Global Education Starts Here
A visiting author once described my classroom as “The United Nations,” which was a rather clever but complementary way to recognize the many languages spoken by my students. At last count, over 10 languages are spoken. In addition to our official languages of English and French, native speakers of Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Turkish, Italian, Mandarin, Tamil, Punjabi, and Spanish are represented. In addition, some 60 different cultures are represented in our school, a new school built about 7 years ago in a middle-class suburb of Toronto, Canada.
Surprisingly, racial problems are few and far between, making the United Nations moniker even more “apropos.” Students are given the opportunities to communicate one with another and frequently celebrate differences and similarities.
Many students have lived or at least traveled to other parts of the world. Events in countries far and near are often openly discussed. Even at Grade 7, students spent considerable time initiating discussions about the recent federal election, the Presidential election in America, the current events in India, Thailand and Canada (in case it hasn’t yet hit the media south of the border, the minority government led by the Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be replaced with a controversial coalition government led by the rejected centrist Liberal Party, propped up by the social-democractic New Democratic Party and the separatist Parti Québécois after a vote of non-confidence in Parliament). But I digress.
My students have a broad world-view because they are the world. They represent it. So does our teaching staff. Cultures, countries and religions represented by my colleagues include: India, Mauritius, Singapore, Vietnam, Greece, Portugal, Guatemala, French-Canadian, Aboriginal, Hindu, Christian, Sikh, and Jewish.
Our school does not begin and end at the schoolyard gate. We raised $14,000 in support of victims of the Tsunami in 2004. On two occasions we have raised over $10,000 and sent a small contingent of students and teachers to Honduras in Central America to build schools in poverty stricken, remote areas. Our Green Team worked tirelessly for three years to protect the wetland adjacent to our school that was slated for development.
It is natural then, that our students have been involved in global and environmental education. They actively are “the change we wish to see in the world”. (Gandhi)
Each year, classes are challenged to complete a project together around a theme. This year’s project has as its focus, the environment, a response to our theme for the year: “We are all connected.” Last year’s goal was to raise money for Honduras. After the class saw the series of “Where the Hell is Matt?” videos, in which a young traveler danced around the world, they decided that they wanted to create a video to educate the world about an environmental issue. They chose the problem of bottled water, a significant producer of energy and environmental waste. They have researched the problem and have written a series of fact sheets and slogans that can be used by classes, friends and family around the world. People have been invited to send a short video clip of their group announcing, in their local language, an important fact or message about the problems related to bottled water. The class will be editing, adding music and fact titles. The emails have been sent out. We have our first video clip sent from Australia, with a Thai class filming this week. The class hopes the video will “go viral” on Youtube.
Global education, it seems, is alive and well at Ruth Thompson Middle School, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
**Adendum- I took an official language count and we totalled 14. Some were languages I had never heard of.
Citizens of the Global Village
One of my favourite websites for sharing content is epals.com. Described as “the Internet’s largest global community of connected classrooms,” ePals has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2008 EDDIE Award for “Best Internet Communication Website” and a 2008 Technology and Learning “Award of Excellence.”
I have been using ePals in the classroom for almost 15 years, since it was in its infancy. The leading edge, innovative technological tools that it provides teachers, students, home-schoolers and parents around the world, are excellent means for students to develop communication skills and creative content.
Available in more than seven languages, classroom teachers around the world can connect their students one with another in simple email exchanges, in complex collaborative projects, in the sharing of text, sound, and video products. What makes the exchanges unique is their authentic nature. Students learn from each other through instant Internet communication. No longer separated by a classroom walls, or by the distance to another school district, province, state, continent or country, students develop rich understandings of the similarities and differences between themselves and their peers near and far. The only barrier is the time separating linked classrooms.
As a teacher always looking to push the limits of what technology can do, I have been able to use ePals in my classroom to link students in the exploration of literature. Students in different countries read and discussed the same novel. Remote Man, a novel, is about students in different countries, not coincidentally, who become involved in catching an international endangered animal smuggling ring. The characters in the novel gather on the Internet to track down the perpetrators from their homes in Australia, America, Jamaica and France.
Students in my class quickly became engaged with the novel as they read and discussed the plot, characters, settings and themes. Their engagement was increased when they shared emails, artwork, points of view and questions. They also participated in live text chats with their classmates across the oceans. The author, Elizabeth Honey, kindly agreed to join in the discussions. Her presence in the online chats contributed greatly to their success, and inspired further student learning. Students wanted to know more about her reasons for writing the book, as well as how she crafted the characters, the settings and the story.
On one occasion, the author, at home in Australia, discussed the book with the class, in the school’s computer lab, along with a home-school family in the Highlands of Scotland. One student, on holiday in Saudi Arabia, also joined in. Separated by 14 time zones, the students and adults learned from each other in the moment.
The linked video describes the way the Internet became a way for students to overcome time and space and learn from one another. Produced by my school district in support of their Teaching With Technology Project, I was able to share our unique learning activity with teachers in my District. TwTI Murray Interview.mov
To add another personal highlight of my experience with ePals, I look back to 1999. My class was chosen to host the Prime Minister of Canada to showcase ePals for Netd@ays Europe, a way to demonstrate Canada’s leadership in the use of the Internet in schools. This event involved the Prime Minister visiting the class, sending emails to our class partners in New Zealand, followed by an address to the whole school about being citizens of the Global Village. This was, without a doubt, a career highlight!
Having had classroom partners in the USA, France, the UK, New Zealand and Australia, I can attest to the fact that my students truly understand what it means to be residents of the Global Village, and are better people because of these experiences.
Honey, Elizabeth. (2004). Remote Man. New York, Yearling.
The National Atlas of Canada
Having always had a fascination with maps, I immediately saw the potential for the National Atlas of Canada’s website in education. There can be found here more maps than one can actually study in a lifetime, due to the fact that the site has pre-made printable maps, in addition to user created maps on an almost infinite number of topics: history, economy, health, geology, environment, climate, transportation, population, and hydrology. In fact, only the curiosity of the questioner and the depth of information that one seeks limit the maps that can be created.
Therefore, if creative minds are the goal, encourage students to seek information about Canada that intrigues them.
Here is an example: Grade Sevens at my school often research Natural Disasters. Given a type of disaster, students could research the location and magnitude of a disaster such as Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Hurricanes etc.
Here’s How:
Go to the Atlas and pick: Environment-Natural Hazards-Tsunami.
Zoom in to an area of the country of interest. Click on Population overlays. Add roads or other human data. Centre the print area. Print a colour PDF for study. The parameters of the map are completely user defined.
Here is an example of the map created. BC Tsunamis Map
Pop-up-windows allow the user to examine individual events, perhaps leading to further research questions.
e.g.
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Earthquake Event |
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Name: |
Cascadia, 1700 |
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Magnitude: |
9.0 |
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Position: |
Latitude 48.5° 15’ 20″ N / Longitude 125° 00′ 00″ W |
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Date: |
January 27, 1700 |
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Description: |
Recorded widely in oral native accounts and by geological evidence for subsidence and a tsunami along the outer coast; confirmed by a tsunami record in Japan. Extent of damage unknown. |
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Number of Deaths: |
Unknown, native villages destroyed according to oral traditions |
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Damage: |
Yes (in Japan from tsunami) |
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Related Tsunami: |
Yes |
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This data set may trigger further research, analysis and understanding. Students might compare events of different time periods, or at different locations. Or they could compare the relationship between two different disasters e.g. earthquakes and tsunamis. Perhaps their curiosity would lead to other types of creative pursuits, such as a podcast of a radio broadcast of an historical disaster or their own video on how to prepare for such a disaster in the future, or a brochure on the topic.
No matter what the end product, a student will have a richer understanding by using the creativity of the map making feature at the National Atlas of Canada.
Synthesizing Synthesis
So here I am, trying to synthesize synthesis! It’s a lot harder than it first seemed, I must say. But here goes.
First of all, I have to inform my distant readers (if there are any left) that this Blog has turned from mildly amusing afterthoughts on my return to life in Canada after a year in Australia, to a more focused examination of things I am learning through my online course and my preparations for changing jobs. And so I am reading Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future.
Reading Gardner, one jumps back and forth between abstract ideas and practical ones. And then one has to make sense of it all. One way is to look at one’s own teaching practices and see if it is mirrored in Gardner’s ideas. Perhaps then, some sense can be made of it. We shall see.
Looking at a classroom strategy that may have some elements of synthesis, I chose a project used in Mathematics and Science. The topic of Structures, particularly bridges, is introduced in Science through various digital media: Discovery Streaming video and bridge design software (West Point Bridge Design). As an integrated task, students work in groups to design and construct small toothpick bridges, while keeping track of “building supplies” (toothpicks, glue, paper etc) in Excel spreadsheets, when they “purchase” daily supplies to complete their bridges, journaling their day by day successes (and failures) thereby integrating Science, Language and Mathematics.
The outcomes are truly cross-disciplinary, with group work skills, scientific knowledge and practical mathematics being learned. The idea follows Gardner’s Components of Synthesis: A goal, a starting point (previous models), and a method.
Unfortunately, I will not be in a position to assign this project this year, and therefore will not be able look at it from the new perspectives that I am developing from my reading and engagement in this course.
New Job Too!
A lot has happened this week. Take for instance the fact that I am now a student at Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA. Not only am I studying Instructional Media on-line, I have a new job to go with it. I shall become, as of January 1st, a Resource Teacher- Instructional Technology, otherwise known as a Tech Coach in these parts. I shall be travelling about the Peel District School Board ( a vast area covering 776 square kilometres west and north of Toronto) visiting schools and assisting teachers with the integration of technology.
It is exciting that these two things have happened at the same time. I shall be looking forward to many new and exciting challenges and experiences.
Back to School
It’s about time!
Yes, I am a student again. Let me tell you…
Our school subscribes to Discovery Streaming, a service that provides video and other media to the school over the Internet. I get their newsletter and saw an announcement about doing a Masters degree in Instructional Technology online at a University in the USA (Pennsylvania to be exact).
So I have registered and started my first course and so far (after a day and a half!) it looks very engaging. One problem is the sudden nosedive of the Canadian dollar (from over US$ 1 to under US$0.80 on Friday…
Oh well! I will be much richer when I get my degree! Only slightly in fact.
The Age (Melbourne) newspaper reports that new research points to the fact that blogging can make you a happier person. I am feeling happier as I type this. I bet the one or two people who read this are probably happier too.
If you want to read on, check this article out on the Age website.
The Rodcast 