Global Collaborations Birds of a Feather

This morning I'm in the birds of a feather session led by Mike Griffiths from Global Leap.

We looked through the Global Leap website and how to register our schools and find other classes.

We talked quite a bit about the technology and how we could connect. Tools for connecting other than traditional H.323 and H.320 were discussed. We talked about using Skype and Festoon to do free connections with other countries.

We also talked about iEARN projects, and Rowena Gerber from Florida shared how she has done projects with classes that have to travel 10 miles to access one computer. iEARN has lots of standard yearly projects, projects you can stop by for a bit, and projects that are more long term. You don't have to be a member of iEARN to get on all these projects, but to access the forums there is a membership fee. Most of the projects are via email, but some are via videoconferences through iSight, MSN, through IP/H.323 videoconferencing...

Andrew Knox from the Center for Distance Learning Research shared projects that he's working on: a internation fitness oriented project, a charity project, measuring steps & progress in P.E. class, etc.

We also talked about the Global Nomads Group and the work they are doing. They have incredible experiences shared each year. Those of us who have done VCs with GNG shared what it was like for our students.

Russ Colbert, Polycom, shared with us some things happening in Australia, New Zealand, etc.

Then I shared my sessions with Pakistan on my blog: with the high school class and the 2nd grade class.

Now we're moving into a second session on collaboration.