After decades of declining youth engagement in civic and social issues, technology is presenting a potential solution. MySpace, Facebook and the major commercial sites have begun to connect youth to elections, issues and causes, and the voluntary sector around the world is using the Internet to inform and involve youth. For educators, tools like TakingITGlobal.org present an opportunity to combine engaging social networking technologies with citizenship and global education.

Managing any innovation can be a challenge, and social networking for social good is no exception. This resource is an attempt to highlight some of the best practices and lessons learned for teachers, schools, districts and other organizations attempting to create new projects at the intersection of global education and educational technology. Over the course of our research, several themes emerged:

1. Finding and speaking to your students’ passion and making the local-global connection create engaging learning experiences


2. Giving students the opportunity to co-creating learning experiences and work in active collaboration with a public audience help students take ownership of their learning


3. Professional support networks for teachers make the task of innovating in the classroom more manageable

Each of the case studies presents one or more best practices specifically linked to one of these themes. We hope that you, educators passionate about educational technology and global education, can incorporate these stories and the best practices in your daily teaching practices. We invite you to start connecting!

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