Teacher, Student, World!

Empowering teachers to connect their classrooms to the world; building a global learning community.

In its 2015 Resolution, Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, signed by 193 Member States, the United Nations establishes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim to overcome critical problems that threaten our world and its people. The key to achieving the first 16 goals, which focus on ending poverty, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity for all, is the 17th: partnership. Working together. Building global community.

Because PK-12 schools help shape the lives of the world’s children, they hold enormous potential for building global community - and preparing a new generation for reaching the SDGs. Schools have always played a key role in building strong local communities. Yet, despite their mission to prepare children for the 21st Century, they are currently neither designed nor equipped to build global community, because they largely teach about the world instead of learning with it. The Teacher, Student, World! initiative is committed to solving this problem.

The solution is to create a new way of learning by building a travel-free global learning community. One in which PK-12 teachers from around the world use technology to train and support each other, then guide their students to learn their curricula with and from their global peers. 

To accomplish this, teachers will need new learning pathways with related support systems that match the interconnected technology-driven world we live in and address the income and access gaps that globalization has accentuated. Teacher, Student, World! provides three such pathways:

1. The Teacher to Teacher Pathway is a PK-12 teacher network in which teachers build competency and partnership through peer mentoring and training, and by teaching each other how to utilize the resources and programs of The Student to Student Pathway.

2. The Student to Student Pathway is a set of resources and programs through which teachers connect their students with their global peers in the context of the curriculum, tapping cutting-edge technology to build global classroom partnerships and foster collaboration. These include: a cross-platform video-based Global Greetings Engine; the Student to Student Language Lab, through which students teach their first languages to their global peers; the K-12 Global Art Exchange; Global Data Miners; A World of Music; and Classroom Conversations with the World.

3. The Global Community Pathway offers school, local and global communities a support system for their efforts to build a global learning community, including online and in-person professional development resources, opportunities for teacher and school accreditation, global education advocacy, fundraising for schools that have the greatest needs, and consultation in global school design.

Changing the world begins with education - but education itself must change in order to meet the opportunities and address the challenges posed by globalization. Teacher, Student, World! transcends economic, cultural and technological barriers to foster a new global education paradigm, powered by teachers, that will empower all learners. The result: schools that build global community - and a global community ready to work together to solve its most pressing problems.

Teacher, Student, World! is a process for solving the Challenge that involves new applications of existing technology. It is innovative because it ushers in a new way of learning in which: 

1. teachers partner with their global peers to share and develop global education and technology skills so they can connect their classrooms as they explore their curricula;
2. students regularly partner with their global peers to build bridges of learning and friendship; and 
3. PK-12 schools build global community as a crucial first step toward tackling the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

Teacher, Student, World! relies on a secure custom integrated technology platform to connect teachers and their classrooms around the world. Teachers access online resources to conduct or participate in peer mentoring and training. While Internet allows full involvement, cross-platform applications allow participation in world regions where mobile phone technology is more widely used than Internet. VoiceThread and Vimeo use is integrated. The Student to Student Language Lab currently requires Internet, but a future edition will be cross-platform. Hundreds of schools in rural, suburban and urban areas in 74 countries have participated, including many schools without Internet access.

Teacher, Student, World!'s goals over the next twelve months are:

1. To work with partners who can help to expand our network of teachers and participating schools. 
2. To expand our team to match our expanded vision, including international team members and partners.
3. To develop a technological platform to house our expanded programming for teachers and students.
4. To expand our revenue generation plan and effort to match our new vision. 
5. To develop and launch Spanish and English sections of the Student to Student Language Lab.

OneWorld Classrooms has impacted the lives of 350,000 students from 74 countries since 2009. By developing cross-platform, multilingual and automated means for teachers to utilize our resources, and communicate with, train, support and mentor each other; and by developing new partnerships, we expect our work to impact the lives of millions of students and thousands of teachers over the next three to five years. By standardizing a new way of learning that makes interaction with global peers a classroom staple, we hope to impact education around the world, in both developed and underdeveloped regions.

Teachers, Peace Corps volunteers, WorldTeach volunteers, Teach for India fellows and Teach for Pakistan fellows working at hundreds of schools around the world have accessed our information online, completed online training and successfully implemented our programs or utilized our resources in their schools, facilitating student art exchanges, foreign language learning, VoiceThread conversations and Skype calls between their students and global partner classes. By developing our teacher to teacher training resources, offering program information in multiple languages, establishing partnerships with global organizations and offering accreditation incentives for teachers and their schools, we will significantly expand our reach.

OneWorld Classrooms has directly involved 35,000 PK-12 students and their teachers from hundreds of schools in 74 countries since 2009.  Another 350,000 students have seen displays of global student art in their schools. Led by teachers, currently participating students share original art and complete follow-up VoiceThread conversations with their global peers, conduct VoiceThread conversations about a curricular theme with their global peers, or learn a foreign language from their global peers. In the process, teachers and students practice active global citizenship and build global community.

We expect another 300 teachers and 7,500 students to participate in the next 12 months. As the impact of our solution takes root over the next three years, we expect thousands of teachers and millions of students to participate and be impacted by our work. Because teachers are the ones who implement our programs, the impact will reach as far as our partnerships allow.

I have worked in schools in the USA, the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Galápagos Islands, the Canadian Arctic, Kenya, Namibia, China and Tibet. I am the founder and Director of OneWorld Classrooms and a graduate of the Boston University School of Management’s Institute for Nonprofit Management and Leadership, where I was mentored by David Howse and Hubie Jones. I have learned and utilized fundraising, grant writing and pitching skills. I have written dozens of successful grant proposals, including one for a $500,000 US Education Department International Research and Studies grant. I am a former teacher with public speaking experience.

We charge US and Canadian schools to participate in our programs. We offer sponsored (free) participation to many schools around the world, including schools where Peace Corps volunteers, WorldTeach volunteers and Teach for India or Teach for Pakistan fellows work. We also receive yearly small grants and contributions. We have impacted the lives of several hundred thousand students in 74 countries over nine years with a very minimal yearly budget. By scaling our efforts, building a team, developing a support structure for our work and partnering with key organizations worldwide, we are poised to make a broad and significant impact that can change the global education landscape.

When PK-12 teachers around the world infuse classroom learning with global connection, it will empower their schools to transcend the limits of parochial thinking and schooling and fully engage in the work of fostering global citizenship. OneWorld Classrooms aims to launch a new phase of organizational development aimed at this pursuit. While scaling and rounding out programmatic offerings to include all areas of the curriculum, we aim to build a technological foundation that will support teachers and foster growth. We seek partnerships that will help us determine the best technology solutions, reach more schools globally and develop our funding structure.

Key barriers for our solution to succeed are:

• Marketing
• School culture
• Scale
• Technology access and solutions 
• Funding 

Introducing a new learning paradigm worldwide will require significant macro and grassroots level marketing efforts, affiliated with universally recognizable partners. Changing school culture to focus on global connections and goals will require significant support for teachers courageous enough to take up the challenge. Reaching all teachers globally and providing an easy to use but advanced interface will require innovative use of cutting edge technology. Solve’s approach, in addition to providing funding, can potential address all of these challenges.