Anyone who’s followed this blog knows about my ongoing struggle to bring together technology in education with the principles and ideals in support of global education. While in many ways it is a natural match as well as perhaps an inevitable contradiction, I’m always curious why we aren’t seeing more of the two coming together, or more aptly, ed tech supporting systems thinking and global perspectives. Today I’d like to highlight two brilliant examples and direct you on to the blog posts that describe them. First visit Jennifer Whiffin’s new blog at In Pursuit of Purpose where she details how she uses Kiva to teach 4th and 5th grade math. Then have a read of Phil Macoun’s guest blog post on TLITE Online. Here Phil has written about the Digiteen project. Kudos to Jennifer and Phil for their excellent work.
The photos below are from Roger on IPeace, an interesting site to consider joining as it is a social networking site dedicated to peace. As I write this there are already 12897 members, but that numbers been increasing rapidly throughout the day. Already I’ve connected online to educators, artists and others who are all dedicated to trying to figure out how we can work towards creating peace in this little world of ours.
I just arrived home from a workshop for university faculty and students on the question “what is global citizenship?” This question is being asked in answer to UBC’s trek2010 visioning statement which claims that UBC is committed to preparing exceptional global citizens. To this end they have put together the Road to Global Citizenship: An Educator’s Toolbook, which is available as a free download. The toolbook is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to examine their practice and their assumptions about teaching and global citizenship. The book was edited by Yael Harlap and created by the UBC Global Citizenship Community of Practice through the Center for Teaching and Academic growth. Unicef supported the printing costs through their Education for Development Program, sponsored in part by the Canadian International Development Agency.
I’ve been reading through the book, slowly working my way through the exercises and generally am finding it useful, though in some ways to me it is like preaching to the converted. That isn’t to say that I don’t still have a lot to learn, but I am already at least already committed to the task of becoming a better educator for global citizenship. The activities and exercises matter to me but I’m curious how the unconverted would find them. Would they find them tedious, meaningless, less thought provoking, inconsequential? Could this book really make a difference to how someone treats their students, plans their activities in a class, considers what content to include, what to ignore, or how to assess?
Yael commented at the workshop that one of her colleagues, after reviewing the book, noted that it really just professes good teaching. True to some degree, I would say and thus all the more reason for faculty to get on board. Interestingly and perhaps to my disappointment there were more students at the workshop than faculty which led me to wonder what strategies exist for students to negotiate appropriate knowledge, dispositions, communication and thinking skills into what and how they are being taught? What support is in place to facilitate students being able to insist that their curriculum is indeed placing them on the road to global citizenship?
So I am clearly the lucky one. I get to read all of the Global Ed baseline portfolios. For the most part, I’m blown away. I feel honored by what the students are sharing with me; delighted with the glimpses into each of their own ways of knowing and sense making. I feel privileged to be the one who gets to do this. But I also feel sad. I feel sad because I know that from what several of the students have said, that they are feeling connected and a growing sense of community. They are enjoying what they are building together and so my sadness is about that while I am the one that gets to collect in these samples of learning and special “aha moments” because I’m the teacher, it isn’t my intention to put myself at the center. Instead I would rather be finding ways to create or enhance a web and a network. The question is, how? How can I meet the requirements of assessment, keep myself in but not central to the emerging web, and help to support and foster the community that is developing through these or future portfolios?
