Future Plans (Global Classroom)

This is the 6th post in a seven part series that details how @Capt_KK and I are creating a global classroom. If you're interested in reading the whole journey here are all 7 posts in this series:

Learning with Tomorrow
Connecting our Classrooms via Daily Emails
International Naval Warfare
Connecting our Classrooms - Weekly Video Series
Student Success Stories
Future Plans
How To Connect YOUR Classroom

Below are just a few examples of how we plan to continue our connection. If you have any other ideas or would like to share your own experience with teaching in a global classroom, please leave a comment below!

Daily Emails: 
Email is such an easy way to keep the students connected. After our battleship game ends, we hope to come up with another idea that provides for daily communication.

Subject Specific (Teacher) Videos 
Many different parts of the curriculums that Jacqui and I teach overlap (Ecosystem Unit, geometry, measurement and nearly all other math concepts, etc.) We plan to help provide each other with shared experiences on many common curricular concepts throughout the year.

Even if our content doesn't overlap, we plan to help each other teach certain concepts together as well. For example, my students and I will soon studying the seasons, time zones and the moon. Being in a different hemisphere and time zone, these make for obvious concepts that Jacqui can help provide information on.

Here's a short video I put together for Jacqui's students who don't get to experience freezing temperatures:

Subject Specific (Student) Videos 
Of course, the more the students can create the better! Just this past week one of Jacqui's students asked the highly scientific question: Does water in opposite hemispheres drain in the opposite direction?  He made a video at home and tested to see the direction water drains in Australia. One of my students video taped the answer and we shared the results between the two classes! It was great to see the students be inquisitive and take initiative to create videos on their own for each other!

Skype
Just yesterday, Jacqui Skyped with my students and we will continue to Skype with each other's class periodically throughout the year. The call was great as the students were able to ask her several questions about science.  We also will have planned a Skype call with both classes of students in May. My students will Skype at 8p.m. after a parent event and Jacqui's students will be invited to come to school 30 minutes early to participate in the call at 8a.m.

Blogging 
In the future we would like to connect our students through blogging, like one of the students mentioned in the last post. If the students were on the same Kidblog account, they would have much more interaction with one another as they could read and comment on their global classmates' blogs!

Twitter
We also may try to use class Twitter accounts to communicate with one another. This way, parents and other educators could follow along with our journey as well!

I hope that you're able to see the benefit in participating in a Global Classroom. The next post will conclude the seven part series and will focus on how YOU can begin your own global classroom journey! Stay tuned!

Interested in creating a global classroom? Follow the #globalclassroom and #flatclass hashtags on Twitter for ideas from educators around the globe!  Here are just a few others I follow that continuously provide excellent global classroom resources:  @flatclassroom and @julielindsay.