Integrated education through a global lens...

I've been always been amazed with just how many aspects of life are changing simultaneously at any time in our world and in our own lives. I am someone who is always interested in what is occurring in different places and enjoy sharing current events with the people I know. As I prepare for an educational experience of a lifetime in Africa, at the same time,  Egypt enters a new era, the world is being bombed in Libya and Japan suffers disaster. It is obvious that thinking in permanent terms does not apply and is something more could benefit from truly recognizing.
   The countdown is on for the beginning of my month in Africa. I am traveling to Namibia in a little over 5 weeks to learn about this country's culture and hopefully be a positive face for a number of children living there. This opportunity to stay and learn in an environment that is radically different than where I have lived my entire life is something that I expect to have a lasting impact on my worldview. I am confident that working with these children will open my eyes to the great disparity that exists in this world as I think seeing it through the media is only part  of the picture. Understanding that I am a person who can demonstrate and teach these children some academic and life skills while at the same time them being people who are enduring a difficult upbringing is important. I am obviously not exactly sure what I will learn during this month, but I predict that keeping a positive attitude in the face of adversity is an informal educational experience that I will be grateful to have learned from these young people.
   As expressed by Dennis (2011), what is happening at a national level affects us all. Global education is an increasingly popular term, but I think many still think that a "countries of the world" geography unit or a pen-pal activity satisfies this modern educational emphasis. These short-term global education lessons do not convey to children the great international and cross-cultural opportunities that exist for them in an interconnected global world (Dennis, 2011). As educators, and as fellow global citizens, it is our responsibility to teach children about the movement of goods and people, the possibilities of technology, and the sharing of culture so that they can take advantage of this change and transcend towards being accepting, opportunistic, and widely literate learners.
   The strong connection between global education and integration of the curriculum across subjects is apparent when designing integrated units that strive to capture the valuable explicit and implicit overall understandings. Ideas and concepts like global markets, technological change in civilizations, and anthropogenic impacts on the environment  are merely scratching the surface of some of the units that can be integrated. The theme for the big understanding is not the only important part of integrating the curriculum however, as having lessons that are engaging and expressive to support the theme is probably the bigger challenge.
   While I mentally prepare to experience Namibian culture in the upcoming weeks, I recognize the positive outlook this will have on my teaching philosophy. I am confident that when I am a teacher and I reflect on the personalities I met in Namibia and the values they shared with me, it will remind me that truths are nearly always subjective, but also that children possess valid knowledge about their world as they relate to the larger global events of the time.

References:
Dennis, J. M. (2011). Global education challenges and opportunities: Students are not isolated from world events. University Business, 14(2), 49-50.

...Of Mice and Tubes.

    This week in lecture felt informative, practical, and applicable. I was glad to share with my fellow students a simple way to make lecture learning interactive. It was also helpful to be shown a safe and reliable way to share videos with students.
    Mouse Mischief is a free PowerPoint software application by Microsoft that allows up to 25 students to control a cursor and select answers to teacher's question using their mice. All that is required are the mice, a projector, Microsoft Powerpoint, and a USB hub. I was surprised by the ease of use and the differing types of questions that teachers could use to gauge student comprehension. I have yet to design a lecture using Mouse Mischief, but I am intrigued of the idea of combining my formative assessment ability with my art skills to make a learning experience that is hopefully more engaging for students. The goof-off to thoughtful answers ratio by my students would be the deciding factor if this application would be a common part of the instructional aspect of my teaching or merely an occasional component. I hope Mouse Mischief proves to be the useful and inexpensive way to allow students to use technology along with the teacher that it seems to be.
    The other presentation I would like to comment on demonstrated a network service called Vusafe. This is essentially Youtube for a classroom environment so all the distracting advertisements, inappropriate comments and content are gone. This allows for educators to feel comfortable that their students are not exposed to things that are irrelevant to the content of the video or are beyond their level of maturity. This seems like a no-brainer, especially for junior grades. I do have my skepticism however as the presenters were unable to demonstrate the website to us as they had not been granted access from the company that hosts the videos. How does this company make money without charging schools for the license or having advertisements? What drives them to provide a quality service to educators? For some reason I have doubt that it is out of the kindness of their hearts. If I were a teacher, I would definitely ask the principal to see about a subscription because I think their is an inherent quality in videos that are educational and interesting and it wouldn't hurt to try it out, but it seems a little too good to be true.
  This week's presentation lecture felt more like a conference of teacher's sharing some of their ideas concerning technology and more progressive ways of teaching. That is probably how it should be though, considering that we are coming to the end of fourth year already!