Dream Big

Back in 2014, while I was on my Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship at the Pennsylvania State University, my apartment in Cunningham Hall was the place where the Humphrey Fellows met every week. There we talked about serious and less serious matters, we laughed a lot and cried a little, and we dreamed big and small. One of our dreams was to write a research paper and have it published by a renowned publishing company.

And yesterday my dream arrived per mail! A paper that I co-wrote with my colleague and best friend Bart Verswijvel, was published by Routledge. Bart and I were invited to contribute to the book International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy by Dr. Gerard LeTendre and Dr. Motoko Akiba.

In 2014, I met Dr. LeTendre at the Humphrey Fellows Welcome Reception. We talked about education and I mentioned eTwinning. He was amazed to hear about this unique community of European teachers and wanted to learn more so he invited Bart and me to talk about it to the Teacher Leadership Faculty at Penn State. One thing led to another and so we wrote a chapter about eTwinning and teacher professional development for Dr. LeTendre's book.

Our chapter is about an online teacher training course that we designed and facilitated in spring 2015. We present one of the possible scenarios for professional development offered to eTwinning teachers. In the course we introduced teachers to strategies for practical implementation of emerging technologies, in particular augmented reality, in teaching and learning.

I'm immensely proud of this achievement. It feels fantastic to know that our work has been recognized on a global scale. And the very thought that our work might get cited is mind-boggling.