Language Barriers, Time Zone Challenges, and More Lessons from E2

Two years ago, I was selected to attend the Education Exchange (E2) in Australia but prior to going, the conference was delayed and then canceled. Now, in 2022, E2 has gone virtual. While it means I don't get to travel to Australia (yet) it also means that I had an amazing opportunity. I was selected to be part of a team of four to present one of the breakout sessions.

Sadly, one of our four team members never responded to emails so we ended up a team of three. But we were a magnificent team of three. That is of course once we finally got started. That was one of the major lessons I learned from this experience. All three of us were located in different time countries (United States, South Africa, and Viatnam) which meant three time zones and two languages.

Our team

When we were first teamed up, it took a while to find that time that worked for all of us and it seemed we were all of the mindset that we didn't want to start on our own and waited for the others. Finally, I created a Word file in OneDrive and we all started just free-flowing our ideas and commenting on each others. Then, one of my teammates created the Powerpoint template and we all added slides to the deck. It was slow because there was long wait periods between feedback and changes but eventually we got it together, with less than 24-hours to spare. 

This experience was a great learning experience and I look forward to when E2 is held in person again.