Cool Website Spotlight -- New Global Citizens

To conclude my series of cool websites with an emphasis on global connections, I end with one that encourages students to put their knowledge to use and take action on an issue. New Global Citizens.

http://www.newglobalcitizens.org/

New Global Citizens is a United States based non-profit that aims to give middle school and high school students a global perspective and provide avenues to take action on an issue. They believe that through empowering students to become agents of change that they are in fact equipping a New Global Citizen. New Global Citizens serves as a middleman to facilitate global partnership with service agencies on the ground around the world. As opposed to seeking out a direct partnership with an international organization (which is difficult) that line of communication is open and ready for a classroom to engage in the work. For instance, New Global Citizens have a partnership with the Nyaka AIDS Orphan Project which serves children in Uganda. Teachers and student leaders, would “lead a team” to educate others about the issue, increase global awareness and raise money for a cause that helps others around the world. 

How would I use this in my math classroom? I suppose whenever fundraising occurs money and accounting are not far behind. Asking students to keep cost and revenue records lends to systems of equations and projecting future costs or revenue connects with modeling, patterns and regression. Whenever money is involved, math is not far behind. 

Cool Website Spotlight -- Skype in the Classroom

Skype in the Classroom is an extension of the popular mainstream internet based communication tool. Currently nearly 50,000 teachers and 2,400 lessons are available on Skype and with a little something for all content areas. Collaborations can connect a classroom from St. Louis to Hong Kong with little effort. A testimonial of third grade teacher shares who she has brought her classroom to China, Italy, New Zealand, Brazil, England, Albania, Israel and India with a few clicks and messages between international teachers. Famous people from the Secretary of State to famed basketball player Shaquille O’Neal have also taken part in Skype in the Classroom lessons.

In addition their catalogue of teaching resources, teachers can arrange “Mystery Skypes” with a classroom around the world. Through interacting, asking and answering questions students are asked to figure out where in the world they are and learn about another culture.

How would I use this in the math classroom? There is a wonderful collection of resources for each content area. With more careful exploration, perhaps I can find a lesson that fits into what I'm doing. The idea of connecting with a "sister" classroom across the world that is doing similar things is also very intriguing and can better connect students to the world around them!

Cool Website Spotlight -- ePals Global Community

To continue with the theme of globally connected learning opportunities, today I highlight another interesting site, ePals Global Community.

http://www.epals.com/

ePals Global Community is a site to help build connections across the globe. Teachers are able to post ads for the type of partnership they are interested in and what age-level they serve. While most collaboration efforts have specific goals (such as a student art exchange), many teachers are looking to develop pen pal relationships for their students. These interactions are also safely housed through the ePals site as opposed to direct communication to ensure safety and privacy. ePals also boasts a catalogue of engaging, globally relevant classroom resources that teachers can use for free.

How would I use this in the math classroom? This one may be more literacy focused, but if students develop relationships across the globe, perhaps they share similar math experiences.

Cool Website Spotlight -- Flat Stanley Project

In a previous entry, I highlighted iEARN as a useful tool to connect your students to the world. Online collaboration networks are not just for high school students, but many sites exist for elementary aged student collaboration. Although the type of collaboration does look different than the high school, students are able to interact in a meaningful way. For example, the Flat Stanley Project focuses on literacy and intercultural interactions. 

After reading the book, Flat Stanley, students are asked to make their own versions of the character Flat Stanley. Students are then required to keep a journal detailing his adventures. As opposed to a first person interaction, early educators believe that the third person focus improves the quality of the writing and encourages the creative of their students as opposed to the traditional first person approach. The student’s Flat Stanley character and journal will then be sent to a pen pal or classroom somewhere around the world where another student will receive it. This student is asked to treat Flat Stanley and similarly document his travels. On the Flat Stanley Project website, students can track the travels of their own Flat Stanley. A similar project, Monster Exchange features a comparable theme and focus on reading and literacy.

How would I use this in a math classroom? If you are going to do it, tracking Flat Stanley's journey and calculating miles traveled could be interesting. Perhaps extending it to suppose that the student was going to take the trip themselves... how much would it cost? This is more geared toward late elementary grades / early middle grades, but could be an interesting cross curricular, cross cultural collaboration. 

Cool Website Spotlight -- iEARN

With the click of a mouse students can interact with a classroom on the other side of the world. With a simple Facebook friend search, anyone can connect with people from every country on the planet. We live in an era of ubiquitous opportunities to collaborate globally -- the challenge is actually doing it. Schools desire for students to learn more about the world than just a culture’s food, landmarks and holidays. Though the experience will differ greatly for each student, a typical K-12 Education may involve more orientalist viewpoints influenced by western culture. This is a by-product of community values, teacher education, time and resources, improvement can be made in all areas.

www.iearn.org

iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is one of the largest global collaboration networks that is specifically designed for students and teachers. More than 130 countries and over 30,000 schools are connected with each other through this online platform. According to their website they estimate that 2,000,000 students each day are engaged in collaboration projects. These projects are hosted and promoted through iEARN and allows students and teachers to engage in the same work while in different parts of the world. In my opinion, the projects that are developed on iEARN are more geared toward young grade levels and the humanities. They foster classroom connections for things such as student art exchanges, poetry sharing and community gardening.  IEARN is also geared toward professionally developing teachers who wish to integrate online work in their classroom. Through online workshops teachers develop capacity to engage in global collaboration opportunities while improve their own personal global competence. 

How would I use this in my math classroom? Connecting with a math teacher around the world is a very cool idea and I'm exploring how it could be useful in a team teaching model. I believe there is also value in students seeing that similar concepts are taught all around the world.