Global Education is no longer an option – it is essential!

From Boston, USA to Hawkesdale, Australia

My son Jonathan is a structural engineer. Last year he worked on a multi – storied building project being built in an Italian city. The builder was from Italy, the architect from France and Jonathan was working in a London office. Three different languages/cultures all working on one project. They had to work as a virtual team, working around the issue of several languages.

Welcome to a global world that is connecting at an increasing rate. As educationalists we must prepare our students for such a world and as such, I am passionate about global education. When the Global education 2010 conference was first brought to my attention, I was keen to be actively involved.

Why should global education and projects be part of our classrooms? Here are some reasons:-

Enables project based learning – ensuring effective and engaging learning.
Opportunity to share cultures, religions, ideas, passions, issues across the globe
Prepare for life, work and play in a’ flat world’ as Tom Friedman describes it
Learn digital citizenship skills;lk
Learnt netiquette, online responsible learning, plagiarism
Digital literacy
Increase knowledge of geography and history
Enable self directed learning
Skills for life long learning
Awareness of global issues
Parental involvement

Pedagogy

Teaching in the State of Victoria, in Australia, teachers follow the VELS (Victorian Essential Learning Standards) set up by DEECD (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) . As such globalisation fits in as follows:-

Years 9/10 students work at 6.75 of Community Engagement dimension (VELS) – investigate responses to issues such as global warming, world poverty etc, examine the extent to which the international community is cohesive and able to manage conflict.
From the Global Citizenship strategy, introduced by DEECD “students are equipped with skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to prosper and thrive in a world characterised by global mobility and cultural, political and economic connectivity.”
“Learning connects strongly with communities and practise beyond the classroom.” (PoLTS, Policies of Learning and Teaching)

How do we help students come to terms with globalisation

Involve and immerse them in collaborative, interactive global projects.
Empower them to establish personal learning networks that extend across the globe
Teach good verbal communication tools, use of translators, use of digital media, digital music, alternatives to text, coping strategies etc
Work with other countries in synchronous and non-synchronous time
Practice with and a wide variety of tools that can be used to connect, communicate and create together.
Compile codes of online conduct in various situations
Follow appropriate netiquette
Establish good digital footprints
Provide opportunities for travelling to other countries, whilst still at school
Involve parents and other community members as much as possible

Examples of asynchronous connections

Blogs
Wikis
Nings or alternative social networking sites
Google applications
Wall wisher
www.flickr.com an online image sharing site
screencasting

Examples of tools to enable sychronous connections

Liveblogging
Videoconferencing with skype and MS Communicator etc
virtual classroom: elluminate and DiscoverE
Back channels eg chatzy, twitter tinychat
Google applications – documents, sheet, presentation
Virtual worlds – reactiongrid in Open Sim and Quest Atlantis
superclubsPLUS – “facebook” for the young, safe environment
titanpad, ietherpad etc
Edmodo and there are many more.

The greatest challenges

Time zones can be most confusing – days, times etc
Time management – requires extra time commitment and high order organisational skills
Languages – different languages, different terms used, slang, accents, different cultures are offended by different phrases/words
Cultural differences and expectations
Religious differences
Infrastructure – poor infrastructure in the developing countries/county areas etc
Access to mobile technology
Leadership within schools
Differing holiday periods – especially the long summer breaks
Testing and Examination times
Age restrictions on online interactive networking software (if working with younger children)