Word Cloud

We used tagxedo.com, a word cloud creator, to create this. To create the word cloud, each participant had to choose 20 words that encapsulated their learning during this course. We compiled all the words into a Google doc and then copied and pasted them into Tagxedo. The larger, bolder words are words that showed up on the list multiple times. Word clouds can be used as an effective analysis tool to prompt deeper discussions.

Global Collaboration Via Skype

Grandview Park Baptist School teachers collaborated with Greater Lisbon Christian Academy educators to review Project CRISS strategies via Skype. This was a great opportunity for Deb Vail, my Professional Development partner, and I to model risk taking with the implementation of global collaborative teams.

We knew:
It is critical to check all connections ahead of time. We planned for this but were not able to check all ahead of the actual Skype session.
Feedback might be a problem with multiple Skype sessions going on at the same time, however, we wanted to have Lisbon Academy teachers be a part of each of our collaborative groups.

We learned:
More than one Skype call in the room does create an echo and feedback problem.
Solution - spread out and move into other rooms. We were fortunate that we had the options to do this.
Thanks to our Lisbon partners as this was a Friday, end of day afternoon session for them! Thanks for making our collaboration meaningful and for helping us to see that global collaboration can and does work! Obrigado to our friends and colleagues!