Click here to view the embedded video.

Are you anxious for professional development?  Are you so ridiculously busy that you can’t read all of your email?

STOP for one minute and hear me loud and clear:

You must schedule The Global Ed Collaborative Conference into your busy calendar.  MUST!

The 2011 Global Education Conference will be held November 14 – 18,  during international education week – and it is online and free. Sessions will take place in multiple time zones and multiple languages over the five days. The 2010 Global Education Conference had 15,028 unique logins and presentations from 62 countries.  Isn’t that incredible!

Educators from around the world will present on topics from global water issues, K-12 digital literacy, internationalizing the curriculum, connecting the global STEM classroom, service learning and more!

And Melibee’s own, Carrie Wagner, is one of the global keynote speakers! Carrie has had a phenominal career carrying forward what she learned during her six years in Africa.  (By the way, Carrie is helping Melibee Global kick off International Ed Week by being my guest on a free, online book club discussion on November 10th.  You can get more details here.)

International Education Week 2011 is going to be chock full of learning tools and inspiration!  I cannot wait to hear what you all glean from these wonderful free events!  Please be sure to share with Melibee readers, ok?

There are 3 easy steps to participate:

1) Purchase the “Village Wisdom” book and read it before November 10th.  The book has a lot of beautiful photos, so it is a faster read than you may think. Carrie is kindly offering a 30% discount off the book (PDF and ebook versions.) Use the discount code: “Melibee.” If you individually purchase the hard copy (vs. the ebook), Carrie will autograph the book for you too! (Note: Melibee does not receive any revenue from book sales.)

2) If you work at a high school, college/university or other organization, book a meeting room and make this a public event. You’ll simply need a computer, internet access, screen and someone who can type questions and comments into the chat room.  Announce this event as part of International Education Week and be sure to open it up to the local community too! High schools and colleges should feel free to partner together on this also.

3) On November 10th, just prior to 3pm, open up this webpage.  (Please note, we are using “Livestream” which means that an ad will play when you visit this website. This helps to keep this event FREE, so thanks for your understanding.  I have no control over the ads, which include a pop up ad at the bottom of the screen which you can close, but it shouldn’t be too intrusive.) Then sign into the chat space (on that same page, just right of the video) so that you can discuss the book amongst yourselves and so that you can ask Carrie questions too!

Here is a trailer for the book!  We look forward to talking with you on November 10th!

Click here to view the embedded video.

1) Flip on Cole Blaise’s “Studies Abroad” internet based series and run it in a loop in a popular location on campus: Blaise studied in the Czech Republic and made a web “series” of of his experience. Students will LOVE his humor, honesty and antics as he travels in the Czech Republic and Europe, handles a visit to the local ER after accidentally slicing open his finger, and gets to go on stage to sing with the band Chumbawumba!

2)  Create an awareness campaign: How about “Got International Ed?” (a play on the “Got Milk” campaign.)  Post your campaign signs anywhere that represents int’l (dept, event, etc). Here is a creative campaign idea from the University of British Columbia (Canada):

Click here to view the embedded video.

3) Offer 15 minute mini language lessons: Have faculty and int’l students teach 15 minutes of language! Set up the mini language lessons close to each other, so students can pop in and out. They’ll learn a couple of key phrases in a new language, even if the language is not taught on your campus! Play music and have food from the countries where these languages are spoken to pull students in.

4) Create a panel that highlights how international experiences have impacted life and career decisions over the years: But this time illustrate how these experiences impacted participants over time by having a recently returned study abroad student, then a recent grad who is 3-5 years out of school, then someone who was abroad for the first time 20 years ago. This way students can see how the reflections change over time (or don’t!)  And have a student on the panel who DIDN’T study abroad – and WISHED they had!

5) Bring in some hip young speakers to talk about diversity in our own country: For example, Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq from the 30mosques.com project are speaking at colleges this fall (and spring), sharing stories about visiting 30 mosques in 30 days in 30 states over Ramadan. They learned about Muslims in America – and many are immigrants.  Their story was covered by CNN, ABC, Fox, NPR, Al Jazeera and other major news outlets.  Aman and Bassam are two very dynamic “twenty somethings” – your students will relate to them.  I am helping Aman and Bassam with bookings (with no additional fee to schools), so contact me if you’d like information on how to get them to your campus.

6) Another great speaker to bring to campus is Michael Despines: Michael offers a fantastic multimedia presentation and lecture about how environmental decisions made in the US impact the rest of the world. Michael was a Peace Corps volunteer in Gabon and lived in Africa for 17 years. He worked for the International Rescue Committee for many years, and is deeply passionate about the state of our planet. I am able to schedule Michael with no additional fee to schools – please contact me if you’re interested.

7) Make a visual statement: Ask anyone on your campus who has studied abroad (or who is studying abroad in your country) to wear a specific color shirt that day.  Better yet, give them a shirt to wear that says “Ask me about my experience abroad!

Create dialogue through film: Next year is the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. To create dialogue about the tension between Islam and the west, consider screening the film Crossing Borders on your campus. This film is a “must see” – your students will fall in love with each student in the documentary.  Find a film that seems relevant to your campus – there are so many to choose from!  (I do realize that there is no #8 ahead of this “idea” – there is a mysterious smiley face that I can’t seem to get rid of….forgive the IT glitch and let’s all take it as a sign that we must smile more! LOL!)

9) Think global, using local resources: Recognizing that the economy is making it particularly difficult for many students to purchase a plane ticket at the moment, create an opportunity for them to engage them in local culture. Invite local community organizations to campus and explore how students can continue to pursue their learning closer to home. (This should be done anyway, but perhaps is being discussed more in this economy.)

10) Create a quiz about other countries and cultures: Put it on your university HOME PAGE.  After all, we are charged with educating our communities too, right?

© Missy Gluckmann

International Education Week rolls around each year and we dutifully plan events on our campuses to encourage students to think about the world around us.  Many of us don’t wait for this week to facilitate programs that will engage our students to think about the world that we live in through a different lens.  On my campus I have facilitated a panel nearly each semester: “Global Citizenship: Multicultural Lives and Multilingual Careers”. The intent of this panel is to illustrate the value of experiencing other cultures first hand and how knowing a 2nd language (or 3rd, 4th, 5th…) can open doors and hearts more than playing it safe and staying at home.

This panel resurfaced for International Education Week 2009.  Keep in mind that I’ve facilitated this panel 3 times and I personally know 3 of the 4 presenters. They are people that I worked with during a stint in the corporate world and we grew close during our long days holed up in the International Assignment Services offices, assisting companies and individuals/families relocate abroad for employment purposes.  We first became colleagues, then dear friends that I have stayed in close contact with for a decade – so I “think” I know these people well.  Round 3 of this panel proved that there is always something new to explore about a life lived in another culture….or cultures!

Four panelists spoke  and shared their passion for other cultures and a total of 9 languages.  Roberto, originally from Brazil, spoke of his father’s insistence that he learn English as a young boy.  A high school exchange program took him to Michigan for a year and he returned home to study for a BA degree, eventually landing a job at an Brazilian airport in customer service.  His little experience with Italian helped him to land this position, which he eventually left to pursue graduate studies in the US.  This is where his little bit of experience with French became particularly important.  He spotted a firecracker of a young woman with beautiful red hair, freckles and bright blue eyes.  Natalie, from French speaking part of Canada, eventually became his wife. When  he met her family in Canada, they were floored that this man from Brazil was able to converse with them in French.  Three children later, they are off to Singapore for a new adventure. Their 3 children speak 3 languages – from the moment they were born, Natalie has only spoken French to them, Roberto has only spoken Portuguese and they have learned English from their school in Connecticut.  As Roberto lovingly stated to our students, “Until they start acting funny, we’re going to keep throwing languages at them.”  They will next learn Mandarin in their new home.  Roberto described this new move abroad as an extension of their need to travel and experience life – this “travel bug” that international educators speak of from time to time.

Karen, another panelist, is an American who grew up in suburban Connecticut.  She quickly became fascinated with Russia in high school.  Something about this place intrigued her; she didn’t know what it was but had to pursue this language.  She wanted to talk with people there and knew that she could not rely on English, so she studied endlessly, spent time abroad in Moscow and eventually returned to the country to, as she put it, “practice my Russian since a friend was living in Moscow and had a couch that I could sleep on.”  She became so fluent that she was offered, with no prior work experience except babysitting and working at Shop Rite, a manager position in the first 24/7 copy shop in Moscow.  She worked with a team of Russians, provided sales outreach to American headquartered companies that had new offices in Moscow and learned as she went.  One of her most important nuggets of learning came when she told students about how she tried to motivate the employees by instituting an “Employee of the Month” program. Little did she know that the employees were meeting behind her back, developing a  strategy about how NOT to be given this “honor.”  Karen explained that she had not realized that a country with such a distinct communist history would not seek pleasure in celebrating an individual. She quickly changed the program to a “shift” award and it was highly successful.

The audience laughed heartily at Karen’s story and all of the unique and humorous experiences of all 4 panelists, yet the common thread was this unending need to go abroad, to learn about “the other,” and to invest in language acquisition. I have friends who are from rural areas in the US, that have never had a family member who has traveled, yet they have spent most of their lives trying to go abroad to explore other cultures.  I’ve met siblings that are as different as they can be – one that has stayed at home, married and settled down not more than a stone’s through from her parents while the other traveled abroad extensively, became an ESL teacher to facilitate more travel options and then spent 2 years in the Peace Corps.

All 4 speakers  referenced the “travel bug” repeatedly and last night I began to reflect, where DOES this “bug” come from and why do I have it?  What drives some people to take that leap of faith, get on a plane and explore another place in this world while others are completely happy and comfortable staying at home watching the news?

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this subject.  Do you have the bug and if so, where do you think it came from?

At my current campus, Western Connecticut State University, we are coordinating a variety of events for the week. These include a Language Panel where professionals share their journeys learning a foreign language (or multiple) and explain how it has opened doors in their work and personal lives. Our faculty will be presenting on the history and economy of the European Union. The Business School students who participated in a virtual marketing project with students from Loyola College in Chennai, India will be sharing their insights about how working on virtual teams across cultures has deeply enhanced their educational experience.

I encourage each of you to find a creative way to educate another about the joy and value of being internationally aware. There is no greater way that you can share your experiences abroad than educating another and broadening a mind to a different way of looking at the world we ALL live in. Happy International Education Week!