Lives Without Limits

11191674463_78ef62dac1Today, December 3, 2013, in recognition of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) is launching the “Lives Without Limits” campaign to promote the importance of including persons with disabilities in international exchange programs. The includes stories and features video testimonials from alumni and current students.

President Obama has made disability rights a core part of U.S. foreign policy. The partners of the Connect All Schools Consortium are committed to making all of their virtual and physical exchange programs inclusive and accessible. Join us this month and share stories #WithoutLimits!

Mapping a Nation of Global Connections

Is the U.S. ready for a global future?

Answers to that question may be found in a fascinating new free online resource that was introduced yesterday by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the U.S. Department of Education as part of International Education Week celebrations. “Mapping the Nation: Linking Local to Global,” is the new state-by-state, country-by-county visual resource from Asia Society, the Longview Foundation for Education in World Affairs and International Understanding, and analytics leader SAS. Created with “nearly 1 million data points,” that “tell a cautionary tale,” the mapping project has set out to “prove what parents, businesspeople, and policymakers already know: American students must be globally competent to succeed in the interconnected 21st century.”

A quick click on the “California” link resulted in an infographic that gives a quick snapshot of the state’s global connections, including a rather surprising (and dismal) fact about the number of California students who take part in study abroad programs:

The “Global Competency” section concludes with a clear and urgent message:

Learning about and with the world occurs within and outside of school, and it is the work of a lifetime. Globally competent students are life long learners. They are able to adapt and contribute knowledge and understanding to a world that is constantly, rapidly evolving.

Global competence is a crucial shift in our understanding of the purpose of education in a changing world. Students everywhere deserve the opportunity to succeed in the global economy and contribute as global citizens. We must fashion a more creative and visionary educational response to the interconnected world of the 21st century, starting now.

The entire site is worth exploring, especially for educators, parents, and students seeking information, tools, and visuals about why we should connect all US schools to schools worldwide, starting now.

Education’s Connected Moment

Digital Promise’s Karen Cator concludes her thoughtful LinkedIn post, “Education is Having Its Internet Moment,” with the question, “Are we ready?”  The fair answer for education systems worldwide is, “no, but we are working on it,” and that is one of the purposes of this October’s Connected Educators Month.  Since the publication of the National Educational Technology Plan by Cator’s team at the Office of Education Technology at the U.S. Department of Education in 2010, connected education has gained prominence and advocates across all levels of education. In the past few months, the practice of “anytime, anywhere” teaching and learning has accelerated. More than just having its Internet moment, education is having its “connected moment.”

As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan — expanding upon Malala Yousafzai’s UN speech — made clear in August at the USAID Education Summit, “If we want both justice and peace, then we must work for education.”  Secretary Duncan’s speech, arguably the best speech of his term in office, laid out an inspiring vision of what education can accomplish. A few days later, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision to connect everyone to the Internet. These visions recognize connected teaching and learning as a powerful and effective development strategy, especially for marginalized urban and rural youth, youth with special needs, and women and girls.

Our country is not ready for Secretary Duncan’s or Mark Zuckerberg’s vision, but the Connect All Schools Consortium and others are working toward the goal of meaningful connected education for youth worldwide. New platforms and social media channels are connecting teachers and students worldwide in creative ways at increasingly huge numbers. We still need much more investment in our country’s international exchange programs, global awareness curriculum developers, and cross-cultural professional development providers. Disappointingly, Federal funding for international training and education has been cut by 41% in the past four years. While private sector investment in education’s connected moment is crucial, this investment is much more effective when leveraged with local, state, and Federal government investment. If we want justice and peace, we need connected education to be funded as a top national security issue.

Connected education also needs to be represented in the Common Core State Standards. The Common Core have no mention of learning about the world (global competencies), interacting with the world (global collaboration), or working with peers to address justice and peace (global citizenship). While the Common Core are not curricula, the Standards do reflect what we think are important for our next generation to learn; In short, our values. As standards, the Common Core are adequate, but as a roadmap for what American education can contribute to justice and peace, the Common Core come up short.

The good news is that 9 out of 10 students want more world affairs, foreign language, and international education in their classrooms. These students know future employment and tackling global issues like climate change, require global competencies, language skills, and connections with peers abroad. These students want to make the world a safer, more prosperous, and more hopeful place. Let’s follow their lead, connect, and embrace this transformational moment in education together.

The Real Value of Connecting All Schools

This Is Water

“The real value of a real education,” American novelist David Foster Wallace asserts in his now-viral 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech about empathy, “has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness.” Most everyone who has studied abroad, especially those who have lived with host families, understands this concept acutely.

The positive, life-long impact of study abroad on young people is undeniable. Each year, however, less than 2,000 US high school students—roughly 1 in 10,000—travel abroad for a semester or year-long experience. Students younger than 15 years old, students with special needs, and students from geographically isolated and socio-economically challenged areas of the country have few opportunities to have the perception-altering experience that study abroad provides.

The efforts of the Connect All Schools consortium and like-minded programs, such as Flat Classroom, Edmodo, Twitter chats, Global Read Aloud Day, Skype in the Classroom, Microsoft’s Partners in Learning, Global Classroom Scrapbook Project, and the Intel Teach Program, have vastly increased the diversity and number of students gaining global awareness and empathy beyond what would be possible through study abroad alone. Still, only small fraction of U.S. K-12 students currently have access to some kind of international experience, whether physical or virtual.

“It is unimaginably hard to do this,” Wallace adds, “to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.” It is difficult for educators in the day in and day out of teaching, testing, and trying out new technologies to commit their students to a collaboration with their peers around the globe. We must give teachers the space to do so. We need more than just 1 in 10,000 youth to be aware of what exists and what it feels like—even virtually, even for a short-time—to be outside our country’s borders. We need an empathetic, globally aware citizenry capable of working with their counterparts in other countries to meet the economic and geopolitical challenges of this century.

This is a real value of a globally-connected education.

Only 1 in 10,000 US high school students study abroad

[Source: Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET)2012-2013 Report]

Internet Freedom and the Education of Hope

Kids in Lajan Village, Kurdistan, Iraq,

Team Antenna in Lajan Village, Kurdistan, Iraq, cheer a green light on their modem! The group is participating in Touchable Earth, the first digital world book for kids where kids in each place explain all the facts about it. The Christopher Stevens Youth Network will support efforts like this in 20 countries.

[Thanking @craignewmark for mention of this post on @HuffPostTech]

One day, the “globally connected classroom” will simply be known as “the classroom.”

January 18th is Internet Freedom Day, and we’re celebrating the Connect All Schools Consortium. The Consortium is a leading the effort to move our country closer to the goal that every school in the United States have global connections so that every student have an international experience to gain critical skills, knowledge, and hope for a prosperous and secure future.

Fifteen years ago, Dr. Ed Gragert saw the Internet’s potential for teachers and students:

The power of the Internet is in its human connective potential. By connecting us as global citizens and local community members, we learn better. We open ourselves to new ideas and in turn shape the thinking of others through diverse input. We and our students become empowered to apply learning within our societies and in the global community in ways that can impact powerfully and positively on lives and environments.

In short, the Internet has the potential for creating an education of hope.

If we want to nurture a critical mass of young people who trust and respect each other, we need an Internet that fosters freedom of expression. If we want to empower future leaders to work together towards a healthier and safer planet, we need an Internet that supports an open and fair exchange of ideas. If we want our efforts to promote peace and conflict resolution through programs like the new Christopher Stevens Youth Network, we need an Internet that encourages empathy, meaningful collaboration, and an education of hope.

If we want every young person to believe that his or her voice matters, we need Internet freedom.

The Diplomatic Core of US Education

This month, the International Affairs Office of the US Department of Education released its new strategy document, Succeeding Globally Through International Education and Engagement, which: 

… outlines the U.S. Department of Education’s International Strategy for 2012-16 and affirms the Department’s commitment to preparing today’s youth, and our country more broadly, for a globalized world, and to engaging with the international community to improve education. It is fully integrated with the Department’s domestic agenda and designed to simultaneously attain two strategic goals: strengthen U.S. education and advance our nation’s international priorities.

The strategy document lists four objectives:

Objective 1: Increase the global competencies of all U.S. students, including those from traditionally disadvantaged groups;

Objective 2: Enhance federal, state and local education policy and practice applying lessons learned from other countries to drive excellence and innovation in the U.S. and abroad;

Objective 3: Advance U.S. international priorities in strategically important countries through active education diplomacy; and

Objective 4: Develop, monitor and continuously improve ED’s international activities in an integrated and coordinated manner.

The concept of “education diplomacy” is one that the Connect All Schools consortium has championed at the classroom level. So, too, the idea that internationalizing US classrooms advances our national security, while strengthening our overall education system. The strategy document, however, does not mention the role that technology can play in attaining the Department’s two strategic goals. It’s a conspicuous oversight considering that US Department of Education’s 2010 National Educational Technology Plan highlighted that teaching and learning was becoming increasingly global, networked, personalized and mobile, and called for more investment in preparing administrators, teachers, students and parents for globally networked, personalized “anytime, anywhere” learning. The Department also highlighted the role of technology in internationalizing education in August during Connected Educators Month. In fact, the US Department of Education launched International Education Week in 2000 with the US Department of State specifically to promote “the wise use of technology internationally.”

It is difficult to conceive of how the US Department of Education will effectively support education diplomacy—which it calls a “core element” of its work—without using modern technologies or supporting educators to use modern technologies effectively in their classrooms. For example, the strategy document calls for increasing international exchanges, but it makes no mention of virtual exchanges, which are increasingly seen as a powerful new tool to scale diplomacy and cross-cultural understanding, especially for traditionally disadvantaged groups and children too young to travel abroad.

Still, the strategic document is another step forward from the US government in advancing the idea that ALL young people should experience international collaboration as part of their education. And, the commitment by the US Department of Education to “walk the talk” and collaborate closely with their peers globally is important. Why is both classroom and government-level education diplomacy critical? Simply,

… so that we have a nation, and a world, that is informed, engaged, and prepared to deal effectively with the global challenges that will face us.

Knitting the World Together a Million Relationships at a Time

Two global education champions, Asia Society’s Tony Jackson and Soliya’s Lucas Welch, have published blog posts this week that go to heart of the mission of our Connect All Schools consortium. Both posts are stark reminders of how little US and Muslim relations have changed since September 11, 2001. Both posts, however, are also optimistic in how much more capable we are—with new tools, resources, and knowledge—to positively affect these relations.

Both Tony and Lucas zoom in on the recent Libya tragedy and importance of young Americans understanding their peers worldwide. In his Education Week blog, Tony focuses on empowerment and taking action in our communities:

The most promising approach to changing this is to make the need known. Students, parents, businesses, communities, national security, and every other stakeholder should identify education as a primary means to greater global competency, security, and stability. Specific focus is needed on integrating into the curriculum, knowledge and skills that further understanding of the world and how it works. Find models that work for your communities. Demand that decisions and investments are aligned toward goals that include global competence.

Let’s take what we know about the world today and create opportunities for the next generation to make it better.

On Huffington Post Religion, Lucas begins his eloquent post on the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens with a focus on building respectful long-term relationships using new technologies. He asks: 

Chris has shown us the power of relationships, but we need to translate that power into the age of social media. We need to determine how we can leverage the power of these new technologies to emulate the way he interacted but at a vastly larger scale, so the hateful bile of fringe Americans is not what defines us, and so our actions as a society are more informed by a respect and understanding for the people they affect.

What if all of the Arab youth who have taken to the streets in recent years had an American in their life who listened to them, showed respect for their values and cared about their rights? And what if our next generation of policy-makers, journalists, and religious leaders had Arab friends and worked to ensure our policies and pronouncements genuinely lived up to the ideals we espouse for them?

The Connect All Schools consortium was formed to assist schools build the relationships and global competencies Tony and Lucas write about in their posts. Since 9/11, consortium members have led the development of hundreds of new programs and projects to foster strong relations between the West and the Islamic world, efforts that focused on building trust, mutual understanding, and a commitment to shared goals.

In the weeks following 9/11, organizations and relief programs with strong global communities—People-to-People International, NetAid, Sister Cities International—joined with programs using new technologies to connect classrooms worldwide—UN CyberSchoolbus, ePals, Global Schoolnet Foundation, Worldwise Schools, iEARN, Schools Online, World Links, Global Nomads—stepped up their support of virtual and physical exchanges with countries with Muslim populations. A priority was helping primary school-aged youth to share their stories and to take action at a traumatic time of national shock and mourning.

These school-to-school programs were widely publicized and generally praised at time when post-9/11 anxieties and the hangover from the dot.com bust led to a number of polls that showed Americans engaging in more online communities, but feeling both ambivalent by online interaction and disliked by their peers in the Muslim world. George Packer writing in the April 2002 New York Times Magazine captured the mood:

The globalization of the media was supposed to knit the world together. The more information we receive about one another, the thinking went, the more international understanding will prevail. An injustice in Thailand will be instantly known and ultimately remedied by people in London or San Francisco. The father of worldwide television, Ted Turner, once said, “My main concern is to be a benefit to the world, to build up a global communications system that helps humanity come together.”  These days we are living with the results – a young man in Somalia watches the attack on the south tower live, while Americans can hear more, and sooner, about Kandahar or Ramallah than the county next to theirs.

But this technological togetherness has not created the human bonds that were promised. In some ways, global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place. What the media provide is superficial familiarity – images without context, indignation without remedy. The problem isn’t just the content of the media, but the fact that while images become international, people’s lives remain parochial – in the Arab world and everywhere else, including here.

… But at this halfway point between mutual ignorance and true understanding, the ”global village” actually resembles a real one – in my experience, not the utopian community promised by the boosters of globalization but a parochial place of manifold suspicions, rumors, resentments and half-truths. If the world seems to be growing more, rather than less, nasty these days, it might have something to do with the images all of us now carry around in our heads.

Contrary to Packer’s assertion, however, the images of that young globally-connected children were now carrying around in their heads were images of hope and caring, in the forms of drawings, quilts, and photographs that were shared by tens of thousands of their peers. Furthermore, new curriculum materials were developed and professional development workshops and courses were provided for thousands in the US and countries with significant Muslim populations on how to integrate international collaboration in their classrooms. Online interaction and collaborative publications flourished, and US educators and students began to visit Muslim countries for the first time. Schools in the US began to teach Arabic.

At a time before social media fundraising platforms, US students used new technologies to mobilize their communities to provide humanitarian relief to Afghan schools and Iran earthquake victims. The World Wide Web was an important tool to both share information and enable teachers and students in the US and countries with significant Muslim populations to identify programs fitting their interests and needs. The 9/11 attacks were the most intensive online event in history, and organizations like iEARN became key “exchange 2.0” resources to which teachers turned for information on how to link with and learn about countries with Muslim populations. The growth of connected classrooms hasn’t slowed since.

The success of this burst of post-9/11 classroom connections was amplified a year later when Congress introduced legislation to support programs focused on traditional high-school and university-level exchanges and language programs. In early 2002, Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced The Cultural Bridges Act to fund new exchange programs with countries with significant Muslim populations. The bill died, but informed subsequent legislation that funded the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program, the Global Connections and Exchange Program, the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) and the Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP), which focused on “critical languages” such as Arabic, but also Urdu, Farsi, Hindi, Pashto, Russian, Chinese, and Korean.

Today, the influence of all these post-9/11 programs continues to be felt at the White House and the Departments of Education and State. In April 2011, at the first Exchange 2.0 Summit, former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale remarked:

We need to explore more ways to strategically and consistently incorporate connective technologies into our exchange efforts. As President Obama has said, we need to “create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo.” With the help of many of you in this room, we have already started down this path at the State Department. Our Global Connections and Exchange Program has been in operation for ten years. This landmark public diplomacy initiative connects students who may never share a lunch table or walk home together. But with online classrooms, there are no limits on sharing their ideas. Together, they learn to be positive forces for change in their local communities.

Last week, eleven years after 9/11, Newsweek (and Twitter) reminded us that we live in a world of Muslim Rage. In that eleven years, though, much has changed. The number of organizations connecting classrooms worldwide has increased ten-fold, as has international funding for educational technology. Mobile learning, open data, cloud computing, social media, MOOCs, and other tools and resources are evolving and changing teaching and learning at a remarkable pace in both developed and developing countries. More than 6,000 YES program scholars from 40 predominately Muslim countries have returned from a year of high school in the United States, and they are inspired to serve their communities. Thousands more US teachers and high-school and university students have traveled, studied, and lived abroad in these same 40 countries, and they too are inspired to make a positive difference in their communities.


Still, Lucas explains, we need to do more:

Exchange programs are the primary way we have traditionally sought to foster these relationships. But in our hyper-connected world, vastly more people can directly influence relations between our societies, and the costs and logistics of study abroad make it inaccessible or unappealing to all but a select few. (Approximately 2 percent of American students in higher education study abroad, for example, and less than 2 percent of those go to the Middle East and North Africa.) Even if we were to vastly increase the number of students studying abroad, which we should, it would still only be a drop in the bucket of public opinion.

Over the last year, a coalition of organizations has formed to advance exchange 2.0 – a next-step in international education that leverages the power of new technologies to vastly increase the number of youth who have a profound cross-cultural experience as part of their education. Each of these organizations … has developed “virtual exchange” programs, which are integrated into curriculum and have demonstrated significant impact cultivating relationships and developing cross-cultural respect and understanding. Based on the cost-efficiency of these programs, it is conceivable that such programs could become a fundamental part of education in the coming decade and literally millions of new relationships could be fostered across the divides where they are most needed.

 It may seem from the protests and violence of the past two weeks that there has been little progress in increasing trust and respect among people in the US and in predominately Muslim countries. But we have made progress, and we will continue to do so, led by young people using new tools and resources to connect us closely and help us build enduring relationships, as the examples above show.

 

 

 

A Shared Global Norm

Last week at the NAIS Annual Conference in Seattle keynote speaker Bill Gates suggested several “Education 2.0” tech tools for the crowd of more than 4,200 independent school leaders, including Skype and ePals. Gates also highlighted the Global Online Academy, a group of 16 independent schools that:

connects students from all over the world and allows them to offer their local perspectives on global issues. Classmates in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco work on projects with peers in Madaba-Manja, Jordan, and Portland, Oregon. Students in Hawaii and Chicago discuss global health issues with students in New York, Seattle, Boston, and Jakarta, Indonesia. These connections and interactions are becoming the norm in today’s society; it is essential that we prepare students to do this now.

The Connect All Schools consortium shares Global Online Academy’s core values that emphasize respect and empathy in its global community, and invites the students and teachers of Global Online Academy to join 120 other partners to share its stories and help global classroom collaboration to become the norm for all US teachers and students.


Occupy Globally Connected Learning

As a kick-off to the badge competition at last week’s DML Conference, UC Irvine Professor Mimi Ito and her team launched the Connected Learning research initiative with a snazzy infographic, a video, and a provocative Ignite talk, where Professor Ito exclaimed that connected learners are “the 1%.”  With a nod to Occupy movement, the research network aims to address:

“… this historical moment where we see the rise of social media, the Internet, and a growing disjuncture between formal and informal learning. We suggest a new paradigm for considering the promise of sociality and media and learning, centering on hybrid learning networks which support interest-driven learning, cutting across school, home, after-school, and peer cultures.”

Like many of the thoughtful participants at conference, the MacArthur Foundation-supported Connected Learning team is asking important questions around peer and multi-generational learning, civic engagement and social justice, including:

How effective can the exploding sector of open learning and peer-to-peer learning be?

 In what ways can digital media boost learning for marginalized communities?

Can social media and digital technology improve the impact of after-school programs, especially for disadvantaged youth?

 Does learning that is connected to a learner’s interest help produce young people who are more civically engaged and more active 21st-century citizens?

For those of us who have occupied (small “o”) the “connected learning” space for a couple of decades, it is good to see a major foundation fund this research and give classroom civic engagement and social justice issues a higher profile. Conspicuous by its absence, however, is any reference to teachers and students connecting with their peers worldwide. In fact, global classroom collaboration researchers and practitioners in many countries for many years have asked and answered many of these same questions: Does global classroom collaboration boost learning for marginalized communities? Yes. Support peer-to-peer learning? Yes. After-school programs? Disadvantaged youth? Civic Engagement? Yes, yes, and yes.

We hope that the omission of globally connected learning in its launch is not an oversight, and will be an area the team will move into soon.  Other teams have found globally connected learning a rich subject to study. Under the guidance of Professor Margaret Riel, for example, graduate students at Pepperdine University, for example, have used Learning Circles each year since 2002 to support and organize action research as part of their online Masters of Arts degree program in Educational Technology. If Professor Ito’s team intends to look at the many superb global classroom programs run by the Connect All Schools partners, it will undoubtedly benefit the research. To launch this research network without any reference to the impact or increasing capabilities of classrooms to connect worldwide seems to miss a key aspect of connected learning.

Furthermore, to launch this research network about connect learning without connecting with research teams in Tunisia, Egypt, Uruguay, Australia, India, Iran, Korea, Russia, Kenya and other countries where social media and digital technology is having a significant impact on teaching and learning, seems a missed opportunity, especially since most mobile learning innovation is happening outside the United States. To study Occupy it makes sense to study it alongside Arab Spring. Why not research the impact of social media and youth civic engagement in collaboration with Tunisian and Egyptian education researchers? Or why not work with Korean researchers to examine if games can used to address social issues? When it comes to connected learning, it makes sense to research with the world, not just about it.

The goal of Connect All Schools is to give every US school the opportunity to connect with an international partner by 2016. We’ve made the case that globally connected learning is both a national security issue and good foreign policy strategy. Connecting classrooms globally is also an issue of social justice. We invite the Connected Learning team to learn more about how relevant, engaging, and empowering globally connected learning is for children around the world.


A Strong Second-Half Team

Clint Eastwood’s “Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial was focused on Detroit and the auto industry, but it could just as well have been describing our country’s international exchange programs. In a new globally connected, mobile, social, “anytime, anywhere” DIY world of cross-border connections, does the exchange field have a team ready to play the second half?

A young Dwight D. Eisenhower (front row, second from right) during backyard football practice, Abilene, Kansas. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The first half began in earnest on September 11, 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the People-to-People Program to:

… enhance international understanding and friendship through educational, cultural and humanitarian activities involving the exchange of ideas and experiences directly among peoples of different countries and diverse cultures. President Eisenhower felt that creating understanding between people was essential to building the road to enduring peace and envisioned programs such as city affiliations, pen-pals, stamp exchanges, international sporting events, musical concerts, hospitality programs, theatrical tours and book drives as the means to achieving that goal – a critical goal in the existing Cold War climate.

Complemented by US government-sponsored programs such as Fulbright and Peace Corps, the “citizen diplomacy” that President Eisenhower championed increased cross-cultural understanding and bolstered America’s image abroad through the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the United States Information Agency, which had nurtured the people-to-people movement since its inception. The end of the first half for international exchange was not a result of a changing world or national politics, however. It was technological, as teacher-librarian Anne Lambert recounts:

 

I grew up fifteen minutes from the US-Mexico border in the ‘60’s, and I was always interested in people and cultures. As a teacher I arranged day trips to Tijuana, Mexico, worldwide pen pals, and student exchange programs in Ensenada, Mazatlan, and Europe. By the 90’s I saw the Internet as an opportunity for students to travel virtually and to learn languages…

I found iEARN to be welcoming and empowering, reaching across distance, language, ethnicity, wealth, and academic achievement. Student by student, the worldwide classroom of each iEARN project broke down stereotypes and invited our whole community to experience the power of communication.

Lumaphone link between Walworth School, London and Foster High School, Wa. USA, 1990

What Anne describes is what we now call “Exchange 2.0,” which is defined as “the use of new media and communications technologies to expand, extend, and deepen international cross-cultural exchanges.” Exchange 2.0 is not a new idea, as iEARN’s Ed Gragert outlined in his white paper for the US Department of Education in 2000 as a precursor to the inaugural International Education Week:

 Through the Internet, significant opportunity exists for human-to-human interactions, experiential learning and direct curriculum applications. Our students have the opportunity to both learn and teach through direct interaction. Further, students have the opportunity to observe, learn and address the serious global issues for which education is designed to prepare them as adults. Technology now gives students the means to directly interact on these issues. …

During the past 15 years, there has been a general progression in on-line international education, characterized by the following over-simplified steps:

1) In the late 1980s, foreign language teachers (and ESL teachers in other countries) were some of the first to recognize the potential for this technology to bring authentic interaction and materials into their classrooms.

2) In the 1990s, global studies and world affairs teachers learned that they could heighten interest in the issues being discussed if their classes were interacting with real students and teachers in the countries that were in the news or were part of the curriculum.

3) In 2000, international collaborative education is on the threshold of being integrated into all aspects of a teacher’s curriculum and we are fortunate to have educators who now have 5-10 years of experience to help with professional development

Twelve years later, international collaborative education has not been integrated into most teachers’ curricula, but the recent explosive growth of social media and mobile phones worldwide has created opportunities for students and teachers to connect at a scale unimaginable just a few years ago. The entire concept of “exchange” is being redefined, and as Tech Change’s TJ Thomander notes, virtual exchange will play more than simply a supporting role for traditional exchange:

Digital intercultural conversation is meant to be a complement, not a replacement to face-to-face interaction. But for most of the world that doesn’t have the means to travel, this will be the only option that they have. It won’t be a complement [or] a replacement; it will just be the only way that they develop relationships with others across borders.

It’s “game on” for virtual exchange; is it “game over” for traditional travel-based exchange programs?

The power of physical exchanges is undeniable. Yet, in 2010, only 1,979 US high school students traveled abroad for a semester or yearlong exchange experience, at an estimated cost of $15,000 to $20,000 each. At a fraction of the cost classroom-powered diplomacy already dwarfs all travel programs combined, while allowing the very young, boys, those with learning challenges and physical disabilities, and others not able or inclined to travel to engage with peers abroad. For the vast majority of students around the globe, short codes are more likely to offer future employment and English language learning opportunities than a one-in-a-thousand chance to be selected for an exchange program. Furthermore, virtual exchange is an option that empowers participants to facilitate, monitor, and assess their own cross-cultural interaction. Teachers need not apply for a J-1 visa to coordinate Skype calls between kindergarten classrooms or create their own Twitter hashtags to collaborate with their peers worldwide.


The knowledge and experience gained from the first fifty-five years of citizen diplomacy and international exchange is not irrelevant, however, in this new era of global connectivity. Quite the opposite: Face to face still trumps Facebook to Facebook, and a J-1 visa for the YES program is much more likely to transform a young person’s life than a hashtag. Just like the US education system is experimenting with “blended” models of classroom-based and online teaching and learning, the Connect All Schools consortium is experimenting with blended models of virtual and travel-based exchange programs. Partners such as American CouncilsAFS-USA, Mobility International, IREX, Teachers without Borders, TakingITGlobal, Plan International and Youth Service America are helping to create an entirely new field of social entrepreneurship and community service-infused programs, including professional development for supporting teachers to integrate international exchange into their curricula.

It’s important work, and a talented, passionate team of tech-savvy international exchange professionals is ready to take the field.