International Connections through Collaborative Projects

I'm fortunate to have been involved in international collaborative projects with colleagues in México, Brazil, Kuwait, and Portugal.

On Monday, October 25th, I'll be beginning a new collaborative project, E-Tutoring, with my dear friend Carla Arena, and I'm greatly looking forward to it. Carlinha is Educational Technology Supervisor for Casa Thomas Jefferson, the Brazil-U.S. Binational Center in Brasília, Brazil.

Carlinha and I met five or six years ago during a class we were both taking as part of the TESOL, Inc. Principles and Practices of Online Teaching certificate course. We immediately hit it off, and collaborated in an intercultural blogging project, "An International Exchange," that lasted for about two years and involved us and our students in Brazil and the U.S. Since that time, I've assisted with other courses Carlinha has done for Thomas, and we've also been part of the Electronic Village Online Seminars presented for five or six weeks prior to each year's annual TESOL convention. Carlinha is engaging, forward-thinking, energetic, incredibly productive, highly creative, and fun . . . so working with her is always a joy.