For the last year or so I have been working with a start-up company called Big Shared World to build, edit and share their projects with the world. Big Shared World is a cultural connectivity company hoping to inspire curiosity. Their overall goal is to bring people together in both shared spaces and shared conversations. When founder Colleen Waterston traveled the world (40 countries over the course of a year and a half!) she discovered that even though we are more globally connected than ever, we as humans are not connecting. She wants to fix that and I’m doing my best to help.

For Big Shared World I sometimes act as an editor, sometimes a content creator, sometimes a graphic designer, sometimes an event booth worker and sometimes I just hang out, listen and learn. It’s been a great experience, and now, for the first time, I want to show you some of this work.

Our Minnesota Community: A Big Shared World Activity Book was created using the content of thirteen interviews with culturally diverse Minnesotans. Each person told us what they’d like others to know about them and their culture. They told us what made them both different and the same as the other people who call their state home. They shared their traditions and values, their favorite foods and holidays, the meaning behind their clothing choices and important stories they learned when they were young. If you are interested in hearing the stories yourselves, you can check out snippets of our conversations on our YouTube Channel. Together, it is their stories that make up the bulk of our activity book. My editorial role in this book project was to conceptually edit the content, by watching the original interviews and making sure we were presenting the most important nuggets of information each person shared.

I also helped with specific wording and ensuring the elementary leveling of the text and tasks. We are very, very proud of this book and are now working hard to spread the word about it. In our wildest dreams, every student in Minnesota would be able to learn about their neighbors through their very own copy of the activity book. If you know a kiddo, teacher, district, or organization who would be interested in it, pretty please reach out and let me know.

We have also been hard at work on our website, where I write monthly blog posts on a variety of equity and educational opportunity topics and design the blog banners.

I’ve also created several book lists that our Rockstar Digital Media and Online Community Engagement Manager, Alexis, uploaded to the resource section on our site.

Copy of BSW Recommended Reading List_Trial 3.png

So, yes, I write books. But I also do other things, and in this case, other VERY COOL things. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to our world in this way. A big thank you to Colleen for bringing me along on her Big Shared World Journey. I’m excited to see where our road takes us next.

To learn more, follow us on any one of our social media platforms. Click each of these links to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest! For a sneak peek at the pages of the activity book, you can also check out excerpts in our Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

Stay curious my word nerd friends. This world that we live in is big and there is so much to explore. Until next week, happy reading, writing and learning. <3, Amanda

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