Lower Canada College
Sharon Peters

Percy Julian Middle School
Janet Barnstable

Santan Junior High School
Shaun Creighton

I am so proud of my students!

Initiatives such as this global collaborative learning project provide students with such an incredible opportunity to develop important skills they will need to be creative and innovative knowledge workers in the 21st century. Over the course of the last few months, the students have communicated using asynchronous and synchronous tools so they could negotiate and collaborate on a product that exceeded their imaginations as it all came together. My students were astounded at the images and flash animations that their partners created from their stories. This was the first time they have been part of a larger team outside their school walls. Some of them had to struggle with initial disappointments or misunderstandings as they created products which needed editing or were misinterpreted. This provides an opportunity for students to learn the importance of tactful cross-cultural communication skills as they negotiate and learn to possibly concede their positions.

As I read through their reflections, their enthusiasm and engagement in the activities are clearly evident. Not only has this been an enjoyable activity for them, but they themselves have recognized the value of the collaborative process and the importance of working together as a team. Here is one such example of two students negotiating for a solution.

I could not have asked for more cooperative, creative, and super-organized teacher partners! I have learned so much from Janet and Shaun. We each contributed different skills and were committed to our weekly skype calls so that we could set weekly goals and assess our progress. Shaun and I recorded one of our chats about the value of such a project.

I am particularly pleased that my partners accommodated my need to fit in obligatory school curricular content so that my students did not deviate from the learning goals of the course as we participated. We PROVED we could do such a project and STILL meet the curricular guidelines of our schools!

What an interesting time we had! At first it was a worry of "how do we make this international when we are all from the same continent?" Soon we discovered that all of us had very different students and we faced the same challenges of getting to know each other and speaking the same language. YES, we did have troubles in the beginning communicating with each other, using terms that everyone understood. We could not take for granted that just because we were all 'native English speakers' that we would just "know" what the other person was thinking. But we got there! We all learned to be more clear in our writing and to explain what it was that we wanted.

It has been such a pleasure to work with both Shaun and Sharon, even though I came late to their already established team, they welcomed me and never made me feel like an 'add on'. Their dedication to the completion of the work, even when it started getting really big, was inspiring. All three schools worked hard and really split the work well. Communication is the key to successfully working together, and it has to be not only amongst the students, but the teachers as well. We certainly did that through frequent emails and weekly Skype Chats (even when my old modem knocked me off line after about 15 minutes.) We just kept at it!

Sharon needed to integrate her work into her English classes - hence the topic that fit into her required curriculum. Both Shaun and I were tech curricula, so we concentrated on the technical and research aspects. We all so complemented each other that it was as if we actually were one classroom with 100 or so kids all working together. Sometimes one teacher, sometimes another would ask the kids to try to do something... and they would!

I'm very impressed with the work my kids did as well as the work of the kids in the other two schools. We are a GREAT team!

This was one of the most rewarding projects I have done in a long time ... and I have done GVC for four years now, so that's saying a lot!

I can't begin to express how proud I am of my students, and all of the students in GVC-06, for accomplishing so much. Their creativity and hard work shone through at every step of this project, and I am extremely proud of the finished product. You know something special is happening when students give up part of their spring break to come work on a school project as five of my students did!

The class of mine that participates in GVC is an advanced computer class where web design is part of the curriculum, so GVC allows them a great opportunity to learn web design in a very tangible way. But as my students discover eventually, this project isn't really about web design. It's about collaboration, teamwork, bridging culture gaps, etc. ... and how technology is helping make these types of global collaborations easier than ever before.

As I commented many times to my colleagues, it was wonderful to see my students jump in and embrace the struggle of collaborating meaningfully with students they had never met. My students are brilliant in many ways (as are their GVC-06 partners) but this type of collaboration was an entirely new experience for them, and they met the challenge head on. Negotiating little and big differences (what should this hero look like? shouldn't that story have more action? do we really want to use that color?) was difficult for them at times, but they learned the fine art of compromise along the way, and came to realize that they and the project were better for it.

I also love the fact that this project addressed so many of these "soft skills" while still addressing standards and objectives in both technology and language arts. In an age when education is driven largely by test scores and fear of litigation, there can be many obstacles to overcome when doing this sort of project (we ran into many institutional obstacles of our own). Fortunately, many people are finally waking up to the fact that our students will be left behind if they are not trained on how to properly use the new technologies that are driving our workforce in the 21st century. I point to this project as a shining example of education that helps prepare our students for the "flat world" they are inheriting.

I would be remiss if I didn't thank my partners, Sharon and Janet. I knew Sharon from our GVC project two years ago and was eager to work with her again. We were prepared to go it alone when our third partner dropped out, but when Janet and her students came on board, I knew right away that our team would be very special. Sharon and Janet are truly amazing people, and I have learned so much from them both!