The document discusses implementing global collaborative projects in a school to foster critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and meet national technology standards. It describes how such projects are based on constructivist learning principles and recent studies have found online collaboration positively impacts learning outcomes. The document outlines developing a paradigm shift to include global education by using existing digital equipment and online lesson plans. It discusses teachers at the school who were early adopters and laggards of this innovation, with strategies to help convince laggards, including finding ways to supplement the curriculum.

1. Slide 1-Need: Date: 6 /30 /2011 Global Collaboration Text Notes: Need: What problem or need existed that gave rise to your innovation? Our school’s mission is to provide an educational environment which enables students to strive for excellence in academics. By restating our mission to include developing 21 st century learners we would foster a climate of critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. We would increase our competitive edge and appeal to potential parents by meeting the ISTE NETS Standards (national) .

2. Slide 2 Research: Date: 6 /30 /2011 : Text Notes: Research: What research organization or people developed a solution to this problem or need? What were their findings? Who were the “lead thinkers” for this innovation, and how did they convince a manufacturer to produce it? Global Collaborative Projects are based upon constructivist principles. Piaget felt that learners construct knowledge and learn through interaction with others. Palloff and Pratt (2005) report that, “Recent studies of the online learning environment [where the global collaborative projects I propose take place] have noted that involvement…has contributed positively to learning outcomes” (p.7). The identified gap in the literature are actual studies within the past five years demonstrating that global collaborative projects raise student achievement. [Note to Dr. Almasude: I continue searching for such studies.]

3. Slide 3 - Development: Date: 6 /30 /2011 : Text Notes: “ Development is the process of putting a new idea in a form that is expected to meet the needs of an audience of potential adopters.” Refocusing our mission from ourselves to our global community will require a paradigm shift in the community’s ideas about schools but will not be so foreign to the community’s ideas about missions.

4. Slide 4 - Commercialization: Date: 6 /30 /2011 : Text Notes: Commercialization: Describe the production, manufacturing, packaging, marketing, and distribution of your innovation. Incorporating global education into our classrooms can be accomplished through use of digital equipment our school already owns and in many cases has already installed in specific classrooms. Ready to go projects and lesson plans already exist on the internet for many subject areas.

5. Slide 5 - Characteristics of Innovations Date7/23/2011 : Text Notes: October 2010 Ms. Clever’s 1 st Grade Broadfording Christian Academy Who would you expect to be (or who are) the innovators and early adopters in your field of work for the innovation you are exploring? One would expect the high school teachers followed by middle school teachers to support global collaborative projects but at this school the oldest teacher who had been at that school the longest (35 years) was the first to be excited about collaborating with teachers in other countries. This class collaborated with a 1 st grade in China to study our countries and farmers’ markets (wet markets in China). The 1 st graders wore masks on their blog so we did too. What strategies are the most persuasive in convincing them to adopt the innovation? Easy technology (VoiceThread & when China blocked it, we used iPadio), assistance of the technology integrator. Global collaboration fit into the Social Studies curriculum. We sent many more pictures of our Chinese food & dress party than we have a record of since at one point the only thing not blocked was email. . Dianna Clever collaborated with Amy Hossack’s 1 st grade in Shanghai China at the Shanghai American School.

6. Slide 6 – Characteristics of Innovations Date: 7/23/2011 : Text Who do you think would be (or who are) the laggards in terms of rejecting the innovation? What strategies would be best to help move them toward adoption? Laggards at BCA would be those who see no use for global collaboration. Finding a reason that fits in with the curriculum persuades laggards to adopt the innovation. Which combination of perceived attributes would be best for helping your innovation meet critical mass in your industry? Spending time in each classroom to determine the best supplement to established curriculum that would persuade a teacher to use it in a non-threatening way would best help this innovation to meet critical mass at BCA (Broadfording Christian Academy). Remember->Start Small, Start Simple! A self-proclaimed technology hater, Ms. Sheetz collaborated with other elementary teachers studying the civil war and hosted “Civil War Sallie”. This included making a video, taking daily digital photos, and writing blog entries. The class retained more history (on the tests anyway) and followed Civil War Sallie’s travels to other classrooms around the country. While this was not a global collaboration, Ms. Sheetz did indicate She would be ready the following school year to collaborate on a global scale. She made several podcasts on her own (without my help) after this experience.

7. Potential References Hostetle, A. L. (2009). Democratic citizenship in a global society: purposeful use of technology in social studies classrooms. Ohio Social Studies Review , 45(1), 51-58. Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Scheidet, R. A. (2003). Improving Student Achievement by Infusing a Web- Based Curriculum into Global History. Journal of Research on Technology in Education , 36(1), 77-94.