Norms of Global Collaboration

This week, we learned about norms of global collaboration, and according to our text, there are eight norms that educators should be working towards as they strive to be global educators and good global citizens.

The first norm is to be prepared. This includes things like knowing how to use your Personal Learning Network (PLN) and Professional Learning Communities (PLC) for collaboration, as well as having and knowing about the tools you will use to communicate with them.

The second norm is to have a purpose. What is your goal for this collaboration? Do you want to create a cultural exchange project, are you looking to talk to people who are more knowledgeable than you in a specific topic or are you looking for people to bounce ideas off of? Having a clear purpose will help you to be better prepared and help you find the people who will be most helpful.

Third is being able to paraphrase, knowing appropriate global paraphrasing is key to getting your message across quickly. The text points out that you should watch out for local colloquialisms, as they will not be universally recognized and can often be confusing

Fourth is being able to perceive. This norm is dependent on the third norm. Knowing the global communication paraphrasing and communication techniques are critical to mastering the ability to perceive and gather information from the community.

Fifth is to participate.  You should participate not just on your own requests, but in as many other global collaborations as you can. Twitter chats are a great start for this. Get involved.

Sixth is to be positive. It is always better to focus on the positives and even, whenever possible, turn a negative into a positive. People will want to engage you more if you can do this.

Seven is to be productive.  As with the fifth norm, you need to be present get yourself out there and make sure you are sharing as well as getting. Whenever possible, share lessons, outcomes, project ideas and more. Being an active part of the community is crucial.

Finally, the eighth norm is to realize the potential that lies in global collaboration. There are so many unintended learning moments and experiences that you just can’t get from a regular classroom. Teachers who are part of a global community have such an advantage in this way.

These eight norms came from our text book “The Global Educator, Leveraging Technology for Collaborative Learning and Teaching” written by Julie Lindsay.  It is a great resource on learning about global communication, but as I and the book pointed out, there is so much more out there. So tell me what you think. Do you think there are more than these eight norms? What would you add to this list?