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Educator Stories
Get inspired! Read the stories of educators helping their students build a better world.





Cindea
Taiwan

Tell us about an issue that matters to you and how you became involved.

The issue that matters to me is how to make a better world. In 2004, I joined iEARN - International Education And Resource Network. After I joined iEARN, I worked on a on presentation called “Me and my community” in 2008. They used Elluminate VC systems and Elluminate supported video conferencing. I’m used to making records, so I wrote about this collaboration in my blog. Then I met Stace Wills, the world coordinator of Elluminate Fire and Ice. He invited me to join the Organic Garden project VC on June 19th, 2008. I recorded this event again. It was a very wonderful experience for collaboration.

In August, Stace invited me to join their Organic Garden project and asked if I’d like to be the Elluminate Fire and Ice Asia-Pacific coordinator. Due to the time zone, they needed one coordinator from Asia. I was glad to accept this new job, and started to invite my friends from iEARN to join this meaningful project with the students. After running for one year, our team had 14 countries involved. Some helped us, some joined the VC presentations, and some did the real farm work or connected projects. TIG is the place where we met off line - after VC. Our project was a finalist in the Global Junior Challenge in Italy in Oct. The honor belongs to our team, and I’m so happy to work with them and to be their colleague.

What kind of a future do you hope to create through education?

Education is like sowing the seeds, maybe we can’t see the influence in a short time, but with the small power which can be gathered using it, we can change the world with it.

class="question"How are you taking your classroom global, and what role is technology playing in the process?

Education should be based on innovation, and provide teachers and students with a new vision. Attracting students and linking the world with new technology is necessary and interesting. Making good use of ICTs on education is very important. My students enjoyed collaborating with students from different countries. We discussed the same project, and developed good friendships. We have many problems in the world, such as natural disasters, climate change, global warming, carbon reduction and peace providing. We should take action, it is our priority mission, and only education can achieve it. To shorten the distance with the world and develop new relationships with new working partners is the basic function of blogs. Learning from each other, finding collaborators and making a better world together is our responsibility as bloggers. We collaborated with many countries, and the students are fond of making new friends from around the world. That’s the exciting part of collaboration. With the help of technology, we stand on the same steps with the world. The students are proud of it, and expect new stimulation from different countries.

Do you think TIG can help you achieve some of your goals? Have we already? Please tell us how.

I used to ask the students to create their own blogs and build their information data. TIG can gather resources to help achieve this.

We are all independent and sometimes it is good if you do not want to be bothered. I enjoyed it, but some teachers may hope to create more collaboration from TIG, which would allow us to gather more ideas.


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