
Bradford, Ontario, Canada
"In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."
— Mother Teresa
Mali Bickley has 26 years of experience as a classroom teacher. Over the past 5 years, she has used information and communications technology (ICT) and successfully integrated literacy and content area curriculum to help her students connect, communicate, and collaborate with several classes from around the world. As a classroom teacher, Bickley is using global education projects and multimedia programs to integrate reading and writing strategies into meaningful projects that connect students globally. Her students have successfully collaborated with one another and students around the world to make a difference in the lives of others. Her students won the National Multimedia Award from the Calgary Board of Education for their “My Hero” movie. She is the corecipient of the Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award from the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario and one of the winners of the Mindshare Learning 21st Century Classroom contest. Recently, Bickley and her students received the Ron Kovic Peace Award for their short film, "Imagine Peace." She is the assistant country coordinator of iEARN Canada and designs and facilitates many international projects.
Bickley has given workshops on collaborative global education projects and integrating ICT into classroom practice to several schools, districts, universities, and interested organizations, such as TakingITGlobal, World Vision, and ECOO both nationally and internationally. Along with Jim Carleton, she delivered one of the keynote addresses to an audience of 4,500 attendees at the 2008 NECC conference in San Antonio, Texas. Bickley clearly sees how students become highly engaged in global collaborative projects that use ICT. She feels the rewards of teaching include seeing how students become passionate about the connections they have made with others.