Teddy Bear EduMatch Race: Around the World in 80 Days

This post details how the idea of a race to get a Teddy around the world in 80 days came about with the aim to get more primary students connecting, learning from each other and collaborating in a fun way...

Can we get Ellie the Elephant (Or one of her friends) around the world between now and the EdCamp Global Classroom Conference in 80 days?

I'm totally on board with people like Craig Kemp (@mrkempnz) and Will Chamberlain (@wmchamberlain) with their projects like their Global Edu Race or Sarah Thomas' (@sarahdateechur)mission with Edu Match (@edu_match).

"The mission of EduMatch is to connect educators around the world, along similar topics of interest."

Over the last few weeks I've been focusing on Scotland and only a few Scottish educators have signed up projects like Edu Match and I'm keen to help get more people signed up to initiatives like this.

Through my on-going curation of Twitter accounts for Scottish Schools, I've noticed that there are a few primary 1 & 2 class accounts... Including Westquarter Primary School who have class mascots;

@ElliePrimary1, @WPSTerencep1, @missmcindoe, @GemmaandMarty & @WestieAlba1

I then recall the class teddy that my kids had when they were in Primary 1 which they took a home and took pictures and wrote what the Teddy did when they had a sleep over. Then there is Lego Alex (@thelegoalex) with his cool Lego Minifig photos.

All my bags are packed I'm ready to go...

Then I come across Malcolm Wilson's (@claganach)blog post on Connecting classrooms across the world with travel buddies and how;

"Classroom Travel Buddies a project that can help connect classrooms around the world, or which can help pupils make the connection with other parts of the world, can be one which involves a character which goes on a journey from the classroom"

Global Edu Race, Edu Match, Primary Classes with Mascots, my kids experience with a sleep over travel buddy and Malcolm's post about Classroom Travel Buddies (And his highlighting that it's actually a thing with an name... and an aim), then the kicker comes when I share Malcolm's post with EdCampGlobal

Well there's only one direction to take this particular "slow hunch" ...why wait til January before Ellie packs her trunk when you could go

Around the World in 80 Days

Would you believe it! There are 80 days from now until the EdCamp Global event on the 28th January and one of Westquarter's Primary 1 classes has a teddy called Ellie, I wonder if she might be ready to pack her trunk?

I pulled together this map: Teddy Bear EduMatch Race Map remembering the kind of things that we learnt about towns and cities "when I was a lad" (Couldn't resist), but the map looks a bit busy.

Maybe it would be better to just have a little bit about the school, class and mascot and then leave space for any interesting facts that the class come up with and could be anything from the educational (History, Geography, Modern Studies, Sports etc) to random fun facts.

This information could be uploaded as the school signs up and we then plan the logistics of Ellie's journey, get her passport and travel journal and itinerary etc all sorted including the countries and sights she'd like to see. 

Any schools or classes that sign up could also be added to Craig, William and Sarah's respective connected classroom initiatives when they sign up to this..

Thoughts on the back of a build-a-bear birth certificate and/or passport please... Or you can fill out the google doc on the following link and we'll be in touch if there's enough interest: Around the World in 80 Days - Teddy Bear Style