What is the global read aloud? The Global Read Aloud was started in 2010 by Pernille Ripp with the goal of having "one book to connect the world." Since 2010 over 4,000,000 students have participated! Different books are chosen each year for different age levels. (Here are the 2018 choices. Each spring, Ms. Ripp finalizes the list of contenders and opens it to the public to vote.) During 6 weeks in October and November, teachers all over the globe read their chosen book aloud to their students. Those classes also have a lot of opportunities to build or find opportunities for global connections and collaborations. My entire school participated last year. Our 5-8 building read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. This October we'll be doing it again school wide with Refugee by Alan Gratz. I am an advocate for this program and what it can do for: building classroom/school community, developing global awareness, fostering global collaboration, providing authentic audiences, and developing sympathy and empathy in our students. It is a game changer. It can revolutionize how your kids think about the world around them and the people in it. It is a game changer. It can revolutionize how your kids think about the world around them and the people in it. How did I find collaboration partners and authentic audiences? One of the sections in the Global Read Aloud's FAQ page talks about different tools they recommend or have used in the past for connecting, so you should certainly check that out. Last year, I primarily used an Edmodo group I joined for A Long Walk to Water (there were different groups for different titles) and Twitter to connect to other classrooms. On Twitter each year there is a general GRA hashtag followed by the year, so this year will be #gra18. There will also be specific hashtags for the different titles. This year there is also a Facebook group for each of the age levels (which she has links to on the FAQ page I linked above; this seems to have replaced the Edmodo groups of last year). My situation of looking for opportunities to connect a whole school of students through the school's library gave me opportunities to try different tools and methods for global collaboration and authentic audiences. We used Twitter slow chats, Flipgrid, and Padlet boards to connect with other classrooms participating in GRA last year. I created some resources that I shared out through Edmodo (They've switched from Edmodo to Facebook this year.) and Twitter and found several people to join us. I also found resources that others created by following the communities and hashtags. Individual classrooms and teachers also have an opportunity that I do not have as naturally through the library: They can build a deeper, ongoing connection and more one on one communication. Lots of classes are partnering up to chat live via FaceTime, Skype, or Google Hangouts. Or to communicate asynchronously via Flipgrid, email, etc. GRA Participants are using Twitter with the hashtags for their book and #gra18, and/or they're using their age level's GRA Facebook group to reach out to others looking for classrooms to connect with. Whether you want to find one classroom to connect with several times, more open to anyone connections, a few connections, several connections, etc. it's up to you! You can make the Global Read Aloud what you want it to be to fit your time constraints, comfort level, needs, and goals! That's part of what's great about it! MY GRA Resources and presentations Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my GRA experiences. I have leapt at opportunities the past few months to share about my experiences with GRA and try to encourage others to look into it.
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