Building Learning Communities 2014

Newsactivist.com is an open academic global network built by Champlain College Humanities Department Chair Gabriel Flacks. The site was built to facilitate cross-campus and cross-border collaboration between teachers and students and to engage students in writing thoughtfully and critically about contemporary issues.The site provides each student a personal page for writing linked within a local class network, but also within an international network of other student writers, allowing students to share perspectives with ease and in an academic environment.
It is easy to use and free for teachers and students. It is presently being used by dozens of teachers and thousands of students collaborating on feedback activities to enhance courses in Humanities, Sociology, English, Business, French, and ESL. Attendants of this workshop will 1. discover why and how the site was needed in order to allow for the effective collaboration of Flacks and his teaching partners; 2. find out how the site can help teachers find local or global collaborative partners for collaborative online international learning exercises and 3. to learn how use of the site can easily enhance courses in almost any discipline with low barriers to access.