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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on November 1, 2011 at 4:53am

Hi Andrew

Thank you for your session proposal for the 2011 Global Education Conference! We're pleased to let you know that your submission has been accepted! Your proposal is now in the "accepted proposals" list on the website. 

I am sending a message to your inbox on your page on this ning with the next steps that you need to take. Should you have any questions, please email me at mirtschin@gmail.com

Thanks again

Anne Mirtschin

Member of the Organising Committee, Global Education Conference

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Permalink Reply by G. Andrew Page on November 1, 2011 at 7:30pm

Hello Anne!

Thanks for your prompt and affirmative reply! We are very excited about sharing this with our colleagues abroad!  We have been working on a manuscript (it's currently 40 pages) for publication and our presentation at this conference will highlight this work. Our goal has been to develop a structured framework so ANY class could not only connect and say "hello", but CONSTRUCTknowledge via project-based learning. Much thought and many LONG hours of work have gone into this manuscript. We will briefly share the experience of how we connected and paired 12 rural classrooms in Alaska with 12 similar classrooms in Tasmania and the 6,7, & 8th grade students co-authored e-books on global warming, environmental issues, they had webinars with scientists and other subject-matter experts and much more. The construction of the e-books were cross-curricular to as English, tech skills, art, critical thinking and collaboration skills were used. A major barrier  challenge has been LANGUAGE. For example, suppose a class in Alaska wanted to connect with a equatorial classroom in Equador to work on a project. While Google Translate can decipher English to Spanish in an asynchronous or print fashion, we have been patiently waiting for what we are calling the "Babel" tool which would allow for synchronous translation. We have been alpha-testing numerous mobile technologies too. The Google Translate APP is not the most robust technology but it does help some with translation as it has an audio component.

You seem like you are very much "in the know" with emerging technologies and I hope you can possibly offer some suggestions for addressing the barrier challenge of synchronous language translation. Perhaps there is a pending Global Ed 2011 presentation that might be of relevance?

We will be using the polling interactive feature during our engaging Collaborate presentation for the Global Education 2011 conference to solicit feedback from the participants for their thoughts, suggestions, caveats etc. 

On behalf of my colleagues, Professor and language expert Kimberli Holmquist in Arkansas, and my Aussie colleague and friend, Ragnar Purje, we sincerely thank you for considering this request!

Warm regards from snowy Alaska and 26 degrees F,

Andy  

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Shoop on November 2, 2011 at 5:03pm

Andy -- we at the Saylor Foundation are so excited to tune into your session and to see one of our consultants so actively engaged in this space!  Looking forward to it.

 

Jen

www.saylor.org 

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Permalink Reply by G. Andrew Page on November 2, 2011 at 8:35pm

SUPER!  I appreciate your collegial support! Most appreciated!  I will try real hard to provide a high razzle-dazzle coefficient. We will be using several tools promoting interactivity so think of some really difficult questions to ask! :-) 

Again, so glad that you and the fine people at the Saylor Foundation are participating! And for something completely different, here's an underwater photo of me in a SHARK CAGE in between sessions at the 2011 World e-Learn Conference in Hawaii. EXTREME LEARNING indeed!     

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