Community Engagement, Globally and Locally.

One of the reasons that I joined the COETAIL program was that I knew it would push me to develop my network by using digital tools to connect with other educators globally.  Prior to joining COETAIL, I had a limited online presence in a professional sense, which is a very large oversight for anyone looking …

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An 18 Month Transition from Twitter Skeptic to Advocate.

I will be honest from the outset: my attitude toward Twitter in the past could have been described as ambivalent - at best.  And that would be somewhat charitable. I think the reason for my initial impression about Twitter is because I had understood Twitter to be an almost exclusively social phenomenon, where people go …

Putting Global Collaboration into Practice

For the Course 2 final project, I worked with fellow COETAIL Cohort 9 participants Rory Bell and Gene Marie Chagaris.  Each of us brought a somewhat different perspective to the project, having different roles in our home schools, not to mention living in very different places - Switzerland (me), Taiwan (Gene Marie), and Japan (Rory). …

From Digital Potential to Real Action

The possibilities that now exist for students (and teachers!) to leverage digital technology to foster change is one of the most exciting and promising emerging frontiers of education in the 21st century.  I wrote a bit already about this topic in my previous blog post, where I focused on the “citizen” aspect of “digital citizenship”. …

Reflections on a Globally Connected Classroom

The final round of readings for course 1 focused on a topic that I have been keenly interested in for the past few years:  the impact that globally collaborative projects can have on learning.  Digital communications technologies are now allowing educators and students to form connections that span the globe, allowing a level of collaboration …

The Potential of Networks – Only Fully Realized When Active.

I found the first two chapters of Reach by Jeff Utecht to confirm and reinforce what I have (unfortunately somewhat slowly) come to understand recently in my professional life - that using social networking platforms to grow your PLN will positively enhance your own professional learning and growth.   For many years I never paid …