Students showing us the way – that means you Lindsea!

The past couple of days have been pretty overwhelming for a humble little blogger like me! Thanks to a Twitter post by Vicki Davis my blog has seen unprecedented traffic. (Thank you Vicki – I didn’t understand the power of Twitter until now – I still don’t quite get it but I’m working on it!) It’s minor on the scale of bloggers who have big followings, but it’s a major deal in my world. People who have left comments have been really encouraging – one person reached this blog via David Warlick’s 2 cents worth! I’m stoked!

Probably one of the most exciting responses I got was from Lindsea. Just yesterday I was sitting in the staff PD session reading from Jabiz Raisdana ‘s Intrepid Teacher blog about his experience with his students and a Sykpe conversation with a student from Hawaii. Here’s what he had to say;

“If you were walking by room 3208 today at about 3:25, this is what you would have seen:

A group of eighth graders (and one especially brilliant seventh grader), a few high school students, and their teacher preparing for a Global Issues Conference in Düsseldorf; they  are discussing the meaning of sustainability and what that means in a 21st century global economy based on over consumption and the profit motive. On the screen they are watching and listening to Lindsea, a sixteen-year-old student/writer/blogger/ who is talking about her ideas on sustainability and her experiencing using web 2.0 to make connections with people like Clay Burrell and his  Project Global Cooling and Bill Farren, who happens to be the creator of Did You Ever Wonder, the video they had just watched as a group, before their talk with Lindsea.  Did I mention that Lindsea lives in Hawaii and that it was 2:30 am her time?”

Yep, you guessed it. The Lindsea who commented on my blog is the same Lindsea who Skyped with Jabiz’s class in Qatar two days ago. What an amazing young woman. This is a girl who knows the power of this network and is using it to its best effect. I contacted Lindsea this afternoon and we’re going to try and set up a Skype conversation with my students here in Australia. Lindsea told me she’s excited. I’ve got to tell you Lindsea, so am I and my students will be too when they find out about it. Students like Lindsea are helping to make this flat world a reality and how much more powerful is it when it is the students themselves who are generating the discussion. My hope is that we can really get things going at my school – I know we have students with the fire in their belly like Lindsea – they just need to know what’s possible and how to get there.