Digital technology makes it possible for students on opposite sides of the world to read the same book and discuss it together. But does connecting classrooms automatically help students understand one another? A video call or shared online discussion might introduce students to unfamiliar perspectives, but it could also reinforce assumptions they already hold. The difference may depend less on the technology itself than on how teachers structure those interactions.
Kerkhoff et al. (2022) explore this question in their study of The Global Read Aloud, an international literacy initiative that brings classrooms together through shared books and digital collaboration. Their central argument is that critical, digital, and global literacies need to develop together. Students need more than the ability to use technology or learn information about other countries. They also need to question assumptions, understand different perspectives, and recognize how language and power influence people’s experiences (pp. 2–3).
This distinction between exposure and understanding interests me because it challenges the assumption that global connection is inherently educational.
A Shared Book Creates a Starting Point
The Global Read Aloud, founded by educator Pernille Ripp in 2010, invites classrooms to read selected books during a six-week period and connect with other readers through digital platforms. The 2026 initiative runs from October 5 through November 13.
Kerkhoff et al. found that teachers valued these exchanges because students were communicating with authentic audiences rather than completing assignments only for their teachers. Participants described using platforms such as Padlet and Flipgrid to exchange responses with students in other classrooms. Teachers reported increased engagement and opportunities for genuine conversations about literature and social issues (pp. 10–12).
One particularly interesting example involved students reading A Long Walk to Water. An English-language teacher in Argentina described how students investigated water purification and designed homemade water filters, connecting the book to scientific inquiry and unequal access to clean water (p. 11).
The important point isn’t simply that students used technology. They used reading as a starting point for investigating a problem beyond the story.
When Connection Reinforces Assumptions
However, the study also identifies a limitation that I think deserves attention. The researchers caution that encountering another culture doesn’t necessarily reduce stereotypes. Without opportunities to examine assumptions and power relationships, cross-cultural interactions can sometimes reinforce existing beliefs (p. 4).
Consider a classroom connecting with students in another country after reading a book about poverty or displacement. Students might become more sympathetic, but they could also develop an oversimplified understanding of that country’s people as primarily vulnerable or disadvantaged.
One teacher interviewed in the study deliberately introduced alternative narratives highlighting resistance and joy, rather than presenting communities only through their struggles (p. 16).
This illustrates why critical literacy matters. Students need opportunities not only to encounter different experiences but also to reconsider the interpretations they bring to those experiences.
Who Gets to Join the Conversation?
The Global Read Aloud’s flexible design allows teachers to choose their level of participation and the technologies that work for their classrooms. This flexibility potentially expands access, but it doesn’t eliminate barriers.
Kerkhoff et al. report that some classrooms struggled with unreliable internet, insufficient devices, or institutional restrictions on digital platforms. They also acknowledge that the project primarily operates in English and that most participants in their study were from the United States and Canada (pp. 11, 18–19).
This raises a question about whose voices shape an international learning community. If participants mainly communicate through English and platforms familiar to North American teachers, students elsewhere may have to adapt to communication practices they didn’t help establish.
Designing for Reciprocal Learning
As an early childhood teacher, I can imagine connecting classrooms through shared picture books, drawings, and recorded messages. But I would want children to do more than identify similarities and differences. I would want them to become curious about how other children interpret the same story and recognize that their own perspective is only one possibility.
The Global Read Aloud demonstrates that technology can create opportunities for international collaboration. The teachers’ experiences in Kerkhoff et al.’s study suggest that the educational value comes from what students are invited to do with those opportunities.
Connection gives students access to one another. Reciprocal learning requires them to take one another’s perspectives seriously.
If we want digital projects to develop global understanding, shouldn’t we pay as much attention to how students listen and respond as we do to how easily they connect?
Reference
Kerkhoff, S., Carpenter, J., Yang, Q., & Dong, Y. (2022). Part of something bigger: Critical, digital, and global literacies in the Global Read Aloud. Literacy Research and Instruction. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/19388071.2022.2154084
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