Afghanistan Award Ceremony

Students and teachers in Afghanistan at Tajorbawi Girls High School celebrate their first place award in this year's Global Virtual Classroom web contest. Officials from the town were there also, acknowledging the work done by the school. Along with St Marks, Janikpuri, they created the site "21st Century Skills".

Food for all

Schools in Mississippi, Pennsylvania and India created the website "Food for All" a merit award winner in the GVC contest.  View the site here: https://sites.google.com/a/gsbi.org/gvc1601/

Students in India receive their award certificates

Love is all around you

Students from Rome, working with Russia and India created an award winning site about love.
http://www.liceogiuliocesare.it/pagina.asp?pagina=virtualclassroom

View the site here: https://sites.google.com/a/gsbi.org/gvc1613/

Partners from India proudly display their certificates.

Student leader Tanmay received a special award.

District 97 Schools Earn Top Awards in Global Virtual Classroom Contest

May 3, 2017

Students from Mann and Lincoln elementary schools recently competed in the Global Virtual Classroom Contest, which is a free online collaborative learning project that fosters creativity, cross cultural understanding and helping others. It also teaches IT and Web site design skills to students from around the world.

The student teams who participated in this project had their entries judged on a number of criteria, including content, presentation, collaboration and a helping focus. The helping focus encourages students to demonstrate achievement of a helpful objective (i.e., personal, social and/or environmental responsibility) or support for a worthy cause.

The district's student teams received three awards in the primary school category this year, including:

• Mann Elementary School’s fourth graders won second prize for the site The Beauty and Sorrow of Food. The class partnered on the project with students from Taiwan. The teacher leaders for the team were Linda Chrystall and Ann LaHucik.
   
• Lincoln Elementary School’s fifth graders won third prize for the site Animal Olympics. The class partnered on the project with students from India and the Czech Republic. The teacher leader for the team was Matt Kuntz.
   
• Mann Elementary School’s fifth graders won a merit award for academic excellence for the site Bon Appetit. The class partnered on the project with students from India. The teacher leader for the team was Jim Hayward.

Since 2005, District 97 has won 10 grand prize awards, seven second place awards, seven third place awards and 19 special merit awards in the competition.

Mini GVC Contest 2 Starts Soon

World Collaboration - Program for K-12 Schools
Mini Web Contest Period 2 Feb. 1 - April 15

The Mini GVC contest is open for approximately 10 weeks. Teacher guided K-12 classes and youth groups around the world that have access to the Internet and know or are willing to learn Google Sites are eligible. Groups are assigned by GVC, and may consist of anywhere from 2-4 schools.

Here is a link to the registration form. http://goo.gl/forms/UraQ0g8WRAGrdnkc2

Tools Used by All
Edmodo for communication within teams.
Google Sites for publishing final work.

Awards
Schools who complete their work in the time provided can receive a Gold Star, Silver Star, or Bronze Star Award, emailed as printable certificates. Multiple teams may receive the same award.

See awards from Mini GVC- http://minigvc.wikispaces.com/Winners

Image: Made by Shivansh Singh
https://sites.google.com/a/gsbi.org/gvcm107/

Mini Contest Winners

GVCM1 - 2016 September 5 to November 25
has been completed and the WINNERS can be found here: http://virtualclassroom.org/miniwin1-16.html

Mini Contest 2 begins February 1 and runs through Apri 15.  If you wish to participate check out the information in our Wiki: http://minigvc.wikispaces.com/  Register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd342uJg1pAdZIyDS_HWKW95MtZHh4_YwVPfsRIuiG5VI276w/viewform#start=invite

GVC Adds More Collaborations

Introducing our new GVC Mini Contest. Three different time periods during the US school year to encourage more southern hemisphere participation and teachers with many curricular pressures and little time. Cover all of the ISTE standards with one semester-long project!
Check it out: http://virtualclassroom.org/GVCMiniContest.pdf
For a quick summary.

http://minigvc.wikispaces.com/ for lots and lots of information.

As Lin-lin Tan from Taiwan said: "Education, education, education….break the walls to reach knowledge, understanding, sharing and loving."

Indian Students in the News

Times of India.com

Lakeside Student Winners in the News

Pompton Lakes News Article

Press Release - 2015-16 Web Contest

The 2015-16 contest concludes with the press release and announcement of winners: http://virtualclassroom.org/GVC%2015-16%20Press%20Release.pdf

Be sure to also go to http://www.virtualclassroom.org/win15.html to see a listing of the individual sites.

The photos are just a few participants; to see all go to https://goo.gl/photos/Qszj7h1pgzXDWu479 

Completed Haitian School Projecct

http://www.virtualclassroom.org/2015%20Haiti.pdf will take you to a PDF of the completed project.  Note the community involvement in the work and the educational opportunities for both boys and girls!

Haitian School Project

The school you so generously helped fund is nearly built! The hard working people of Franchipagne have all but completed construction of the school in three months!

Erin runs all of the buildOn school chapters in the South and West in the US and so yay for being in Florida! She's going to provide the logistical support, guidance and leadership to get our three high schools up and running in the upcoming month.

I believe so much in the work of both buildOn and Give Something Back International and I have no doubt that this is the beginning of a partnership that will change lives both here and in Haiti.

Donate to Give Something Back International to further out work of 'education to change lives'.

GSBI is an NGO whose entire program is run by volunteers, so all funds go directly to fulfill our mission.

GVC Winners Honored by School

Students at Kulachi Hansraj Model School in India, received awards from their school administrators. They are school Principal Ms. Sneh Verma; in the middle is school's manager Sh. R. Kumar and on the extreme right is school's chairman Shri Srideep Omcherry.

Working with Students from Walton Middle School in Virginia the students presented for the world a great website on "Sports and Recreation".  The website was awarded a second place in the Global Virtual Classroom Web Contest. Key to it's greatness, was not only the collaboration between the two schools, but their unique approach to the topic, stressing the value of personal participation.

Italian Students Honored

Students from Rome were honored by their school. Liceo Giulio Cesare, for their winning sites created during the Global Virtual Classroom Web Contest.  Year 1 students received an Award of Merit for their work on the site "Military Families". [Read PDF] Years 2, 3, and 4 students won a Gold Award for their "Rhyme and Rhythm" site.  [Read PDF] With encouragement from teacher Maria Pia Genovese, these students not only collaborated with students in other countries, but also within their own school since they were from different classes.

Announcement from the school can be read here: http://www.liceogiuliocesare.it/pagina.asp?pagina=virtualclassroom in the original Italian, or accessed from this PDF translated into English which mentions their Silver Award from the previous year's contest.

GVC Web Contest Winners Announced

May 1, 2015 – The Give Something Back International Foundation (GSBI) has announced the winners of the 2014/2015 Global Virtual Classroom Contest (GVC) -- a free online collaborative learning project that fosters creativity, cross cultural understanding, helping others and teaches IT and website design skills amongst students working together from around the world.

Sponsored by GSBI, the GVC program provides an opportunity for primary and secondary school students from different countries to work with and learn from students in other countries, as they collaboratively design a website on a topic of their choosing. A panel of international judges evaluates the final work and determines the winners. Read the entire Press Release here.

All winners are posted on the Global Virtual Classroom website: www.virtualclassroom.org/win14.html.

Registration for the 2015-16 Contest opens June 1.  Design period is between October 1 and March 31.

Andrew Ezzell and JoAnn Patrick-Ezzell

Andrew Ezzell and JoAnn Patrick-Ezzell are co-founders of the Give Something Back International Foundation (GSBI) and both serve on the GSBI Board. Through their enduring efforts, GSBI provides life changing, quality education and assistance to children, young adults, and teachers around the world that have had a lasting impact on their lives and families. The overarching mission of GSBI is “Education to Change Lives”. GSBI directly funds and supports the K-12 education of disadvantaged children around the world. They have provided support for children whose families do not have the financial means to support their education. Since their founding, they have sponsored over 1200 children in Thailand, Vietnam, Haiti, and Afghanistan. Their efforts have also resulted in the construction of many new classrooms and libraries in poor rural areas of Thailand. Planning is underway to build a school in Haiti.The flagship program of GSBI is the Global Virtual Classroom (GVC), which is a collection of free, online educational activities and resources. The GVC vision is to empower, enable, and connect students around the world using Internet technology. It includes an International Clubhouse, Web Design Contest, Resources, Lessons and Global Participation. The annual website design contest is a multii-national team learning experience that teaches students cross-cultural understanding, collaboration, giving back to others, and practical job skills in website design and IT skills. Approximately 35,000 students from 62 countries around the world have participated in GVC programs over the past 12 years.The One World Award recognizes the broad international scope and wide ranging philanthropic activities of Andrew Ezzell and JoAnn Patrick-Ezzell through their Give Something Back International Foundation.

Sarasota Sister Cities One World Award

GSBI foundation's beginnings

Andrew Ezzell, founder of GSBI was featured in the St. Meinrad Alumni Association newsletter. Read more about him and the dream of giving back.

One World Award

Andrew Ezzell and JoAnn Patrick-Ezzell are recipients of the 2015 One World Award for their "contributions to enhancing, understanding and respect among peoples of other countries through Give Something Back Foundation and The Global Virtual classroom."  The award was presented March 29, 2015 at the 2015 One-World Gala. http://sarasotasistercities.org/en/blog/gala-mar-29-2015-andrew-ezzell-and-joann-patrick-ezzell-winners-2015-one-world-award

Andrew and JoAnn accepting the One World award.

JoAnn Patrick-Ezzell presentation of their works.

Awards Arrive!

It was a long journey for the award plaques to get to the winners in Afghanistan! The team from Tajrobawi Girls High School won awards in both divisions of the Global Virtual Classroom web contest during the 2013-14 competition.  The final travels of the awards were accomplished through assistance from the US and Afghan Embassies. (Thanks!)

Left to right Mr. Atarpoor,  Mr. Taheri Chief of Education Department in Herat City, Basira Basiratkhah Principal of Tajrobawi Girls high School and Nasrin Obaidi, teacher and guide during the contest.

Some of the very happy students holding the awards.

After the exams are finished (for the end of term), there will be a grand celebration for the entire school with guests from the City of Herat also invited.  More will be posted then.

2014-2015 Web Contest Begins!

Thirty six primary division classes and thirty three secondary classes have received their team assignments and are ready to start the six month journey getting to know each other, choose a collaborative topic and perhaps be ones to change the world.  They are from many countries, with many from the USA and India.  See where our classes are located!