Creating A World Village, Day Three

The Day of Reckoning. Of course, I didn't call it that when I sent out the agenda to the participants of this program, but still...it was the day that they were each supposed to bring a completed outline of the ideas for activities they all had for their partnerships. It was outlined by month. I'm thrilled to report that there are some impressive ideas to be had there. One of my favorites involved making virtual collages to exchange with partner students so they can learn more about one another through self-selected images.

I started the day with a reading from a National Geographic article I read this weekend, called "The Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan." The section from the article that I read explained the founding of Pakistan in the 1940s and provided quotes from the first leader about how it was first organized and why: "Pakistan's first leader, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and his brain trust of secular intellectuals created a fledgling democracy that gave Islam a cultural, rather than political, role in national life. Their Pakistan was to be a model of how Islam, merged with democratic ideals, could embrace the modern world." A young student, when reminded of this information replied, "That is a lie," Ayman says, her voice shaking with fury. "Everyone knows Pakistan was created as an Islamic state, according to the will of Allah. Where did you read this thing?"

This might seem a strange way to open my meetings about creating a World Village. My goal was to cultivate discussion about how these deep-held beliefs that we ALL have can be incredibly wrong and how to do we go about mining for our own incorrect assumptions about being American? It's a tough but important talk for us to have with our children.

After spending some time reviewing the outlines for activities each teacher brought, we talked about our successes and challenges ahead, and then finished the meetings by writing scripts for a mini-movie we made. We're required to present to our faculty at Fall Meetings about what it is we've been doing all summer. So, our idea was to make a "cooking show" demonstrating how to make a Global Village soup, with experts on the ingredients (like blogs, wikis, nings). I'll upload it to YouTube tomorrow for all to see.

In the meantime, the Day of Reckoning left me breathing a sigh of relief. We can do this. We can really do this.

Image Credit: http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0709/pakistan/pakistan.html
Photograph by Reza.

Open Source Apps for Schools

In this month's T.H.E. Journal, there is an article called "Opening A New Door." It's about how open source software can be used in schools. I'm not in a rush to replace all our Windows machines with Linux and Open Office, but there was a fantastic list of apps. that could be used in labs and on classroom computers. I found it so interesting, I'm reposting the list here. The ones in bold are the ones I plan on using in my own lab.

Blender: (Also in Ubuntu.) A 3-D computer animation program. Supports modeling, animation, rendering, and playback.
Celestia: A simulation program that allows students and teachers to navigate a 3-D solar system.
Dia: A drawing program along the lines of Microsoft's venerable Visio, but geared to more informal diagrams.
FreeMind: So-called mind-mapping software designed to allow teachers and students to brainstorm with diagrams that represent words, ideas, and tasks.
GIMP: The GNU (a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix") Image Manipulation Program, a photo editing program.
GIMPshop: A modification of GIMP, intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop.
iFolder: An online personal file backup program. Designed to update saved files on a network server automatically and deliver them to the user's other machines.
Inkscape: A vector graphics editor with capabilities similar to Adobe's Illustrator and FreeHand, CorelDraw, or Xara X.
Intelligent Teaching and Learning With Computers (iTALC): A tool for viewing and controlling other computers in a network, showing demos, sending text messages, and locking individual work stations.
Moodle: An extremely popular course organization tool/virtual learning environment. During a recent webcast sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a spokesperson from Indiana's Department of Education said that Moodle has been what is driving teachers to use technology in their classrooms.
The OpenScience Project: Software developed and maintained by a group of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers to encourage a collaborative environment for exploration of the natural world.
Scribus: (Also in Ubuntu.) A popular desktop publishing program. Runs on Linux, Mac OS, OS/2, and Windows.
StarOffice: An enhanced version of OpenOffice from Sun Microsystems. Comes with word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database capabilities.
Stellarium: A planetarium for the desktop. It shows a realistic sky in 3-D, and can be used with planetarium projectors.
Tux Paint: A preK-6 drawing program. Combines an easy-to-use interface, sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot.

Web page reference: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21081_4
Image Credit: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21081

Creating a Global Village Day One

Exhilarating: That's what today was. I met with a group of six teachers from my school to begin the process of creating a "global village" between our school and other international schools. The level of engagement these teachers demonstrated left me feeling hopeful and enthused. They listened attentively when presented with information about Problem Based Learning and Understanding by Design (thanks to Kim Cofino for the nudge in that direction). They responded thoughtfully when asked, "What role does our American identity play in the way we communicate and how can we make our children aware of their own 'context?'--as one teacher put it.

I have created a page on our school's World Village wiki to document the stages our project undergoes as it blossoms and transforms. You can check out the Agenda for two days of technology training, the essential questions and goals we produced, as well as the evaluative tools we plan to use. At the end of the day, when asked how we could decide if we had achieved our goals, it warmed my heart when one of the teachers pulled out the 21st Century Skills matrix. Her idea was to digitally document how each area of that matrix was fulfilled by the activities we did. Surely you can see all this beauty? Is it just me? By the way...that image you see linked to this post? A student created that logo for our Wiki. Ahhhhh, so lovely.