True friends are never apart, maybe in distance, but never with SMART

Getting an unexpected surprise feels totally awesome. This happened to us in little Larsmo in western Finland one day a few months ago. That week in December had been very special for us with Finland’s 99^th birthday as an independent country on December the 6^th. We were over the moon when we saw what had come to us.

Our school’s global friends across the Atlantic, to be more specific in Oregon City, Oregon, 8,000 km or 5,000 miles away from us in Finland, had planned an amazing gift for us. They had created a surprise video where they sent us Happy Independence Day greetings. The American students had made Finnish flags in different sizes, even a virtual one on their SMART board, they had decorated their classroom with blue and white pennants (the colors of Finland’s flag) and they had even learnt how to say ‘Hyvää itsenäisyypäivää’ which means ‘Happy Independence Day’ in Finnish. Can you imagine how loved and important my students felt when their global friends in the United States had made all this just for them? We were speechless when we together watched the video on the SMART board in my classroom.

And yes, we have during last fall also got several greetings from two other places in the US and that is from Greenville, Pennsylvania, and from West Dundee, Illinois. It feels great to be able to travel from Finland to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean back and forth while we are in the classroom and to watch how my students grow as human beings on their educational journey.

All this is possible for us in Larsmo thanks to SMART Technologies. The teachers that are involved in this year-long project called Bridging Cultures met last July at the 2016 Global SMART Exemplary Educator Summit in Calgary, Canada. We noticed that we, six teachers, share the same passion. We love teaching and we want our students, each one of them, from the shiest to the most outgoing one, to feel important and loved and to learn at the same time. Few things are more important for a child than to get a good self esteem. Our students are during this school year discussing, creating, engaging with new friends from different areas in the world, learning to understand global relationships, enhancing communications and making connections between past, present and future. These are very important skills to possess for the future, don’t you think so?

We travel thanks to SMART amp workspaces that our students collaborate on together on both sides of the ocean. We also make SMART Notebook files that we send to one another and we also have a blog together about this adventure. My students come up with their own ideas that they want to fulfill. They make discoveries and they create. They learn about the importance of making friends, showing love and respect for one another. I inspire my students and they inspire me. I have noticed how important it is for my students when they virtually can share text, pictures, videos and Internet links about their home town and their country. Our lessons with SMART’s software are precious and make a difference. And when they get feedback and also read about the American students’ cultural background and watch the movies that their friends have made for them they grow, both intellectually and emotionally.

I can honestly say that SMART is the best thing that has happened to my classroom and I have been an English teacher in Finland for about 20 years. Yes, teaching matters, but to have access to great tools matters, too. I am sure our SMART global collaboration project Bridging Cultures is one step in the right direction when you think about making the world a little better for our future citizens.