We have two students in the Finals!

It is late - 2 am here and you're in the late afternoon and probably wondering what is going on. Been a phenomenal day here. All of the students did a GREAT job with their student projects. Out of the nine teams here, we have selected four teams to be in the final video competition. Casey is on one of the teams and John is on the other.

Tayler and Katie did a great job and they'll go into another Web 2.0 tool competition tomorrow.

We ate dinner at the Souq tonight and did some souvenier shopping. Everyone had to get used to bargain hunting. Talk about rugs!! Kip is getting a new beautiful rug that I haggled down to the equivalent of about $40. (OK, so it is really for me!) US Money DOES actually go a long way here.

Dinner was very good and afterwards we had Haagen Daaz ice cream - yes Haagen Daaz!

We have worked from sunup till sundown trying to put so much into the visit, both cultural and learning. The students have shown great leadership and made friends from around the world. The conference has been a great success and we're having a meeting tomorrow to see if there is potential for sponsorship next year. Not sure of the location of this project, but we ate dinner with the CEO of HSBC Bank for the Middle East on Saturday night.

We've all discussed how our stereotypes of the Middle East are totally changed. We think we feel much safer here than in New York. Any city has its unsafe areas and unsavory characters -- Atlanta does too!

It is so important to look at the person. Yes, we have very different cultures, but the people here in Qatar are very nice. You know how sometimes some people come to Camilla from other places and they look down on us and are rude? Well, sometimes those same people come here and give Middle Easterners the wrong impression of US!

Southerners are perfect for doing well here. In fact, Ray Jones, one of our hosts with Qatar Academy is from Texas! That is because Southerners are polite. And saying "please" and "thank you" in Arabic go a long way because so few from America even make an attempt! It is beautiful to see the students as friends and pronouncing each other's names correctly. (This is something that makes anyone from any culture feel special.)

Many people here are expatriates, but even those that are not are also hospitable. We're working with high quality people here and it is a privilege to know and work with them.  Their school looks like a palace!

Really, when looking at the Middle East, we have to look at the Country. The Emir here has a goal to make Doha the Business capital of the Middle East just as Dubai has become the entertainment capital. There are so many cranes here it is unbelievable. More than 20 today were counted beside the bus and then we lost count! Building is going on everywhere! Sometimes the leaders see a building on MTV Cribs and decide to build it! You've never seen buildings like these!

The people here are delightful. Today, there was a beautiful Qatari woman who teaches at Qatar Academy. The room was full and she was about to sit on the stairs. A student from another culture saw her and moved over to give her a seat. It was a universal symbol of kindness and understanding of the humanness of us.

It has been a great experience. Mrs. Betty has been incredible to travel with and sometimes makes me feel old - SHE HAS SO MUCH ENERGY! It is a privilege to know that she hired me to come to Westwood and pushed all of us teachers to implement the project based learning approach that is based upon the latest educational research.

Thank you to all of the visionary supporters who encouraged us to go. So many people thought we were crazy, but we've worked with the people here from Qatar Academy for two years! We've met them at conferences and our students have partnered with them! Today, a student from Oman who worked with Joy this year in Flat Classroom showed her picture and talked about what a leader she was on the project!  What great students!

Can you believe that students at Westwood work on projects with students from Oman, Qatar, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Australia, Canada... and more I just don't remember?

If you want to see how amazing this is, below is the video called Shift Happens viewed millions of times on youtube. Look at the end of this video and you'll see reference to our own Flat Classroom project that started here in Camilla, Georgia. This video helps you see sort of what all of this technology stuff is about. 



Thank you to the Grandparents, parents, and so many people that help us keep our technology program going at the school. Goodnight from Qatar and I'll see you soon!

If you want to know more about what is happening, feel free to take a look at the Ning. Night y'all.

Dune Bashing near Doha

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Truly, dune bashing will go down in my personal record book as one of the greatest travel experiences of my life.  It was unbelievable.  This is the photo album including  a lot of photos taken by the participants and a video of dune bashing, the students talking about it and some of my colleagues and I relaxing at the desert barbeque.  It is great to start off with an event like this because you get to relax and have a great time!  We rode camels too!  A lot like a horse except when you get on, you'd better hang on because when the camel gets up, you are at about a 70 degree angle looking at the ground!  Amazing!

The staff at Qatar Academy has impressed everyone on the trip!  It was so much fun and they set it up with the longest running tour company in Qatar. 


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I hope that we can work it out to take more students and staff next year!  To do that, we'll have to start working on it now!

OK, gotta run now, it is 10:20 pm here and there is still quite a bit more work on my list to do.  A big shout out to my sister Sarah who designed our Flat Classroom Logo about 2 years a go (it brings tears to my eyes to see it on our banners) and who designed the DigiDollars we'll be using at the conference.

Getting ready for a project based learning conference - it will be exciting.  Julie Lindsay is a champ!

A look at our airplane with Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways has to be the nicest airways that I have ever flown.  Betty and I both talked about this and agreed.  We were pleasantly suprised at how nice it was.  My adapter doesn't seem to be working well here with my laptop (seems to be a voltage problem!)  and so I don't have much time left to share, so, I'll share the pictures and video and give you the other pictures and videos tomorrow!See the comments below. Qatar Airlines is a 5 star airline with a lot of leg room and the food was nice as well (especially the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.)



 



Goodnight! It is 10:17 pm this time!!

We have arrived safely

Oh, we were on the plane for SOOOO long! We are here, but not without some great apprehension on our part. When we arrived, the Qatar foundation had sent a car to get us - but there wasn't enough room for all of us, so they called a taxi for John and I called a taxi (I had to go because only Tayler and I had been able to go to the ATM in the hubub of getting out of the airport.)

It was a little stressful because I have spent at least 4 hours studying Arabic. To me, when one tries to learn the language of a country it is a sign of respect and that is what my research on Qatar has said. It was great as they were checking our passports. The immigrations representative broke out into smiles when I said hello and asked if I did it correctly. He started teaching me the proper way to speak and handled me and the rest of us so quickly (much faster than the others.)

But then, when John and I had our cab driver - I was struggling to talk in Arabic - he looked at me and said, no, I do not speak Arabic - I am from India - let's speak English! Aurghh!


And then when we got here and got the money, I had to go to the front desk and have them explain the currency to me so that I could tip properly -- one US dollar is worth about 3.54 Qatari Royales -- So, for taking 15 bags up - they said that 20 QR was perfectly appropriate - that is the equivalent of $5.49 according to today's exchange rate. I can't believe that!

The amazing thing is that the Qatar Foundation, our official host for the conference, really causes everyone here to "roll out the red carpet." They arranged everything and we are so excited.

I will share some video a little later today but it is 7:04 pm here now and we are going to grab a bite to eat and MAKE ourselves sleep.

More on the 5 star, amazing airplane trip with Qatar Airlines - in all of my frequent flying days - I have never flown on such a wonderful airline!!! It was amazing and really worth the flight just to experience it! Wow!

OK, we're running down to eat in the hotel and things will kick up tomorrow! Much love to everyone back home and we hope you'll follow us on our journeys! Already been chatting with my sister back home on gtalk - almost like being just down the road except this road is all the way around the world!