Rekha Puri is the Director of Admissions at The School at Columbia University. She is also the founder of LINEglobal (@LINEglobal). As per their website’s mission page, LINEglobal “aims to create a global support system for educators to enrich their work and to create the greater cross-cultural awareness needed for the world to meet its shared goal of ensuring that every child has a quality education.”
On Thursday, during one of the final faculty meetings of the year, we split up unconference-style to brainstorm possible committees and goals for next year’s theme: The Year of Collaboration. Rekha invited people to her table to discuss global education opportunities. I plopped down in time to hear her say she will be traveling to India in October with a few independent school Heads, including our own Amani Reed, to encourage global collaboration.
I mentioned that my edcampnyc committee had just been discussing possibly holding our 5th event in October and that it would be so cool if there were any edcamps in India to network with. When we looked at the map of edcamps, there weren’t any pins at all in India. I immediately started plotting with Rekha to organize edcampmumbai. Within minutes, we reserved a Gmail address, Twitter handle, and WordPress blog. Within a day, we had a domain name, a logo, a blank session board, a few Twitter followers/retweets, and a registration page ready to go. Rekha will be using her connections in India to partner with a willing school and possible sponsors.
I love making things happen and building community. It would be truly amazing to travel to India for the primary purpose of gathering teachers together to share, network, learn, and inspire. Next, I’m going to peer pressure Tabitha Johnson (@tabletj) and Akio Iida (@dorakio) to organize edcampseoul! They’re moving there this summer to work at Seoul International School, and it would be an awesome way to meet other teachers and form relationships…
Karen Blumberg 