Nov 10th and 11th were celebrated as Microsoft Global Learning Connection Days. The title has changed from Skypeathon. Students and educators were encouraged to connect with others across the world, giving them opportunities to learn from and with each other.
A number of my ICT classes and students were involved in these days. As we are near the end of our school year, senior classes were participating in or preparing for exams, so my involvement is not as good as it normally be. Following are some of our global activities.

Year 7 ICT students are collaborating on a Flipgrid with a class from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their topic is “Where would you go?” reflecting on the fact that there are 7 continents made up of 195 countries. Students record responses to what country they would like to go to, the distance from where they currently live and something interesting that makes them want to visit this country.
Meeting a Minecraft Education developer at lunchtime


Students from across the school were given the opportunity to learn from Anthony “Sunken City” Cloudy one of the developers of Minecraft Education. He spoke from Houston, Texas and currently works on Minecraft: Education Edition, developing custom gameplay features and crafting tools that empower content creators to teach hard-to-grasp subject matter in innovative ways.
Anthony was a passionate, colourful and inspiring presenter. 30 minutes was spent using MS Teams talking to students from countries across the world, including Vietnam, India, Croatia etc He answered their numerous questions. He encouraged students to learn coding, work in teams to problem solve and not to be disappointed in failing as this can actually lead to success. Some of the failures in using code in Minecraft have actually resulted in things like eg creeping vines.


Year 9/10 students used MS Teams to connect with Jane Mackerell, the K-12 Education Lead for Microsoft Australia. Jane is based in Sydney. She spoke to them about the use of Virtual Reality in Schools, the role of technology in education and was interested in learning from the students in their use of technology.
Were you involved in this day? What did you do?