TEDxNYED - Connect Now

8/7/2019 TEDxNYED - Connect Now

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Connect Now!

1LucyGray

Saturday, March 5, 2011

My name is Lucy Gray and my passion is connecting people.

It’s time to connect your classrooms to the world, I’d like to share some of my experiencesthat have led me to call for action.

I believe in technology, professional generosity and global connectedness will helpmodernize education.



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The Global Education

Conference

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Around the clock


The Global Education Conference that took place last November was the most profoundlychallenging, exhilarating, rewarding, and exhausting professional experience of my life todate was this event. I never thought Steve Hargadon and I would pull this of .

How many of you saw a session?How many of you presented?Anyone from here from our partner organizations?



Steve Hargadon


By the time, the conference closed, Steve and I were a bit punchy to say the least as we spentthe entire week glued to our computers.

It’s hard to describe the feeling in a virtual room, but the closing session vibe was remarkablyjubliant. People shared their experiences and suggestions, and it was really rewarding to hearthese stories.

Some people may brush of technology as a de-humanizing force in our world, but I canassure you of the opposite. This event bonded people and given the locations of participants,I don’t think this would have been possible without technology.




My 8 year old came home from school shortly after the conference ended, and I announcedhappily that my event was over. He pointed to the blue armchair in our living room, and said,“Now you can leave that chair!”.




The backstory is a little fuzzy in our memories, but to the best of my knowledge, Steve firstapproached me at Educon 2010 about creating a significant education event leveraging ouronline communities, the Global Education Collaborative and Classroom 2.0 as well asElluminate, a video conference service that serves as a consultant for. He asked me what wecould that would be BIG, taking advantage of the collaborative properties of Elluminate. Myresponse was that we should do an online conference, similar to the K12 Online conference,but entirely in Elluminate. Our idea stagnated for awhile, until Steve attended the CoSNconference that March and was inspired to start moving on this project by CoSN ExecutiveDirector, Keith Krueger.

Called the Global Education Conference, our intent was to facilitate a collaborative and world-wide community project designed to significantly increase opportunities for globally-connecting education activities.

Steve and I coordinated our event to coincide with International Education Week 2010. Fromthe start, we wanted this to be as inclusive as possible and we ended up with over 400sessions and 60 keynote presentations taking place around the clock for five days. Presentershailed from over 60 countries. All of this content is archived and freely available to anyone

with an internet connection.

About 6 months beforehand, we started to build this event, enlisting the help of hundreds of volunteer educators worldwide and this advisory board was led by Julie Lindsay, aninternational school educator currently based in Beijing. We also partnered with over 100global education organizations who were charged with submitting presentations and forspreading the world.

Behind the scenes, our plans were developed using Wikispaces, Google Docs and Forms,Sites, Calendars and a clever tool called You Can Book me which allowed our session

presenters to book their presentation slots directly on a Google calendar The resulting



I have truly enjoyed this experience. I've been ableto get the benefits of a conference- collaboration,

brainstorming, samples of work amidst the regular

workday. And there is something to be said about

sitting with a cup of tea from your own kitchen

while listening to new ideas.

Listening to presenters made me proud to be ateacher. They are so clearly professionals, and

teachers in the US have been pummeled lately. So

it was wonderful to remember why I teach, and to

"be" with like-minded teachers.

It really makes the world feel small.

This conference brings the world to a developingcountry where teachers work against huge odds

with few to no resources. Their determination is

exemplary. Without such conferences their story

would be missed by many.

Wow - what an incredible concept! And, at the

same time, why isn't all learning like this?!

I think this is the future of professional

development!


This is some of the feedback we received that justified my feelings.

Reactions to the conference have been really positive, and it’s also been interesting to hearhow people took advantage of the conference. I recently heard that one school in Los Angelesdevoted a classroom and projected various sessions continuously through the school day.Teachers could stop by during their prep or lunch periods to take part in the conference.



Lessons Learned

Along the Way


So, how did I get this place where I had the good fortune to participate in such a rich event?I’ve thought a lot about this and for me, The Global Education Conference was theculmination of lessons learned over the past few years. These lessons are:

•Time is of the essence.

•Our children (or grandchildren or kids we love) are our litmus tests.

•Professional generosity benefits everyone.

•Our physical, emotional and cognitive boundaries need to be extended.



What are we waiting for?

Text


The Global Education Conference was the pinnacle of a relatively new journey I’ve taken ineducation. Because of various experiences, I’ve arrived at a place where I believe that globalconnectedness plays a very important role in modernizing education.

Let me preface this by noting that until recently I am not the savviest world traveler, nospeaker of many languages, no real expert in global education. My passion is for connectingpeople and educational innovation; global education is a part of that.

For me, it starts with Julia and Henry. My school-aged kids don’t have the luxury of waitingfor change. Via my travels as a consultant and through new media, I interact with people allover the world, listening to their stories about what’s happening in their classrooms andsecretly hoping my kids will have the same opportunities in their classrooms. My role as aparent needing information on best practices underlies all that I do, and I can tell you frommy experiences that we have a long way to go in this country in terms of raising globalawareness.



Practice professional

generosity.


One factor that fuels my work is what I consider my moral obligation to be professionalgenerous. Sharing what I know leads to learning from others and these mutually beneficiallyrelationships lead to change. I think it’s especially important that we all practice professionalgenerosity as teachers are currently under close scrutiny.

Several years ago, I complimented a colleague on her groundbreaking work in educationaltechnology, and suggested that she blog about her experiences so that others could learnfrom her. She replied, “That might be how you do things, Lucy, but it’s not for me. I get 25emails a day from people asking me questions, and they can learn it just like I did. RTFM.” Ivowed at that moment to never develop a similar attitude and this professional generosity hasbeen an underlying theme in all of my work.

Through the Global Education Conference, I’ve seen this concept come alive. We had a virtualconference lounge where people could come for help and volunteers gathered there to beassigned sessions to moderate. These moderators often jumped in to fill holes in ourschedule. My favorite story was when my friend and mentor Larry Anderson stopped by tocheck out the conference and was so moved by the sessions that he viewed the moderatortraining video and started helping out around the clock.



Push our boundaries.Saturday, March 5, 2011

During the course of my work, I have also learned, too, that it’s scary to push beyond one’sown comfort zone, but the rewards are worth it.

This picture of barbequed stingray in Singapore reminds me of this... I am not one of thosepeople who relishes new foods, but I know that I’m going to miss out if I don’t take a bite.That’s how I feel about global education... if we don’t connect schools, our kids are going tomiss out on rich and authentic experiences.



See the world and understand.Saturday, March 5, 2011

In 2006, a trip to Berlin, Dresden and Prague with Apple Distinguished Educator colleaguesalso influenced me. We were charged with creating a global awareness curriculum usingdigital artifacts from our experiences and I came to the very basic realization that given thestate of technological advances at least here in the US, there is no excuse for NOT connecting.

How can we can we expect students to understand the world without seeing it in person orthrough virtual experiences?How can we expect students to engage with the world unless we model it?How can we truly understand others if we never interact with them?



http://globaleducation.ning.comThe Global Education

Collaborative


In 2007, inspired by the success of Steve Hargadon’s Classroom 2.0 social network whichnow has over 50,000 members, I decided to create a similar community focused on globaleducation. The Global Education Collaborative has a members of approximately 4700 peoplefrom over 100 dif erent countries. Anyone with an interest in developing projects, sharingresources, and bringing attention to global initiatives is welcome to participate. Our goal is toserve as a central location for connecting and finding resources that promote connections foradults and students alike.



@oline73: Can you distill why globally

connected classrooms are vital in 2010? (More

than say, 30 years ago)

It's because we have urgent problems that need

to be addressed and in order to prepare our

students to work on these problems, we mustconnect them globally. We must teach them how

networked learning leads to networked problem

solving.


As I started brainstorming for this presentation last fall, I serendipitously received a tweetfrom New York educator George Haines. He put me on the spot for a 140 character answerand my response was:

It's because we have urgent problems that need to be addressed and in order to prepare ourstudents to work on these problems, we must connect them globally. We must teach themhow networked learning leads to networked problem solving.

I think often of Jean-Francois Rischard’s work, High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years toSolve Them and he makes it clear that these pressing issues are not going to be solved inisolation. Solutions lie beyond borders and the global community must rally.



Need Further Evidence?Saturday, March 5, 2011

If you need further convincing, look at just what has happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain andLibya. Consider the role of technology in informing and empowering the voices of many whowould have been drowned out 30 years ago.

During the Egyptian protests, my friend Atif who teaches in Cairo sent me this tweet. At first,Ididn’t quite get what he was asking because I think everyone in the US generally knew of theevents unfolding. It occurred to me later that the news is heard here, but I wonder how wellpeople listened and truly understood the perspective of people living in Egypt. I think thedesperation I read in Atif’s tweet came from years of experiencing partial truths and inactionagainst injustice... he was really saying, I think, was, “Make people listen and act”.

I also think that because of social media, our students will continute to be exposed to globalevents as they unfold, and it’s up to us as educators to prepare them to analyze andparticipate for these situations.




I took this picture of an arbor of trees outside the Berlin Jewish Museum in 2006 when Ivisited Europe with my ADE colleagues. To me it represents my global awakening. I realizedthat it’s never been easier to connect with others using the technology tools at our disposal.If I can reach out and connect with others around the world, so can you. It’s your obligationto do so with your students.

I’m going to pretend that I won the TED Prize and here’s my wish for you.

Get connected and come join me on this journey in the Global Education Collaborative and atthe 2011 Global Education Conference which will take place November 14-18 this year!

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