This document provides an overview of how one teacher, Anne Mirtschin, brings global connections into the classroom. It describes various digital tools used for connecting students internationally, including Skype, blogs, Twitter, Voicethread and virtual classrooms. Examples are given of student interactions with peers in countries like Russia, Malaysia, Canada and Antarctica. Benefits discussed include developing cultural awareness, collaboration skills, and allowing students to act as experts. The document advocates building a personal learning network and provides contact details for the teacher.

1. Bringing the globe into
Your Classroom
Anne Mirtschin
Hawkesdale P12 College
mirtschin@gmail.com
http://murcha.wordpress.com

2. Hawkesdale P12 College – a small rural prep-year 12 school

3. Connect, communicate,
collaborate, create

4. Look at the beautiful sunset over my backyard. We had a
severe drought this year. Our cows lost a lot of weight
while the drought was on. My dad was awfully busy
trying to keep water and hay up to them. Since the
downpour of rain, they are in much better condition.
We have a mountain in our backyard called Mt Buggery.
It is really a volcanic tumulus and has 2 trees - a
dead pine tree and a young pine tree on top.
Flick, year 8 blog post

5. Comments!!!
Your “backyard” is beautiful! Thank you for
sharing it with the world.
Lori, California
Thank you so much for sharing your
backyard. When we all share like this, it
makes our world just a little smaller and
better.
She Wolf

8. West Java Earthquake
September 8th
• 7.3 richter scale
• 64 deaths, 37 people missing, and 27,630
people displaced in nine districts in West Java
and one in Central Java.
• Approximately 54,231 houses were damaged
in 12 districts in West Java and one district in
Central Java.

9. Speaking directly with earthquake victims 12
hours after the occurrrence using skype

10. Australian food – the meat pie with sauce

11. Students from Malaysia show national costumes

12. Students from Malaysia ‘wow’ us with street dancing rendition

13. Year 12 Mandarin LOTE student
(distance education) talks to
Malaysian student in Chinese using
skype

14. Some benefits
• Students as experts
• Peer to peer mentoring
• Authentic audience
• Self directed learning
• Project Based Learning
• Performing beyond personal comfort zones
• Many, many teachable moments
• Engagement
• Catering for all learning styles
• Multi literacies
• Using the digital technologies that students are born into

15. Social software in the classroom...
What does it feel like, sound like, look like?
• Excitement
• Fun
• Noise/silence/laughter
• Beyond class walls
• Team teaching
• Group work – virtual teams
• Personal Learning networks - across the globe

16. Impact for teaching/learning
• New digital literacies
- communication
- attention
- media
- Organizational
- remix technically, reuse ethically, identity
creation and management, evaluation of
sources , spam/phish detection

17. asynchronous connections
• Blogging.
• Wikis
• Nings
• Google applications
• Online Mailing lists

18. http://flurogreen.globalstudent.org.au
http:skippy.globalstudent.org.au

19. Blogs
• globalstudent/globalteacher
• Wordpress
• blogger
• blogmeister
• edublogs

20. Steph’s independent post prompt
I’ll ask the world a question (that’s you) and you answer it
whats your favorite movie and why?

21. So wrote a grade 5 girl, independently, as her
own post prompt
She got 15 replies from countries including the
UK, Israel, NZ and USA

22. • There are plenty of illegal immigrants in australia
and each day many are sent home. illegal
immigrants tend to have a non valid visa. some
people who come here dont have a visa at all.
Illegal immigrants come from all over the world.
what happens to all of the illegal immigrants
once they have been found out is they get
relocated back to the country they came from.

23. Melissa // Oct 18th 2008 at 2:30 pm
• That is what happens here in the United States as well. Visas are
really a big part of it because visas take a long time to get, and then
people just come illegally. Where are the illegal immigrants that
come to Australia from?
Juliet Pham // Oct 18th 2008 at 5:21 pm
• How do you feel about the fact that the illegal immigrants are
relocated? Do you believe that it’s fair? I don’t think that it is. I
really think that it would depend on the reason. Are the immigrants
doing any harm really? That’s pretty interesting that Australia does
have illegal immigrants because I never thought a place like
Australia would because of the fact that it doesn’t have any
countries near it or any land bridges.
Travis Bugge // Oct 18th 2008 at 5:21 pm
• how do they get there? are they snuck on a plane or something? fur
us, its pretty much peole crossing the border, or swimming over
here. which part of austrailia do they go to?

24. Uses for Voicethread
www.voicethread.com
• Storytelling
• Reflections
• Reporting on extracurricula
activities
• Global projects
See example Another example
VoiceVideoTextImages

25. Wikis
• Wikispaces
• Wetpaint
• Pbworld

26. • Hello i am Kelly, from Australia!!!..i will answer these questions for you!!!
Question 1: How many meals a day are eaten in Australia? (Example: United States usually has 3 meals a
day, although current days, people tend to eat any number of meals.)
kelly says: we have 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch and tea) but we do have snacks in between these
meals
(morning tea and afternoon tea).
In further detail, what are the types of meals you have? Such as, is breakfast a hot or cold meal? Or is it
either? From what I've learned about Germany, usually their lunch is the hot meal of the day, and they
usually have the one hot meal, where breakfast and dinner tend to be a cold meal. In the United States,
Dinner tends to be the hot meal.
Question 2: Are video games very popular, or, if not, what activities do most people do in their free time?
kelly says: video games are fairly popular here, yes. Other than sitting infront of the
television/computer all day, a lot of people play sports,go shopping or just hang around with friends.
(well thats what i do anyway!!)
(I cannot think of a further expansion for this question)
Question 3: How are the people in Australia? Are most friendly? Wide variety? Location dependent?
kelly says: well most of us are friendly, we are all pretty loud and outgoing people. But just like
everywhere else we have some shy people. And just out of interest.. what do you mean by location
dependent??

27. Students as experts:- Year 9/10 students answer questions from USA so
students could develop Australian travel posters

28. Flatclassroom wiki
-http://flatclassroomswikispaces.com

29. http://netgened.wikispaces.com

30. onafrica

31. A comment - onafrica
Trevor Shaw said
at 8:51 am on Apr 28, 2009
I think it's really interesting that a school from the US
and a school
from Australia (both of which were colonized by the
British and heavily
settled by the Dutch) are working on this together. I
wonder what perspectives
about colonization the two groups of students will
discover that they might share in
common and what perspectives might distinguish
them. In what ways might former colonies in Africa
differ from places like the US and Australia?

32. nings
Nings
• social networking,
• blogging,
• forums,
• discussions,
• Multimedia:- images, videos, music
• Virtual teamwork
• Global projects

34. Let’s walk a ning
http://netgened.grownupdigital.com/

35. Digital movie stills on Semantic
Aware Appications

36. Awards Ceremony

37. This is a flatclassroom!

38. The Flatclassroomproject
• wiki (http://flatclassroom09-
2.flatclassroomproject.org/and ning
(http://flatclassroomproject.ning.com/)
• Netgened wiki (
http://netgened.wikispaces.com/)
• Digiteen wiki (
http://digiteen09-2.flatclassroomproject.org/)

39. Google Applications
Google groups and other applications
• sheet,
• forms,
• document,
• presentation etc
• Google calender
• igoogle

40. Synchronous connections
• Liveblogging http://www,coveritlive.com
• Videoconferencing www.skype.com
• DiscoverE virtual classroom software.
• virtual classroom http://www.elluminate.com and DiscoverE
• Back channels eg http://www.chatzy.com and http://www.tinychat.com
• http://www.twitter.com
• Google applications
• Bridgit conferencing software which comes with Interactive White Boards
• www.flickr.com an online image sharing site
• Virtual worlds – reactiongrid in Open Sim
• superclubsPLUS – “facebook” for the young, safe environment
• Voicethreads - podcasting collaboratively with pizzazz

41. Live blogging
http://www.coveritlive.com
Moderated chat that allows polls, image and
music uploads etc
• School connections
• conference reporting and other live sessions
• live events for staff
• Surveys

42. Videoconferencing
• Skype
• MS Communicator
• Elluminate
• MSN
• Flash meeting etc

43. Uses of videoconferencing
• Access Expert speakers
• Global communications
• Global ‘show ‘n tell’
• Improve cultural awareness
• Encouraging collaboration
• Developing real time communication skills
• Conducting interviews
• Enhance distance learning etc

44. Dddddddddddddddddddd
Skype and slideshare to teach students from Canada about
• Australia and Culture
• School
• Community
• farm
Student from Canada asks questionHow it all looked back in Canada

45. Student feedback
• That was soo cool! it was real awesome of the cool things i (and everyone)
learned, I think i'm gonna do some research on more later...
• i really liked the fact that we were actually talking to her. not just in email. i
thought all the pictures she showed were pretty sweet. also, i thought it was cool
how we are used to different surroundings and habbits.. yes, we dont say put your
bookbag in the boot... i still find it awsome, though. i love australia so much! (not
to mention thier accents!)
• i loved her accent. when she said RIGHT-O ! hahaha !
• It was incredible,
Its just so different from what is normal here. I probably would of never found any
of that out if it wasn't for that presentation!
• that was an EXCELENT, presentation. I LOVED IT.
it was very interesting, and i think that getting to learn chinese
is a very diffrent thing then what we learn here.
THANK-YOU SO MUCH. :D
• i dont really understand why they learn chinese... i dont really think that makes
much sense
• we wanted to know what bubble taps were.

46. Sharing objects that are
symbolic of our countries

47. A linkup with a school in Russia

48. Grades 3 to 7 listen to students from Singapore
talke about racial harmony

49. Keynote speaker – uni lecturer from Doha,
Qatar, speaks to students at Qatar Academy
and Hawkesdale P12 College about citizenship
journalism.

50. Listening to the citizenship journalism address

51. Skyping Endang from Indonesia in the batik markets

52. Interviewing Professionals
-an English project

53. Online debating

54. Debating online

55. The virtual classroom
Learning about musical instruments from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
www.pingmusic.com.au

56. Using elluminate- virtual classroom software
Using elluminate
Virtual classroom

57. Advantages of Virtual Classrooms
• students are in their own ’space’, feel important and have a chance to be
‘heard’ as cannot be achieved in the normal classroom.
• students are able to interact in real time with the lesson and they are no
longer passive listeners. They use chat, emoticons, etc and offer feedback
to the musicians as they are playing. We have had to set up a code of
conduct for the chat , after a number of issues.
• students can ask questions at any stage and these questions will be
answered.
• they immediately tell you if they do not Students have the chance and
feel comfortable with expressing their opinions and needs.
• can invite global participants in, or other interested parties, so that they
too can witness the class in action eg sponsors, benefactors, software
developers, policy makers etc.
See my post on elluminate

58. DiscoverE
• DiscoverE virtual classroom software.
• Uses low bandwidth and has basic tools for
classroom use – chat, audio, video,
whiteboard, webtours

59. A true global classroom – a student
from Hawkesdale, two from China, two
from Bangkok and one from USA are
taught by an optician about the eye,
using discoverE virtual classroom
software.

60. Antarctica linkup

61. Virtual worlds
• Quest Atlantis – for primary
students
• Second life –
tertiary/secondary
• OpenSim- secondary

62. Social networking
For students
• SuperclubsPLUS
• Gold Star café
• Nings

63. Using Twitter
• teachable moments
• research and quick answers to questions on all
manner of topics
• Learning of world events as they occur in real
time
• sharing work, blog posts
• establishing student networks etc

64. • jplaman@murcha I think every student should begin building a PLN. Twitter happens to be
the first thing I turn to in the morning to learn.
• emapey2@murcha Greetings from Uruguay , in South America
• mbarrow@murcha Greetings from England. It is 40 minutes past midnight here and I should
be asleep rather than twittering. Hope you’re having fun
• edueyeview@murcha Love Twitter! Hello from coastal Maine, US. Welcome to the
conversation!
• lnitsche@murcha Hello from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania USA where is felt like spring
today at about 65F
• damian613@murcha Hello from Perkasie, PA, USA! It’s about 8:30pm here and 13 degrees C.
• classroomqueen@murcha Hello from a very, very cold Regina, SK, Canada. It’s warmed up to
-21C or -35C with windchill. This am it was -47C with windchill.
• Inpi@murcha Hello from Portugal! It’s 22 past midnight here, I can’t introduce my
students!!!
• nzchrissy@murcha Hello fabulous students in Victoria from Bangkok Thailand where it is very
hot at the moment
• chetty@murcha Hi Vic. Nice to meet u. I’ve just realised we can use iGoogle + twitter app to
tweet from NSW. What are you working on?
• jeffwhipple@murcha a chilly evening to you and your students from New Brunswick on the
east coast of Canada…twitter is about connecting and learning
• MelissaShultz@murcha Greetings from America via twitter! I love AUS! Especially those
Collingwood Pies!!
• KarenJan@murcha Greetings from Boston, MA, USA

65. What if the students were studying climates, or
Portugal or Thai cultures etc? Imagine the
real time response that could be gleaned
from Twitter colleagues and self directed
learning that might occur.
ajep@murcha learning games to change the
world http://tinyurl.com/bh4nvm

66. Notable quotes
• Building the bridges of today that the society of tomorrow
will walk across. (Vicki Davis, co-creator of flatclassroom
projects)
• Isn’t it amazing what students will do when teachers get out
of the way. (Estie Cueller, flat classroom teacher)
• The kids asked too many questions and didnt let Jean
Pennycook (Antarctica) finish her talk!
• Would you please be able to bring a kangaroo into your
classroom for our videoconference? (request from Russia)
• Can you please wear your national costumes for the skype
videoconference?
• My students have never seen a computer, could you please
help me teach them about computers

67. Contact Me
• mirtschin@gmail.com
• Skype: anne.mirtschin
• Twitter/plurk id: murcha
• Teacher blog: http://murcha.wordpress.com
• Class blogs: http://murch.globalteacher.org.au
http://backyard.globalstudent.org.au
• Delicious and diigo: murcho/murcha