I have been doing a bunch of research on virtual reality and its benefits in education and its success in global collaborations. Virtual reality has really changed the game in general but has seriously changed the game in education. VR creates an entire digital environment, a 360-degree, immersive user experience that feels real. In a virtual reality setting, students can interact with what they see as if they were really there and some benefits are providing students with immersive learning experiences, other benefits of virtual reality in education include the ability to inspire students’ creativity and spark their imaginations. Virtual Reality can also be used to motivate students and allow them to explore new academic interests. Virtual Reality in education also helps students struggling to understand difficult academic concepts. Overall virtual reality has had great success when it comes to global collaborations. Virtual Reality enhances collaboration and increases productivity.

The WE program, which is based on social and emotional learning and positive youth development, encourages adolescents to be their best selves and supports educators by equipping them with the necessary skills to become compassionate and future-ready citizens. I took a look at the Lesson Packages and Supporting Resources to see if I could fine any interesting lessons that I would want to use in my classroom.

I came across the WE Walk For Water Campaign. The lesson states “With our Classroom Resources, educators can integrate service-based learning into their curriculum to broaden students’ understanding of issues they are passionate about.” There are 4 steps to this lesson/ campaign.

Step 1: Investigate and Learn

This step allows students to do some research, providing links and resources, with questions to support what they’ve learned.

Step 2: Action Plan

questions are asked about the student’s goals, and they will choose the date pf their walk. The, each group member is assigned a role in which they will carry out to the end of the campaign.

Step 3: Take Action

Student are directed to:

1- Make a donation page, a go found me, and explain why they are collecting money for clean water. They will create a team name and a goal.

2- spread the word, post on social media using #WEwalkForWater and tag @WEmovement.

3- Walk the walk, “On the day of your event, you will be walking for all of the women and children around the world who spend hours each day walking to collect water for their families. This walk and the money you’ve raised will create real impact in developing communities around the world.”

Students will then answer reflection questions about the fundraiser .

Step 4: Report and Celebrate

Students will answer report questions, and celebrate by posting the earnings to social media. At the end, Students will send in the earnings to the WE website.

I will be using the WE Virtual Learning Center in my future classroom, and I hope to do this exact lesson. Thank you!

Something that I found very interesting is this Schools Event Calendar. This is so people can come online and join these virtual events that this school does virtually.

It showed me some examples of events that the WE School teachers do and they share with other people. This is something that not only students, teachers or anyone can join virtually but something that teachers around the world can take advantage of and try out some of the activities they do virtually. This can give teachers some ideas to bring to their classrooms. Some examples I will picture below.

Innovators, let’s talk about WE Schools, the unstoppable force in education. WE Schools is making waves and developing a new generation of compassionate leaders prepared to take on society’s most difficult problems, from empowering students to reforming communities.

Empowering Youth: The goal of our team at WE Schools is to enable youth to reach their full potential and change the world. Our objective? to provide them the drive, vision, expertise, self-assurance, and knowledge needed to tackle urgent problems on a local and international scale. Through the implementation of campaigns to eliminate bullying, raise money for clean water systems, or organize community clean-ups, kids learn that they have the ability to make a difference and form a lifelong dedication to civic participation, volunteerism, and philanthropy.

Measuring Impact: We walk the walk as well as talk the talk. In order to make sure we’re providing top-notch resources, we think it’s important to track the results of our initiatives. For this reason, we collaborate with top social impact advisors, Mission Measurement, to research, understand, and constantly enhance the ways in which WE Schools develop the next wave of altruistic leaders. And believe me when I say that the results speak for themselves: they have had a transformative impact on pupils in the UK and North America.

WE Schools by the Numbers: Let’s break it down. During the 2017–2018 school year, campaigns run by youth involved in WE Schools resulted in:

– $8.3 Million raised for social causes

– 10.8 Million pounds ($15.5 M in value) of food collected for local causes

– 12.7 Million hours volunteered for local and global causes

That’s not just numbers; that’s real impact, real change, and real difference-making.

Transforming Youth: The worst part is this: According to 81% of educators, students who attend WE Schools are more inclined to take action to better lives both at home and abroad. Youth at WE Schools perceive themselves as change agents seven times more frequently than their peers do, and 90% of teachers believe that students are becoming more leadership-oriented. That’s what I mean when I say empowerment!

Empowering Educators: Not only do kids gain, but teachers also gain authority. Because of their involvement with WE Schools, 78% of them feel more fulfilled in their careers, and 82% of them have been able to find leadership possibilities for their kids. Furthermore, 76% of educators claim that WE Schools have helped them create a welcoming and safe atmosphere. How about changing things both inside and outside of the classroom?

Preparing Young Leaders: The effects don’t end there. Because of their involvement with WE Schools, 73% of youth feel inspired to attend college, and 92% of young adult participants list WE Schools’ accomplishments on their resumes. Companies also adore it; 94% of them respond favorably to resumes that highlight involvement with WE Schools. Students who receive that kind of instruction are more likely to succeed in life.

In summary, WE Schools is a vibrant movement rather than merely a program. Its goals are to uplift young people, revitalize neighborhoods, and develop the next wave of leaders who will be able to have a significant impact on the globe at large. With your continued help, we’re not only having an impact—we’re building the groundwork for a day when leadership, action, and compassion will all come together to improve everyone’s quality of life. And this is just the start of our path to a more promising future.

https://www.we.org/en-US/our-work/we-schools/impact?_ga=2.124924547.823303893.1713198678-1697037438.1713198678

As I was going through the We Virtual learning center there where a few things that stuck out to me specifically. This is a very good page for teachers to come to for help. I navigated to the “lesson Packages & Supporting resource’s” tab. this is a really good way for teachers to get some help information and lesson plans for all grades, skills, and themes. this could be a very useful too for teachers. they can see different lessons plans that they can use or can just use things from those lessons plans to help. I definitely can see this being useful in my future teaching career. Being able to see all these different lessons plans for all different topics and ages is so useful. It is being regularly updated with new and better information. I don’t see how teachers wouldn’t use this as a reference if they knew about it. This website should be shared to more teachers for help and reference.

The resource I read through on the We Virtual Learning Center is about the Service- Learning Educator Guide. This guide is for the educator and shows how they use this framework for students to accomplish their learning objectives. While also engaging with and addressing the needs of their community as well as possibly the entire world, their country, their state, or their county. Through this framework it shows the educator how they should have their students investigate and learn about the topic that is being taught to them. Then the action plan of how to implement their learning on the lesson or topic at hand to apply it into the real world. As well as how they take action to do so and what type of action they will take to accomplish this goal. Finally reporting what the outcomes of what they have learned, each and every step they complete must be recorded and reflected so that they can implement these notes into their final project as well.

I thought that this was a great resource as it gave the teacher the full outline of what the lesson and work should be done by their students. All the educator has to do in this situation is follow the lesson plan and what each part wants the student to accomplish. Then at the end the students have completed a service while learning about a certain topic. This service will help their community, county, state, country, or maybe even the world which is a very positive thing. That is why I decided to research and write about this tool from the WE Virtual Learning Center since it is such an amazing tool from this website. WE Virtual Learning Center has many other great tools and resources such as the student toolkit which helps students complete projects like these and the steps they must go through on their own to work through these projects correctly. I suggest looking through this website with everything that it has to offer as it has many great resources that educators and students can use for their class.

https://weschools.we.org/

https://vimeo.com/garciacreativemedia/review/510525284/851a1a17e5

WE is an amazing learning experience that promotes a collaborative service between students AND teachers! Like-minded students choose an issue or topic that needs attention and consideration then develop plan to bring awareness to this topic. This allows for the students and community to become involved through volunteering and skilled work.

A success story from this concept is this story from Texas that raised funds to aid those in need through a GoFundMe campaign and local donations.

I look forward to using this resource in my classroom for many reasons. I feel as though this can not only bring our community together to help local issues but can also expand to global issues too. The students and teachers can influence others who want to help but do not know how to get started.

1026_we_sl_student_toolkit_r4.pdf (storyblok.com)

With the use of the internet, teachers and educators have been able to share their resources and tools across the globe for others to use to enhance their own education. This global collaboration has provided aspiring teachers today with an endless amount of resources to help support and enhance their learning. The Website WE Virtual Learning Center is one such source of education resources and today I will share 3 interesting things I found while exploring the site.

Events And Opportunities For All Teachers

Before we jump into the educational content and resources provided throughout the page, something I found very helpful was their event calendar. This helped show what types of events are being held when throughout the school year and how you can fit your teaching schedule around it. Events such as the Say It Now Workshop, Global Classroom, and Professional Development can help you learn and explore even more ways to improve your classroom as well as network and make connections with other educators around the world.

Endless Amounts of Lessons And Resources

Throughout the website, there are hundreds of lesson plans, teaching strategies, and course resources available to view or download. These resources range from classroom management, to improving social connections between students, to subject area content. It is really amazing how much there is. One resource I found interesting was the WE Are One Campaign Guide, a lesson plan/guide for teaching the importance of accepting diversity and providing inclusion with technology. The lesson plan is very well crafted with interesting graphics and designs. One small issue that I would like to mention is that while the website has many different resources, the way it organizes them can be somewhat confusing and difficult to navigate.

Different Types of Media For Teachers and Students

As a Visual/Audio learner, I love it when a website provides knowledge and resources in multiple different ways and formats mainly through video. Luckily the We Virtual Learning Center has a large collection of videos for you to watch yourself or use in a classroom. They contain many of the same resources and information as listed before in video formats such as Workshops, virtual events, and lesson ideas.

Conclusion

I am happy to add this website to my collection of educational resources and I believe it can be a great help for anyone looking for lesson ideas or wanting to improve their teaching craft. While the website can be a little confusing and complicated, it is still a vast and incredible resource that I would love to make use of myself as a teacher

You can check out the website here for yourself at this link https://weschools.we.org/. If you like this blog feel free to check out my previous blogs as well.