Effective online collaboration is a valuable instructional approach appropriate for 21st century teaching and learning. This paper describes a case that involves two higher education student cohorts from the United States and Australia engaged in a global collaboration to promote an authentic teaching and learning experience. The collaboration aims to involve students in sharing, reflecting and synthesizing new knowledge to make a comparative analysis between education systems from the two countries. The global collaboration is matched against an Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills framework to comprehend and justify this approach as part of a teacher education course. This case advocates the value of having future teachers using online resources in a global context as a way to effectively integrate new content with various technology resources to develop new learning and new relationships beyond their own culture.

This article finds that the new virtual learning environments comprise more spaces and practices in which digital resources, tools, and applications are used. The article introduces how digital storytelling can create virtual learning environments when it is used for learning 21^st-century skills and competencies needed in students’ future working life. The study describes how students (n = 319) in three countries and their teachers (n = 28) value digital storytelling and what they think students have learned. Their experiences are analyzed using a theoretical conceptualization of the global sharing pedagogy that sets categories of processes or tools as mediators: 1) learner-driven knowledge and skills creation, 2) collaboration, 3) networking, and 4) digital literacy. Analyses have been quantitative and qualitative. The article describes students’ experiences when they created their digital stories and how they engaged in learning. The major findings are that students enjoyed creating their stories, and they were very engaged in their work. They learned many 21^st-century skills when creating their digital stories.