I am interested in the nature of global connections. That should not come as a shock if you know me.
Yesterday, my daughter came home interested in Australia. It turns out her teacher’s mother came in to talk about Australia. Evidently she has traveled there.
Being an American (and overly US-centric I admit) I had no answers to her questions. I suppose I had to options.
1. Find the answers myself and give them to her.
2. Let her ask someone who would know.
I reached out to Jason Hando, who lives in Sydney, Australia. Jason and I met a few years ago online as we were exploring the educational uses of Second Life. Jason ended up being a critical part of the building of Life Round Here.
Jason happened to be available so we Skyped. I recorded the interview and sent it to my daughter’s teacher. She was floored and plans to show it to her class and perhaps beyond. Here is the interview if you care to watch. It’s about 8 minutes.
You may recall that I was posting while in Peru about a new project that was in the design phase. It still is, but I am much closer to “launch”. I’ve already got interest from several teachers in several countries, and the nice thing about this project is that it is designed to allow as many folks as want to participate. In other words, it’s scalable.
To be eligible, you’d need to have students from 10-13 years old, with the target age of 11-12 (US 6th grade) and be interested in digital storytelling.
Sound like you? Leave a comment on this post and I will get in touch and tell you more!
Just curious? More details to come as I get some more input during the planning process…
As per a great suggestion, I revamped question 2 to be a bit more friendly in general. For one, it didn’t allow much answering from students inside the western culture so mentioned.
So here is the revamped version and a choice depending on where students are located…
How is culture being affected by the United States of America? (for schools outside the USA)
How is culture being affected by other countries (choose a country or region)? (for schools inside the USA)
Next question, should I add the word your?
As in, How is your culture being affected?
Or is that far too relative, should it be, How is your region’s culture being affected?
Curious. A good question is worth so much, isn’t it? Yay UbD!
So I am thinking more and more about this collaborative project. I am still in the designing phase because I really want a solid project that will result in loads of learning. Low goals, eh?
The project must be scalable, which speaks a lot to how I design the use of web tools. I’ve made mistakes in how I designed wiki architecture in the past, so here’s to not repeating them.
What I’d like help with are the essential questions. The theory goes that this project is to help us understand our own culture as well as by reading the responses of others, understand other cultures as well. Since I am a foreign language teacher, this is at the heart of what I teach, outside of basic vocabulary.
I think I’ll divide my class into small groups, each focusing on one of the essential questions. I have not decided how to have my class answer (that comes after this step) nor do I have a clue as to how to assess it. That also comes later. I’ll keep you posted on my thoughts and ask for your help along the way.
I am not sure of the title, as the domain is already taken. I am thinking of a new title so I will go back and tag this later.
So here are the essential questions, please help me figure out if this is a good start!
Overall essential question: What is culture and how does it affect who I am?
Sub-questions:
How is culture affected by imported products?
How is culture being lost by the invasion of western culture?
How is culture being affected by the United States of America? (for schools outside the USA)
How is culture being affected by other countries (choose a country or region)? (for schools inside the USA)
How is culture being affected by tourism?
How is culture being affected by television?
How is culture being affected by immigrations/migrations?
