Global citizens

“An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking; it involves the spiritual development of man, the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of young people to understand the times in which they live.”
Dr. Maria Montessori , Education and Peace

Of all the characteristics of the future classroom mentioned by November, students as global communicators and collaborators is perhaps the one where I feel I could put the most emphasis on technology. . While researching I found was able to find two different programs that would assist my students in becoming global communicators.

 PenPal Schools

PenPal Schools is "the world's largest collaborative community". With this program, you can learn a different about history, art, geography, and even another language all by collaborating with other students. It connects students from over 150 different countries. My interest, however, is to simply have my students send and receive mail from other students across the globe.

Many topics

I chose schools around the world to look a little deeper:

Safe and easy to use

Negatives:

The website says ideally for ages 6 and up.

Would I use in my classroom:

I would introduce the concept by writing letters to another friend that has a daycare and having them write/ draw letters to us back using the regular mail then explain that we can do a similar thing but on a computer/ device and maybe email that same friend and have her email back.
Then I would introduce our pen pal system across the globe.

Similar websites to note:

Teachers corner

https://www.theteacherscorner.net/penpals/#7469

Negative:

From the site: "*IMPORTANT NOTICE: The Teacher's Corner DOES NOT SCREEN ANYONE that uses our penpals service. Remember: penpals are intrinsically strangers, and the anonymity of the internet can provide an ideal environment for scammers. Please use due diligence when making a penpal connection."

Skype-Classrooms.

https://education.microsoft.com/skype-in-the-classroom/overview