This purpose of this project is to use ICTs to connect educators and studend around the world in an international learning community. The project will use free Web 2.0 tools: nings, wikis, and blogs to communicate and collaborate. Some participants produce digital stories, movies, pictures, or concept maps for sharing with the community. Participants may be undergraduate or graduate students, teachers, their students. It's fun to meet new people and use ICT's to share with each other.

In Global Connections partiicipants will collaborate, develop and share digital projects using ICTs to demonstrate the NETS standards. Teachers and their students can use ICTs as outlined in ISTE's NETS for Students in designing and developing their projects. Students will use research tools, digital video and audio, concept mapping, and any other web 2.0 tools available to create projects that demonstrate knowledge and skills of ICTs for global connections. The Partnership of 21st Century Skills framework may also be useful for guiding content connections to the digital projects.
I've posted a couple of global issues in the forum which may give you an idea for the topic of your project. These scenarios can be addressed from many perspectives and on many levels. In the collaborative groups participants can discuss their ideas.

Out next interactive project on Global Connections 2008 is Digital Story Telling. Digital storytelling is a fantastic way to engage students, teachers and just about anyone else who has ever wanted to be the next Ken Burns or Steven Spielberg. There are many different definitions of "digital storytelling," but in general, all of them revolve around the idea of combining the longstanding art of telling stories with any of a variety of available multimedia tools, including graphics, audio, video animation, and Web publishing. You can use video or photos to tell your story along with music and narrative with photostory or imovie.

There are several resources that describe digital story telling, how to get started and the educational value. One of the most comprehensive is Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling from University of Houston. There are steps for getting started and examples of digital stories. Another resource for digital storytelling is Teachers Telling Tales on Teacher Tube. These videos are good examples for what is possible.

In this activity you will tell your story about teaching, a real success story that you've experienced (fact or fiction). Remember that good stories have a turning point in the events so that there is a bit o suspense to the tale.

You can upload your story in the video or photo section of this ning.

Dear all; The following two weeks, we will to develop an activity-- concept map for a proverb.
You may explain and illustrate a proverb of your country by constituting a concept map.
A proverb usually denotes situations where some rules or behavioral patterns should be observed by cultural members. Therefore, proverbs represent the values and social rules prescribed by cultures.
We can use words or pictures to illustrate the values, rules, and/or situations denoted by the proverbs.
Let’s get started with sharing the proverbs of our cultures. You may write in your language (say Chinese characters) and give English translation alongside. Pictures or symbols are great communicative tools too.
Please see the example on the following forum. Please post your proverb on the following forum, too.