Carla Arena and I met almost three years ago, when we were both enrolled in a class as part of TESOL's Principles and Practices of Online Teaching certificate program. At that time, Carla was teaching EFL at the Brazilian-U.S. binational Center Casa Thomas Jefferson in Brasília and I was teaching ESL and Developmental English at Estrella Mountain Community College in Avondale, Arizona. During our time together in the PPOT class, Carla and I discovered that although we were different in many ways, we also shared many common interests and had similar attitudes toward online learning. Accordingly, when Carla suggested starting an international, intercultural collaborative blog between some of her classes and some of mine, I gladly and enthusiastically agreed.

Our posts began in September, 2005 and continued actively through November 2006. During our first semester, only Carla and I were involved in the project, but we were joined by another EMCC teacher, Dr. Carlotta Abrams, and her students during Spring Semester, 2006 and during EMCC's 2006 Summer Session (when I was not teaching) by Pearl Williams (who was not only my colleague, but also, as Department Chair for Developmental Education, my boss). Both Carlotta and Pearl are keenly interested in international ventures and are also proponents of participative online learning.





See examples of blogging with Carlotta's class HERE.

And see examples of blogging with Pearl's class HERE.

"An International Exchange" was, effectively, put on hold in November, 2006, when Carla learned that her husband had received a two-year job assignment in Key West, Florida. At about the same time, I developed some serious health problems that led first to an extended medical leave and then resignation from the best job I have ever had—teaching at EMCC. During late 2007, however, I was fortunate to collaborate (though individually, not with students) in Carla's first online class, "Listening Plus," which was conducted with students in Brazil but administered from Key West; it was a wonderful engaging experience.

I think I can speak for Carla as well as myself in saying that we are both open to starting another incarnation of "An International Exchange" with classes from locations other than Brasília and Phoenix, but, for the time being, are content to keep the "International Exchange" pages online as a set of wonderful memories and also as examples of how international collaborative blogging can be successfully implemented.

My favorite sections are HERE and HERE.

Dennis in Phoenix