Connecting Students with Global Voices

In a TED talk entitled How to Listen to Global Voices, Ethan Zuckerman makes the point that while innovations in technology have made it possible for more and more people from around the world to become globally connected, many of us are under the illusion that the world is a lot flatter than it really is. "The world isn't even close to flat - it's extremely lumpy," Zuckerman says, referring to the fact that while the internet creates the potential for connecting people with a diversity of global voices and perspectives, the reality is that most of us are listening to the same conversations we always have, conversations by people who look like us, think like us, and mostly live in the same cultural context as we do. And it's likely that most of our students are too.

This week, I learned about one online technology tool that can help with reversing this trend. Epals  is a tool for connecting classrooms around the world in collaborative, project-based learning. A teacher can sign up for a classroom account, choose from a variety of projects she'd like to have her students do, and then find a classroom to collaborate with her's on that project. A third grade class of Spanish language learners from the United States, for example, can partner with a third grade class of English language learners in Latin America to share about similarities and differences between schools in North America and Latin America, using both the Spanish and English language. In the process of collaborative projects like these, students and teachers gain valuable insight into what life and school is like for individuals who may live in a very different cultural context, whether that context is across town or on the other side of the world.

Epals has a variety of ready-made projects in various subject areas that instructors can choose from, or they can design their own. One project I thought was interesting was entitled, "Outside my Classroom Window."In this project, groups of students took pictures, or drew pictures of scenes taking place in the community outside their school. They then shared these through skype or powerpoint with their partner classroom. In the subject area of science, "Weather: A National Geographic Project" provided a forum for students to collaborate with classrooms around the world to learn about weather patterns and conditions in their own and their partner classroom's part of the world. What I liked about these projects was that not only did they contain lesson plans and ideas for implementation in the classroom, they also included objectives and standards to be met through them.

As I thought about how I could use a tool like Epals in my own teaching practice, the idea of connecting refugee students with other students who are also going through or have gone the process of adjusting to life in a new culture was one idea that came to mind. An Epals project like this might first involve having students from both classrooms describe the current context in which they live to each other. Next, they could compare and contrast similarities and differences between living in that context and living in the country they came from. Finally, they could volunteer to share about the challenges of adjusting to life in a new country and offer suggestions to the students in their partner classroom of things that have helped them in this adjustment. The goal of an Epals project like this is that students in both classrooms might find it encouraging to interact with others who are experiencing some of the same things they are going through, even if the cultural contexts are different.

Keeping up With the Smart Kids...

In the words of Alan Levine, of New Media Consortium, "It's really important to stay connected to people that are smarter than us because we can't know everything." To me, this simple statement sums up perfectly the value of using social media for networking in today's rapidly changing world. To stay current in one's field as a professional, whether that be an engineer, a business executive, or an educator, involves a lifelong pursuit of learning. And what better way to do this than to be intentionally connected to a community of other lifelong learners? Introducing... Ning, a social networking site created to help individuals connect with others who have similar professional interests.

Ning is like facebook or myspace, except that it allows individuals to create networks with a much narrower focus. One particular Ning network that caught my interest belonged to the National Council of Teachers of English. Not only was this network composed of close to 6,000 English teachers from across the US, it also contained a more specific focus group of educators interested in working with ESL students. Members of this network are able to start online discussions, post videos, ask questions, provide suggestions, and even chat with each other through this network.

I think of the relevance of a tech tool like this in the field of refugee adult education. As of yet, there is not all that much scholarly research on best practices in working with adult ELL's with limited educational and literacy background. The research that does exist on this narrow demographic of learners is very foundational and rarely goes into practical teaching strategies I encounter a need for on a day to day basis. How wonderful, then, to think about the possibility that there might exist a network of educators who are encountering many of the same challenges, asking many of the same questions, and coming up with solutions to many of the same issues I face in my Buffalo, New York classroom.

Cellphones, Ipads, and the Digital Learner: A Call for Reflective Use of Classroom Technology

Did you know...



 If facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world?

There are over 12 billion searches performed on google each month?

The number of text messages sent and received daily now exceeds the total population of the human planet?





Now that you know, how will you let it inform your teaching? One youtube video entitled Pay Attention suggests having students text individuals outside their school to gather data for the class to use in lessons on topics like graphing, food preparation, and economic trends. Since we live in an age of digital learners, this video argues, why not use the technology our students love to engage our students and teach them more effectively? Another thought provoking video, Did You Know? calls attention to the rapid technological change going on in the world today and points to the need to prepare students for jobs that don't yet exist and that will utilize technologies that haven't yet been invented.

I appreciate the arguments these videos make about the urgency of incorporating technology in the twenty-first century classroom in a way that is relevant and engaging. Yet there is also a part of me that isn't fully convinced of the feasibility of their argument given the population of students I'm likely to work with.

Technology can be extremely expensive. If Buffalo private schools like Elmwood Franklin, where most of the students are middle class and Caucasian, can afford to put ipads into the hands of all their students, this is hardly the case in most of the schools attended by children of color on Buffalo's East and West Sides. Rather, in many of these classrooms, teachers have to reach into their own pockets just to purchase basic classroom supplies, not to speak of expensive technology. The students in these mostly low-income neighborhoods, and especially those who are recent immigrants and refugees may not have personal cell phones, ipods, or internet access at home, as these videos seems to suggest every teenager today does. It makes me wonder whether technology is just another area which will continue to accentuate the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" in our society.

I also wonder whether catering to our students' 24/7 connection to technology is all good. In a speech given at the RSA, Sir Ken Robinson makes the following statement, "Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth. They're being besieged with information and calls to their attention from every platform; computers, iphones, advertisements, and hundreds of television channels. And we're penalizing them for getting distracted..."

If anything, this statement makes me wonder whether many kids (and adults!) today haven't developed an unhealthy addiction or over-dependance on technology. If our constant exposure to technology makes it difficult for us to commit to and focus on a single task, or results in us being disconnected from what's happening around us in the here and now, is that really a good thing? I can't tell you how many individuals I've talked to who've commented on the fact that while we now have the capacity to build larger and larger electronic social networks, many of us seem to be losing touch with the people immediately present around us, who we interact with in our daily lives. After all, how many of us have tried to carry on a conversation with someone only to have them be texting or checking facebook on their iphone the entire time they're talking to us.

Yes, technology provides students with some incredible possibilities for learning and connection, but perhaps this should be tempered with fostering healthy relationships and connections with the "flesh and blood" individuals who inhabit their physical lives. Maybe in this age of over-digitalization part of our role as instructors should be not only to help students use technology as a tool for learning, but also to help them "unplug" and relearn how to engage in healthy, non-digital interactions.