Welcome!

You’ve come to Classroom Bridges! If you are looking for other classrooms to connect your students with around the world, then you’re in the right spot. As the project develops, more resources will be posted to give you ideas on how to connect your students. The main purpose of this site is to help you find other teachers who are willing to collaborate with you and your students. These connections could be something as small as doing a Google Hangout to expand your students’ audience for class presentations, or they could be much larger scale projects where your students are working together (in two different locations) to complete an end of unit project. No matter the complexity of your connection, it’s important to get our students connected to each other.

Why the Need?

Developing global and cultural awareness and collaboration skills are so important for our students in today’s workforce, yet so many students are not given this opportunity. The International Society for Technology in Education has developed standards for teachers and students (and administrators, coaches and computer science teachers, but those groups are not the focus of this resource), which both indicate the need for students and teachers to work collaboratively with people from other parts of the world to gain a global perspective and understanding. To the right is an infographic about the the standards and the importance of connecting your students with students in other cultures. You can view all the standards in depth here.

Also included in the infographic is a very brief summary of the Future Work Skills of 2020 study conducted by the Institute for the Future and the University of Phoenix Research Institute. Many of the identified drivers of changeand skills for the future reflect the need to give our students more opportunities to connect and collaborate with students from other cultures. You can read the entire report here.

How to Use the Classroom Bridges

Fill out the form on the Sign Up page to let other teachers know you are willing to connect
Go to the Find a Classroom page once you have signed up to find another classroom to start connecting. On this page, you can filter your search by location, grade level, subject area and more.
Contact the other teacher with information they provided (email, social media, etc.). Together, the two (or more) of you will work together outside of this website to develop your classroom connection activity/project.

That’s it. It’s literally as easy as 1, 2, 3! Your time should be spent developing and implementing the actual connection project, not finding other classrooms to connect with! Please let us know about each connection you make through Classroom Bridges by filling out this short form.