by Ania Rolińska
On 14 December, dr Nazmi, Bill and myself had a great opportunity to present the EAST project to a wider educator community. We were interviewed by John Johnston for EduTalk Radio, which is an online project to gather voices of educators or anyone interested in education, using mobile and web technologies. According to ‘Teaching Scotland’, it is ‘one of the most innovative, interactive professional learning resources in Scottish education’!

We appreciated the chance to talk to John as it was a great opportunity to summarise the project and share the insights we gained during it, to reminisce about the highlights of the project and reflect on the various challenges that both we and the students encountered when working together in the summer. Dr Nazmi, with the usual enthusiasm and determination, outlined the range of shorter- and longer-term opportunities such projects provide to his students and colleagues. It’s a chance for them to try to overcome the varied constraints imposed by the circumstances, for example barriers to do with communication with the wider world, free flow of ideas and exchange of experiences. I had been impressed by IUG students’ dedication in the summer months and dr Nazmi’s account on Wednesday shed more light on the challenges they faced daily when trying to meet the deadlines of the tasks. Neither Bill nor myself could add anything to dr Nazmi’s closing comments – he is a true champion when it comes to emphasising the importance of cross-cultural collaboration. The only thing I was able to throw in was to repeat that it had been a privilege to work with IUG and contribute in one way or another to making tiny changes to the lives of young people in Gaza and to see how technology can support authentic learning in a global classroom. I hope other educators will find our example inspiring to forge relationships with teachers and students elsewhere and expand the walls of their schools and universities to engage in conversations around real-life scenarios and problems as this is what education is about!
Here is what John posted on Twitter after the interview:

I just finished listening to one of the most marvellous edu projects on #EDUtalk archive will be up soon more here: https://t.co/jsAllaMgKl
— john johnston (@johnjohnston) December 16, 2015
and here is a link to his blog post.
If you’d like to listen to the interview, here it is:

http://www.edutalk.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/eastproject.mp3It can also be accessed on the EduTalk website: http://www.edutalk.info/show/ania-rolinska-east-project/
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