.

9. Every time a teacher asks you to connect, well, let´s just say we all pretty much know what the answer to that is.

10. You have substituted your "Good morning" and "Good evening" with "Good morning/afternoon/evening!" or simply "Hello".

11. You belong to at least one global community. Where else would you get all those amazing connections from otherwise?

12. If you are on the move and have to make a stop, first thing you do is look for a wi-fi hotspot.

13. You do not own a Blackberry, or if you do, you want another phone since you discovered that RIM does not have a Skype application. What!? Ok, maybe that´s just me.

14. Have to get up at 5 am to get the kids ready? Ugh, what a drag! Have to get up at 4 am to Skype with a class in Japan? No problem!

15. The verb you use the most in your spoken and written language is "skype" and most of its conjugate forms. The funniest thing is that "skype" is not even a verb! Luckily, "hanging out" is a verb.

16. You are watching less TV. I mean, when was the last connection you made through FOX, right?

If you are manifesting any of these symptoms, please go to your nearest local teacher and infect them!

I was going to write as sign #16 "You write a comment to this blog post", but of course I am not going to write such a presumptuous remark. But, can you think of any other sign I missed here? Add it, join the fun, and keep rocking it in this international endeavour. Thank God the world is such a small place!

Our final session of Virtual Book Club discussing Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis is already this Monday, March 18th at 7:30pm EST (that's Tuesday, March 19th at 12:30am GMT)! For your time zone, click here. We will be discussing Chapter Twelve - Rock the World!

Use this link ( https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0) to log onto the live session or watch this space for a posting of the recording afterwards.

I can't believe it is our final session. This Virtual Book Club has been a wonderful space to connect with educators from all levels that are passionate about their work, are life-long learners, and are willing to share all they know as well as question what they are still learning about.

As I plan for the final session, I am looking for any remaining questions that we haven't addressed yet. Please take a moment to leave a comment on this blog with topics you would like to see covered in the last session. Whether it is a question you have about how global projects work, ideas about how to set up rubrics for collaborative projects, challenges using wikis or blogs, or comments about the value of connected learning, let me know so that we can take some time on this last day to chat and reflect on the subjects that are important to you.

If you missed the session last week, listen to the most recent recording here: Virtual Book Club March 4th/5th and please share your thoughts on this blog: Virtual Book Club. Our focus was Chapter Nine - Celebration and Chapter Ten Designing and Managing a Global Collaborative Project.

I think the big themes of the session were these:

Find as many opportunities as possible to give students feedback about their work, whether it is an awards ceremony gala, a carefully written note or just pulling chairs into a circle to talk. Kids are starved for feedback - feed them!

Be creative when thinking about time and space - using Skype, VoiceThread or Blackboard Collaborate might allow experts, parents or other teachers to be a part of your celebration.

Take time to reflect and celebrate projects as a professional. Whether it is privately, publicly, online or face-to-face, take a breath and consider what worked well and what you want to repeat.

Start somewhere with a global project - join one that already exists, start with a teacher you know in another place, plan your own, but START.

And if you are just finding us in time for this last session, please feel free to drop in! We welcome all educators that want to learn more about global projects or share what they have already learned.

Hope to "see" you there!

The post below is something I originally posted on my personal blog, where I share my thoughts, explorations, and reflections on technology integration in early childhood education, particularly as a means for global collaboration. One of the core ways I feel connected to to the global education community is through the Global Classroom Project and the monthly #GlobalClassroom chats so I was excited to have an opportunity to share my experiences directly with this community. I am currently engaging in a massive online open course on educational technology (#ETMOOC), which is what inspired me to write this post about my (mis)adventures in connected learning and trying to form relationships between my school and other classes and teachers around the world. I hope it might have an inspiring or intriguing idea that will spark your own collaboration and if you have tips or ideas for working through these misadventures, I would love to hear them!
Before the second week of #etmooc " Connected Learning " slips away, I wanted to write a post reflecting a bit on the prompt: " Is it possible for our classrooms to support this kind of (connected) learning? If so, how? "

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by dennisar

I definitely think that our classrooms can support connected learning and that technology can make the "how" much easier and more feasible to facilitate that learning. To me, connected learning involves engaging students in real-world applications of skills and knowledge. One way to do this is by asking students to try and solve problems that people face everyday, such as concerns with the environment ( Inspiration from GOOD.is ) or building prototypes to help the elderly more easily navigate outdoors (see the FIRST Jr. Robotics Challenge ).

I also view connected learning as a motivation to teach my students tools that can empower and enable them to be change agents. With these tools, students can build meaningful connections across different mediums, connections that not only facilitate learning but establish relationships. This means introducing ideas of digital citizenship and cyber safety at very young ages so students can begin using tools that they will likely continue to use as they grow older instead of tools that they will quickly grow out of (e.g., teaching 2nd graders how to conduct safe and effective Google searches versus restricting them to KidRex and allowing kindergarten students to tweet with other kindergarten students in class).

But most importantly, in my opinion, connected learning translates into global connections and collaborations for all students and teachers.

With modern technologies like Skype , Voicethread , Google Translate , Twitter and other (a)synchronous tools, it can be simple and free to connect students, even if their time zones never overlap or they speak different languages. There is no longer a need for expensive web conferencing technologies and with web 2.0 tools, students don't have to wait weeks for a reply from students in another country. Therefore, it seems to me that we should be scaffolding and encouraging global connections in every classroom, starting with our youngest students. These connections can blossom into meaningful relationships where students can share experiences and learn together about the cultures, perspectives, and knowledge of each community. That feels like true connected learning.

So what does that look like in the classroom? At my school, I have slowly been working to build some of these local and global connections so students can engage in more connected learning. While we have had some success, we have definitely had a few misadventures as well.

We tried signing up for an Elementary Mystery Skype project created by some educators who had seen it done with older grades. Three of my teachers signed up, willing to take the risk and do something they had never done before, but although all three were paired with another teacher, none of them heard a response back about setting a date to actually Skype. After following many inspiring # kinderchat teachers, I talked with a kindergarten teacher at my school about having her class join Twitter. We sat down and discussed how it could work, we wrote up a detailed letter to parents, we planned how to introduce it to the students but since their initial Twitter "launch" the class hasn't been able to get other classes to tweet back. I think the kids are beginning to feel like tweeting means sending a message on the computer and never hearing back. Whether it's been via Skype, Twitter, or even email, we have found that making that connection with another teacher and class can be much harder than getting the technology or other preparations in order.

Luckily, we also have some success stories to share. Thanks to the Global Classroom Project database, I was able to connect our Spanish teacher with a class in Spain so her students could Skype in English and Spanish. While moderating a #globalclassroom chat, I connected with another educator who wanted her students to be able to share their experiences of a Quaker meeting. This led to two of our fourth grade classes Skyping with their fourth grade and discussing their religious practices, as well as the similarities and differences in their schools. Comparing lunches and "specials" was a big highlight. Through Twitter, I was also able to set up a Skype session between a Canadian class and one of our first grade classes - our students were shocked to see all of their snow! And in a few weeks, we have a session scheduled with NASA for our youngest students, who are studying space, to hear about " Humans in Space ," one of the offerings in their Digital Learning Network .

So, while the actual "how" of connected learning can certainly be a challenge, I think it is doable. My students have been able to use a range of web 2.0 tools that have enabled them to develop deeper relationships within their individual classes, between their class and other classes at the school, and between our school and other schools. They are becoming more comfortable with the idea of leaving messages through various platforms and receiving comments and messages back from parents or other students after a pause (which can be tough to understand when you're only 5 or 6). Teachers are beginning to consider ways we can connect with other students and classes in other parts of the world to enrich their units of study and make different topics and concepts more concrete while also more making them more complex. I hope that with time, patience, and perseverance our connections will continue to grow and with it, the connected learning that we are all able to share.

We're really excited to share this great article from Northbrook Patch, which features the work of @DKarnoscak, one of our Global Classroom teachers in the USA. This article was originally published here, and is reproduced with permission of the author.

Willowbrook School third grade teacher David Karnoscak and his students have visited 14 countries and six continents so far this year, and they haven't even left the classroom. By using Skype and The Global Classroom Project, Karnoscak connects his class with educators across the globe.

On Thursday, Jan. 17, all the third grade classrooms met in Willowbrook's Collaboration Cafe and used Skype to meet with penguin research scientist Jean Pennycook, who is currently stationed in Antarctica. It's summer on the continent, but temperatures remain below freezing.

Pennycook answered the children's questions and talked about how a scientist lives a "very rustic" life, while conducting research in Antarctica.

Pennycook said her favorite penguin is the Adelie, because it is an active and engaging animal, as opposed to the Emperor penguin, which just "stands around."

She says there are more Adelie penguins than any other penguin species, they live in the south and have to cross many kilometers of ice to reach where they can build their nests in the spring.

Students heard about the living conditions in Antarctica - a solar panel is the scientists' only source of electricity, which they use to charge their computers, cameras and radios.

All waste products are stored in big drums and must be hauled out by helicopter after the scientist's eight week stay. Pennycook showed the students the tent where she lives, as well as the outdoor scenery, which consisted of rocks and ice, and a view of the ocean. She said Antarctica is "stark, like the moon."

Melted snow is used for washing, not drinking, because of its high salt content. She stated that there are no plants, trees or bushes in Antartica, nor is there a permanent population of human beings. Animals that live there only survive by eating creatures and fauna from the ocean. Students also heard about the different types of seals, whales, seagulls and skua that live in the region.

Karnoscak, the Willowbrook teacher, emphasized that his passion for Skyping around the world has rubbed off on his students. In December, the class Skyped with students in Greece and exchanged holiday greetings. He says he enjoys seeing the kids becoming global citizens, who are learning about different cultures and people. They recently visited a school in Nepal, and everyone was very surprised at how different it was from Willowbrook School.

"Our favorite game is Mystery Skype, where students take turns asking geographic questions about an opponent's location. Students must use geographic knowledge, map skills and logical reasoning to find where another class is located," said Karnoscak.

The other third grade teachers who collaborated with David Karnoscak on the Antarctica activity were Allison Safran and Jessica Gomberg.

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Earlier this year my buddy Joe Sergi (@pep073) and I started Traveling Teddy. A project that involves seven early childhood classes in Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, America, India, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia all taking turns having Teddy visit their classrooms. The objective: teach teddy and share what you're teaching him with the rest of us!

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Author and gamer, Sean Fay-Wolfe teaches students, through Skype,  about the writing process and how he blends his love of writing and gaming.

To say the least, Microsoft Education and their partnership with Skype has endless opportunities to expand learning experiences beyond classroom walls. I have many ELA students who still love Minecraft and would enjoy hearing from this author. The compliments and shared comments have persuaded me to incorporate this project into my classroom!

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Beyond the Blocks: Minecraft Literacy with The Elementia Chronicles

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You'd be hard pressed to find two things that kids love more than telling their own stories, and playing Minecraft. Sean Fay-Wolfe, author of the acclaimed Elementia Chronicles series of Minecraft action adventure novels, brings these two concepts together to get kids excited about writing.