Si bien estamos orgullosos de este progreso, y aún más orgullosos del impacto que nuestra comunidad está teniendo en el aprendizaje, vemos que nuestro viaje recién comienza. Todavía estamos en la primera entrada, y hoy damos un paso muy importante para acelerar nuestro impacto en el aprendizaje y asegurarnos de que estamos aquí para nuestra comunidad a largo plazo.

¡Edmodo ha firmado un acuerdo para unirse al grupo de empresas educativas de NetDragon!

Unirse a NetDragon fue una decisión fácil. Comparten nuestro compromiso de construir comunidades que en conjunto puedan mejorar el aprendizaje. Ya son líderes en educación con marcas como Promethean y Jumpstart. Y al unirnos a NetDragon, tendremos la estabilidad financiera y los recursos para hacer mucho más: ser más rápidos, ser más receptivos y ayudarte a hacer todo lo que quieras en tu práctica docente.

Tendremos más información para compartir en las próximas semanas y meses. Por ahora, ten por seguro que Edmodo seguirá estando aquí para ti. No necesitas realizar ninguna acción. Edmodo y toda su actividad, recursos y asistencia se mantendrán en su lugar, y solo mejorarán:

• Edmodo continuará ofreciendo una solución de comunicaciones y colaboración GRATUITA.
• Los profesores pueden continuar usando Edmodo por su cuenta o como parte de un distrito, para involucrar a los estudiantes y crecer profesionalmente.
• Edmodo continuará ofreciendo una plataforma neutral que funcione con otras herramientas de hardware y software, como Microsoft Office en línea y Google’s G-Suite for Education.
• Esto aumenta la red Edmodo. Planeamos conectarte con más recursos, herramientas y educadores para facilitarle la vida y ayudarte a enseñar más sobre lo que deseas enseñar.

Nos inspiras todos los días por lo que haces por tus alumnos, familiares y colegas. Prometemos estar aquí para ti todos los días y juntos, superar los límites de lo que es posible a través de la educación. Para obtener más información, consulta nuestras Preguntas frecuentes y el comunicado de prensa, y comenta a continuación si tienes alguna pregunta para mí.

While we are proud of this progress, and even more proud of the impact our community is having on learning, we see our journey as just beginning. We’re still in the first inning, and today we take a very important step forward to accelerate our impact on learning and ensure we are here for our community for the long game.

Edmodo has signed an agreement to join the NetDragon group of education companies!

Joining NetDragon was an easy decision. They share our commitment to building communities that together can improve learning. They are already a leader in education with brands including Promethean and Jumpstart. And by joining NetDragon, we will have the financial stability and resources to do so much more–to be faster, to be more responsive, to help you do all you want to do in your teaching practice.

We will have more information to share in the coming weeks and months. For now, please be assured, Edmodo will continue to be here for you. You don’t need to take any action. Edmodo and all your activity, resources and support will remain in place, and will only get better:

• Edmodo will continue to offer a FREE communications and collaboration solution.

• Teachers can continue using Edmodo on their own or as part of a district, to engage students and grow professionally.

• Edmodo will continue to offer a neutral platform that works with other hardware and software tools, such as Microsoft’s Office Online and Google’s G-Suite for Education.

• This deepens the Edmodo network. We plan to connect you with more resources, tools, and other educators to make your life easier and to help you teach more of what you want to teach.

You inspire us everyday by what you do for your students, parents and colleagues. We promise to be here for you each day, and together, to push the boundaries of what’s possible through education. For more information, please see our FAQs and press release and comment below if you have questions for me.

– Vibhu Mittal, CEO of Edmodo

We’ve got a lot of new articles and stories in development to share, and we believe that Medium is the right place to present them to you. We’ve been publishing stories on Medium first for the last few weeks, and moving forward, blog.edmodo.com will be updated once a month to include stories that we published on Medium.

Medium also allows us to share more stories directly from teachers, like Dwayne Reed’s heartfelt personal essay about dealing with burnout as a first year teacher.

Visit the Edmodo Blog’s new home on Medium to see what you’ve been missing!

If you’re still unsure or confused about anything, here’s a quick FAQ that should answer your questions:

What is Medium?

Medium is a social platform for longer written content like articles and personal stories. You can give writers applause to highlight stories you enjoy, leave annotated comments on stories, and write your own posts.

What’s going to happen to this blog?

It’s not going away! We’re just making Medium our first priority. All stories from the Edmodo Blog on Medium will eventually be posted here, just later. However, we will no longer be moderating or displaying comments left on articles on blog.edmodo.com.

How am I going to get notified of new articles now?

It’s easy! Once you visit Medium, you’ll be able to create a Medium account with your email address or a Google, Facebook, or Twitter account. Once you have an account, you can get notified of new stories from any writer or publication (including the Edmodo Blog) by clicking the “Follow” button next to their icon.

Have any other questions? Let us know at support.edmodo.com.

“It is up to us to determine whether AI in education will be a catalyst for strengthening social equity – or for weakening it.”  —  Ralph Müller-Eiselt

Ralph, how do we ensure that algorithms are always conceived to achieve a positive impact for societies and education, rather than a danger or a risk?

Algorithms are as biased as the humans who designed or commissioned them with a certain intention. We should therefore spark an open debate about the goals of software systems with social impact. It is up to us as a society to decide where such systems should be used and to make sure that they are designed with the right purposes in mind. Secondly, we must remember that even algorithms designed with good intentions can produce bad results. The larger their potential effects on individual participation in society are, the more important is a preventive risk assessment and – once automated decision making is in use – a comprehensive evaluation to verify the intended results. Involving neutral third parties in this process can significantly help to build up trust in software-based decision making.

How do we assess whether or not they are accomplishing what is intended?

Transparent accountability is key when it comes to assessing algorithm-based applications and tools. This does not mean that we need to make the code of algorithms publicly accessible. In fact, that would not at all be helpful for most affected individuals to gain an understanding of how algorithm-informed decisions are being made. Instead, we need mechanisms like self-explanatory statements of purpose for algorithms that can be verified by an evaluation through neutral experts who are granted access to the relevant information and data. These evaluations should be designed as holistically as possible in order to check whether algorithms are actually serving the intended purposes and to reveal their real-life risks and opportunities.

“While there are vast opportunities for algorithm-informed advice on competence-oriented curricular choices and job options, we may not close our eyes before the dangers of targeting weak customers, standardized discrimination and large-scale labor market exclusion.” — Ralph Müller-Eiselt

How do you see algorithms and AI adapting to the evolving education systems?

The digital era offers a number of potential added values for education. Many of them are inherently dependent on the use of connected data – be it personalizing learning, overcoming motivational barriers through gamification, providing orientation in the jungle of opportunities, or not least, matching individual competencies with labor market demands. The use of algorithms and AI in the education sector is still in its initial phase, with a lot of trial and error to be observed. But technology can and will quite certainly help evolve all these issues in the very near future. Since this might impact education at quite some scale, policy makers should better not await these things to happen and react afterwards, but actively shape regulation now towards sustaining the public good. It is up to us to determine whether AI in education will be a catalyst for strengthening social equity – or for weakening it.

How can we personalize AI to adapt to every classroom and child’s needs?

Personalizing learning to better develop individual capabilities is one of the main opportunities of digital learning. Algorithm-based applications and AI can democratize access to personalized education that for cost-related reasons was previously only available to a limited number of people. But there is a fine line between promise and peril of AI in education. While there are vast opportunities for algorithm-informed advice on competence-oriented curricular choices and job options, we may not close our eyes before the dangers of targeting weak customers, standardized discrimination and large-scale labor market exclusion.

Since AI is made by humans, is there risk that algorithms and AI will not accurately work in an educational setting due to human error? How will mistakes in AI impact the learning experience?

Algorithms are only as good as the humans who designed them. Human error can translate into an algorithm at many stages: from collecting and selecting the data over programming the algorithm to interpreting its output. For example, if an algorithm uses historical data, which is biased in a certain direction due to discriminatory patterns of the past, the algorithm will learn from these patterns and most likely even strengthen this discrimination when it is used at scale. Such unintended errors need to be strictly avoided and constantly checked for, since they would broaden social inequalities in the education sector.

“For policy makers, it is now high time to proactively shape this field towards more social equity. And those being involved in the actual design and development of algorithms should take the time to reflect about their social responsibility and create common standards for professional ethics in this field.” — Ralph Müller-Eiselt

How can these issues be minimized?

As explained in more detail above, we need to do preventive risk assessments and ensure a constant and comprehensive evaluation of algorithm-based applications through neutral third parties. We should also spark a broader public debate and raise awareness for the use, chances and risks of algorithms in education. For policy makers, it is now high time to proactively shape this field towards more social equity. And those being involved in the actual design and development of algorithms should take the time to reflect about their social responsibility and create common standards for professional ethics in this field.

Do AI and algorithms need to be readjusted for different educational systems globally? How important will it be to incorporate cultural differences into formulation of AI?

What most education systems in the world have in common is that they aim to empower and support people in developing their individual capabilities and talents, in short: to create equality of opportunities. However, the ways to approach and achieve this aim are manifold. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses. What works in one place does not necessarily work in another social context. In the same way, algorithm- and AI-based applications need to be adjusted to the particular socio-cultural setting they are being employed in.

(All photos are courtesy of CMRubinWorld)

C. M. Rubin and Ralph Müller-Eiselt

Don’t try to innovate if you’re not prepared to make mistakes.

Steve Jobs once said that “about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

All innovators feel challenged at different points because it’s just part of the work. So how do we teach youth that struggle is good, working hard is good, looking back on your mistakes is good, and finding new ways to tackle challenging problems is really good because all these things are important parts of our learning.

Our Global Teacher Bloggers are pioneers and innovators in fields such as technology integration, mathematics coaching, special needs education, science instruction, and gender equity. They have founded schools, written curricula, and led classrooms in 13 different countries that stretch across every populated continent on earth. These teachers empower and enrich the lives of young people from nearly every background imaginable. This month we asked them: How do we better instill an idea of risk-taking and struggle in students?

“Across OECD countries, eight out of ten students reported that their teachers tell them what they have to learn in every lesson, and seven out of ten students have teachers who ask questions in every lesson to check that students understand what they’re learning,” writes Maarit Rossi (@pathstomath). “It seems that we have still lot to do, not difficult changes, so that students learn to notice that success is a chance for everyone.” Read More.

Craig Kemp (@mrkempnz) describes risk-taking as a “culture of learning” and shares strategies from classrooms around the globe that are helping to normalize struggle including, “support, encourage, model (let them teach the class)”, “encourage teachers to make mistakes so students see it is OK” and “provide plenty of choices to watch their inner genius interpret what to do.” Read More.

“The young people at EducAid have often overcome extraordinary challenges,” writes Miriam Mason-Sesay (@EducAidSL). How has this been achieved “despite the constant battering of life’s daily difficulties in Sierra Leone?” In EducAid’s “Girl Power Group” program, girls and young women are “taught not only about their rights and responsibilities to equality, but also to each other.” Read More.

Teach kids to write! says Shaelynn Farnsworth (@shfarnsworth). “If we want students to be risk-takers, persevere through the struggle, and find success in the process then we must model that as the adult in the classroom.” Shaelynn believes there is nothing “more powerful, or more vulnerable, than when a teacher writes in front of their students.” Read More.

“Life is not a bed of roses,” writes Rashmi Kathuria (@rashkath). “Instill the idea of risk and struggle by engaging them in activities where they get a scope to use their life skills and strengthen them…when someone goes an extra mile they do more than is expected of them.” Read More.

“What if we focus on the process and the journey more than the destination?” writes Jim Tuscano (@jimtuscano). “We also need to design and to align all areas or aspects of learning to support growth mindset. For example, learning activities should give time for students to explore, to work with others, and to always go back and reflect on what they are learning.” Read More.

“When you teach about the great characters from history, science and art, be sure to portray the whole stories: the pains as well as the gains, the human side entwined with the brilliance, the challenges along with the glory,” writes Elisa Guerra Cruz (@ElisaGuerraCruz). “When we take failure out of the equation and embrace struggling as part of the journey, learning becomes again the joyous, stimulating gift it was always meant to be.” Read More.

Nadia Lopez (@TheLopezEffect) shares strategies that revolutionized how her scholars approached learning, including learning spaces “where risks were applauded,” with “co-operative learning to encourage collaboration” and a scholar-centered approach allowing “each individual to contribute to the classroom dialogue and work towards the goal of completing a task collectively.” Read More.

“Schools need to cease their systems of confirming who is not Einstein and start systems and create environments that celebrate the joy that is being oneself and clearly articulating one’s own growth,” writes Richard Wells (@EduWells). “A journey that can be documented and visibly presented to future employers who are crying out for people who show evidence of adaptability and confidence in what they might offer a team or project.” Read More.

The Top Global Teacher Bloggers is a monthly series where educators across the globe offer experienced yet unique takes on today’s most important topics. CMRubinWorld utilizes the platform to propagate the voices of the most indispensable people of our learning institutions – teachers.

(All pictures are courtesy of CMRubinWorld)

Top Row L to R: Adam Steiner, Shaelynn Fransworth, Pauline Hawkins, Kazuya Takahashi

2nd Row L to R: Elisa Guerra, Jasper Rijpma , C.M. Rubin, Carl Hooker, Warren Sparrow

3rd Row L to R: Nadia Lopez, Joe Fatheree, Craig Kemp, Rashmi Kathuria, Maarit Rossi

Bottom Row L to R: Jim Tuscano, Richard Wells, Abeer Qunaibi, Vicki Davis, Miriam Mason-Sesay

“It’s really important that students don’t think of education solely as preparation for the next stage of their life.” — Sir Michael Barber

Sir Michael Barber has been at the forefront of global thinking in education for the past twenty years. He served as Chief Education Advisor to Pearson. He is the Founder and Chairman of Delivery Associates. In the past, Barber has served as the head of the global education practice at McKinsey, advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair, and as a global expert on education reform and implementation of large-scale system change. Additionally, he has been a consultant to governments around the world.

In The Global Search for Education interview that follows, Barber discusses the future of education and the labor market amidst the rise of information technology and the age of innovation. He ponders the possibilities brought on by Artificial Intelligence and how it will transform the way we teach and what we teach.

The Global Search for Education welcomes Sir Michael Barber.

“Students will also need the ability to think in different ways – individually, deductively, creatively, fast, slow, reflective.” — Sir Michael Barber

Michael, what do past changes in the economy tell us about the jobs of the future?

Major economic transformations – as with industrialization – transform the nature of employment. That is happening now – the only difference is that this time the transformation is faster. This means huge opportunities for those with a rounded education and major threats to those without that.

What variables are you looking at to determine what the future of employment will look like?

It’s not just what jobs will exist and what won’t. It’s about what parts of current roles will be automated and what won’t. We’ll still need doctors, for example, but machines will often be more accurate in diagnosis. Ditto lawyers.

How will the future of employment affect how we educate young people?

Everyone will need: High standards in the basics, a good knowledge of history , social science, literature and science. Students will also need the ability to think in different ways (individually, deductively, creatively, fast, slow, reflective). In addition, everyone will need an ethical perspective and a personal sense of ability to contribute.

Character – resilience, leadership, relationship skills, empathy – all this matters as much if not more than ever.” — Sir Michael Barber

In order to bring about major change, the way we assess students probably needs to change significantly. How can we do this?

Some things such as literacy and numeracy can be assessed straightforwardly. Others need more sophisticated options – the technology that underpins beautiful computer games could do sophisticated assessment – more than the player, more than one right answer, more than one route to the answers, for example.

Are their specific subjects worth holding onto even if they are outdated in the labor market?

Of course! Education is not just about the labor market. History, Music, Drama, Sport, Literature should be enjoyed and loved for their own intrinsic worth – as well as for opportunities to lead and shine and to become knowledgeable.

Character has become much more important to employers around the world? Does character education matter more? And is that now the role of schools?

Character – resilience, leadership, relationship skills, empathy – all this matters as much if not more than ever. This is why schools need to offer a range of options beyond the academic and to be, among other things, communities.

“The combination of great teachers and sophisticated AI could be transformative. We will miss the point if we think we have to choose between teachers and AI.” — Sir Michael Barber

What role do you think Artificial Intelligence will have in the future for learning?

The combination of great teachers and sophisticated AI could be transformative. We will miss the point if we think we have to choose between teachers and AI. We need both – fewer, more sophisticated teachers will combine with machines that relieve them of drudgery and provide a powerful evidence base for their teaching.

What do you see as the future of vocational learning? Will a liberal arts education be considered crucial or irrelevant?

Liberal arts are crucial as argued above. They are critical to becoming human. Beyond that I think the academic-vocational debate is unhelpful. In all spheres, we can distinguish between theory and application – both are necessary.

Ten years from now – what will a traditional classroom look like? What will have changed? What will be the same?

It’s really important that students don’t think of education solely as preparation for the next stage of their life. They should – as they put it at School 21 in London – aspire to “do beautiful work” all day every day. Classrooms and buildings need to be flexible.

C. M. Rubin and Sir Michael Barber

This post originally appeared on Inservice.

It’s on us now – even more than before. It’s why we teach.

We teach to prepare our children and youth for society, for life.

We teach to get them ready to face the challenges of life of the next day, and the next week, and the next years.

We teach because we believe that education, knowledge, understanding, will make tomorrow better than today and will make their world, your world, our world, everyone’s world a better place.

What we can do – must do – to ensure this takes place is to reaffirm why we teach. We must reaffirm this with ourselves and with our colleagues.

We are at a place where division has been sown and it is disrupting the establishment of schools as safe, secure learning places for all. Our schools, as reflections of our societies, are being drawn in and tainted by the noise. Bigotry, fear and alienation – if allowed to foster in the learning environment will seep into our societal DNA and across our communities. It will dictate our societies if we allow it. Rhetoric has alienated many, scapegoated others, and remarginalized the already marginalized. The jingoistic talk – shouts, screams – have created environments which without much else can spiral easily out of control.

What to do? It’s on us. Teachers, educators, parents, and communities.

We must reaffirm why we teach.

1. We prepare the next generation for a successful place in society.
2. We instill hope and optimism in the future.
3. We believe that through and with education the world can be a safer more secure place for all.
4. We understand the world is a complex and often daunting place and we prepare our youth for such a world.
5. And we teach children and youth.

That’s what educators do and we must reaffirm it.

Now is the time for educators to create the harmony, to ensure the peace, to prepare the next generation in environments that are safe, supportive, connected, and respectful of all.

Every school has an environment, a climate, a mood – it is either created by design or it is adopted by proxy. It is either developed purposefully or it is imposed. We must create environments – safe learning environments – where each child can grow, develop and learn.

At the most basic level, people form and create school climate through their interactions and actions – Peter DeWitt & Sean Slade

With every interaction in a school, we are either building community or destroying it – James Comer

The simplest step we can make? Understand that we teach children and youth. State that we teach children and youth. Shout that we teach children and youth. Content, facts, figures and formulas are some of what we teach, but it is not who we teach nor why we teach.

Our classrooms are – as Dr. Philip Rodkin an Associate Professor at University of Illinois who sadly passed away a few years ago previously stated – communities of thirty. They are communities of thirty where students are able and frequently required to learn not only cognitively, but also socially and emotionally. Students everyday learn and practice – in this mini community – how to interact with others. They learn how to disagree, dispute, debate. How to form a consensus, how to work with others, and how to make this community – this learning environment – a successful, productive and inclusive environment. They learn how to work together as a group, a team, a community.

It is on us to make these mini communities work and it is on us to embrace the challenge. It is on us to make our schools safe, supportive and inclusive. It’s on us to teach the whole child.

We teach hope. We teach understanding. We teach to make tomorrow better than today.

That’s why we teach and it’s on us now to make it so.

Singularity. It’s discussed by futurists and by scientists. Then there are the rest of us grappling to get our heads around the “reality” that within a decade or so, Artificial Intelligence will cause machines to become “smarter” than human beings. What does all of this mean for quality of life and future learning?

Ray Kurzweil talks about “tools that will extend our reach.” He notes that they’re already “making us smarter,” and he believes they’re going to make us “funnier” and even “better at music.” In a nutshell, “we’re really going to exemplify all the things that we value in humans to a greater degree.”

Elon Musk and a group of robotics and AI companies on the other hand have asked the UN to focus on the third revolution in warfare fueled by this technology. Once developed, lethal autonomous weapons “will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend.” These groups believe that the technology will create “weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways.”

Who gets to control these machines? Where are the weekly forums on the pros and cons of this innovation with all the stakeholders involved? Indeed, does anyone other than a few experts and a few educated citizens really have a good grasp of what we’re dealing with here?

One thing we all must do is continue to educate ourselves consistently and get engaged in global discourse on the implications of what all of this will mean for our children, their learning and the future we want.

The Millennial Bloggers are based all over the world. They are innovators in entrepreneurship, journalism, education, entertainment, health and wellbeing and academic scholarship. This month we posed this question: Do we need to regulate AI now before it becomes a danger to humanity?

“We are experiencing a time, where five companies are holding most of the economical (and even political) power in the world: Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. These companies have the power to impact some of the biggest questions of our time,” writes Reetta Heiskanen. “We should think about fundamental questions: what are the elements that make human a human? And what are the ingredients that help us execute our own, individual potential?” Read: Humanity in the time of Artificial Intelligence.

“It is crucial to control the power and availability of AI in order to prevent the dominance of powerful companies with large amounts of data and funding,” writes Sajia Darwish. “We need to ensure that AI is used solely for educational, medical, scientific, and social purposes to ensure that it does not harm broader communities and the security of the world.” Read: Who Decides the Future of AI?

“Blade Runner 2049 had recently offered me a vision of a more emotionally evolved Alexa – Ryan Gosling’s flickering, buxom fantasy, who occupied his futuristically claustrophobic living unit with coquettishness and bonhomie that I suspect will remain more elusive for the enterprising engineers at Google,” writes James Kernochan. “Yet the quicksand of this visionary landscape remained just that, mixed in hues of orange desert, grey expanses of trash, and the ghostly black depths of the nighttime storm-tossed sea in the final standoff.” Read: Bright Lights Dead City Living with the Machine.

“It saddens me to think that a technology that could improve the lives of billions, like implementing autonomous farming to ensure all of the world’s peoples are sufficiently fed is being warped into creating new age killing machines,” writes Wilson Carter. Read: Do we need to regulate AI now before it becomes a danger to humanity?

“Perpetuating sexism and other harmful beliefs in our society is a danger, and it sheds light on who is currently producing these algorithms. Do we need to think more carefully about who controls and owns these means of production, and who they are accountable to?” writes Bonnie Chiu. “These discussions must not be contained within the techies and geeks, but must involve the wider society.” Read: Gender Politics of Artificial Intelligence.

The Millennial Bloggers are Alusine Barrie, Sajia Darwish, James Kernochan, Kamna Kathuria, Jacob Deleon Navarrete, Reetta Heiskanen, Shay Wright, Isadora Baum, Wilson Carter III, Francisco Hernandez, Erin Farley, Dominique Alyssa Dryding, Harry Glass, Harmony Siganporia and Bonnie Chiu.

(All photos are courtesy of CMRubinWorld)

Top Row: C.M. Rubin, Alusine Barrie, Sajia Darwish, James Kernochan

2nd Row: Kamna Kathuria, Jacob Deleon Navarrete, Reetta Heiskanen, Shay Wright

3rd Row: Isadora Baum, Wilson Carter III, Francisco Hernandez, Erin Farley

Bottom Row: Dominique Alyssa Dryding, Harry Glass, Harmony Siganporia, Bonnie Chiu

She is an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE, 2010), Google for Education Certified Innovator (2014), Recipient of ISTE ‘Making IT Happen’ Award (2013), and winner of the ISTE Online Learning Award (2007). Julie is completing a Ph.D. with a research focus on online global collaborative educators and pedagogical change. Her most recent book, ‘The Global Educator’ (ISTE, 2016) shares practices, pedagogy and case studies on how to learn and collaborate online.

Read more: http://about.me/julielindsay Follow Julie on Twitter @julielindsay.

Julie will be joining the #EdmodoChat on Global Collaboration in Education Sunday, February 11 5pm PT / 8pm ET. Join us!

There are two important aspects of global collaborative learning leading to action within schools. The first of these is “why collaborate globally?” Research shows that global collaboration learning is inquiry-based and shared with others beyond the classroom (such as family and friends). It also supports digital literacy, as well as many other kinds of literacy. As students learn beyond the textbook, they develop multimodal communication skills and real world experience by working in virtual teams. Through global collaboration, students adopt an active participatory approach where they are fully engaged with their activities. This fosters increased engagement, diminishes classroom disruption, and empowers learners.

Positive outcomes from learning online with others at a distance include:

• Enhanced cultural understanding and willingness to collaborate with others on building knowledge
• Decreased ethnocentricity, and increased tolerance and empathy for others
• Enhanced global competencies, new global skills, broader perspectives
• Technology that can be used for more than ‘social casual interactions’ and can lead to productivity
• Personal actions that have an impact and can make a difference

The second aspect  is “How can we enable online global collaboration?” This is a vital question that schools and individual educators continue to grapple with. There are three key areas to consider:

• Personal enablers – These include: Development of a strong Personal Learning Network (PLN) to be able to connect with others beyond the immediate school and build trusting relationships with others; understanding of a set of tools that support online global collaboration (such as Edmodo) and realising that school-based systems usually do not allow direct collaborative interaction outside the campus; and professional learning in global learning design and project development.
• Situational enablers – These refer to factors more outside of teacher control such as a flexible and collaborative approach to curriculum development within the school; supportive administration and school community; and school technology infrastructure that allows for access to online tools for communication and collaboration.
• Global project structure and organisation – A successful collaborative global project relies on effective communication between teachers, clear organisation and workflow agreement; empathy building activities between students develops trust and provides a pathway for ongoing collaboration; and carefully chosen digital tools support the expected learning outcomes.

When starting to plan for online global collaboration in your learning environment, make sure communication is open between you and your school community, and between you and potential global partners. Teacher “mindset”—although perhaps a nebulous concept—is another vital enabler. Be willing to take risks, be prepared to “fail forward”—knowing that the second and third global collaboration will continue to build skills and competencies for positive outcomes. Above all, avoid the “fear factor” and make sure you jump into online collaboration—start local with your class in Edmodo first, then move to learning with others at a distance. Have clear curriculum objectives, expect high levels of digital citizenship amongst all participants, and actively applaud achievements, no matter how small.

Julie will be joining the #EdmodoChat on Global Collaboration in Education Sunday, February 11 5pm PT / 8pm ET. Join us!