I have spent all of my teaching career in the same grade and subject area level, so I can often be unaware of what others are doing elsewhere. It was interesting to read about possibilities for learning for students in different grades and other disciplines.
The project of Wilford, Harvey, Broome, and Johnson, Universal Photomath Challenge, focuses on the intersection of art and math. Normally I would not think to put those two disciplines together, but it is interesting in terms of content creation, because students create their own math problems for others to solve. Looking at photographs taken by students elsewhere can show kids how similar we are even while seeing differences in our environment. This project can really shine in the area of geometry. A number of key components of artistic compositions are grounded in math, so I can see more advanced students looking for particular angles, shapes, or distances. The reciprocal reading professional development project by Quintana, Martin, Lawrence, and Stovall introduced me to the reciprocal reading strategy. I like this concept because I think students will be less intimidated by new texts if they attack it as a team, and I think the defined roles can make the process more productive. I have not participated in a process involving Padlet, nor have I used a Wakelet, so I think if I participated in professional learning of this kind it would give me the opportunity to try out these technologies. Having time to learn something as a student before you try to use it as a teacher is very helpful. The Keys to the World project by Carson, Dasher, Davies, and Partee seeks to educate teachers on digital citizenship so that they can effectively redeliver to their students. This is a concept that most teachers know about, but they may not know many details or how to effectively teach students what they know. Sometimes we expect students to know exactly what to do when we tell them to be careful and respectful online. Sadly, there are teachers who are themselves not very good digital citizens, so this type of learning seems key to present in a school to the entire faculty, so that all are familiar with what it means. We cannot assume all of the kids know what it means to be a good digital citizen, but we cannot assume all the teachers know either. As often happens, I have learned new ideas from other teachers that I can apply in my own setting, even if our settings are not exactly the same. This type of learning seems to be at the heart of what global learning represents: learning something from someone who is not just like you. -L.F.
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There were many interesting projects to choose from that other people worked together to create.
The first project I looked at was by Carson, Dasher, Davies, and Partee. Their project focused on teachers and professional development, which I thought was really cool because I think that a lot of teachers are unfamiliar with the idea of working with other classrooms globally. On their google site, the group specifically mentioned the use of technology used by the instructors and one particularly caught my eye: Screencast-O-Matic. This is technology I have never heard of before and that technology application is something I learned about through their project. The second project I looked at was by Amos Snyder and Kelly Rivera. I liked the premise of their project because I feel that most students in their focus age group don't wonder about how other students their age live in other parts of their world. Therefore, their project presented a unique opportunity for their students to collaborate and learn about other students. One thing I learned about through exploring their website is the application and technology Padlet. I have never heard of Padlet before and it's interesting that it is a type of technology that students at that age can use and feel comfortable with. The last project I looked at was by Wilford, Harvey, Bloome, and Johnson. The subject of their project is the bane of an English teacher's existence, aka, math, so my interest was piqued. I thought the concept of taking a picture of something that students see everyday but relates to a math concept in some way was super creative. I honestly think I'd have a fun time thinking of something that demonstrated a math concept. Something I learned from reading about their project was the ability to use Google Classroom as a platform for discussion. I'm so used to using Google Classroom as a way to assign assignments to my students that it didn't come naturally to my mind to use it for this global assignment, and give them control of the conversation happening. At the beginning of the plans for this global project, I was utterly overwhelmed. It's easy for me to get frustrated with my students when they feel overwhelmed with a creative project that gives them a lot of freedom. However, this project helped me gain perspective and reminded me just how terrifying all that freedom can be. There were so many different options and ideas floating through my head but my teammate, Laura, was great at thinking of a cohesive idea that I immediately liked and agreed with. Laura's idea was to create a way for students to exchange and share idioms that are particular to their culture and location. I thought this was a brilliant idea because language barriers are so prevalent around the world and it's something that I experience firsthand with my students... teaching British Literature to a bunch of eighteen year olds is always a fun challenge. However, Laura's idea really made the subject of the project approachable to students and fun, something that I have found to be integral to teaching students, regardless of their age. Laura and I teach the same grade and subject, and happily work together in the same school so it wasn't an issue for us to think of an age range and demographic to focus on for this project. The focus of our project is for students to examine their own idioms used in their culture and trace their origin. Where do these idioms come from? What social or historical contexts are connected to these idioms? By examining the idioms we use and other cultures, students will be able to learn about different cultures across the globe from the comfort of their own classroom or home.
I have always been interested in words: what they mean, where they came from, how we use them, and how meanings evolve over time. I first became interested in how language is used differently when I watched British television shows with my parents. Why did they sound different, and why did they have different words for some things if we spoke the same language?
At the same time, the concept of idioms--expressions that did not mean exactly what they said--fascinated me as well. We use so many idioms from day to day that we often do not even realize when we are using them. Idioms are culturally informed; for example, Americans have a lot of idioms derived from baseball. Even if someone is not a baseball fan, most Americans are familiar with the basics of the game, and all of us understand that if something is a home run, it is a great success. What happens when we say that in a country where few people know baseball? Would American students understand what a "sticky wicket" is if they knew nothing about cricket? Probably not. How well would an American football idiom travel across the oceans to Great Britain or Australia? Not so well. In those cases, understanding the idiom requires an understanding of the culture that produced it. By their nature, idioms are creative and often humorous, so they can be a fun way to explore language and culture. This intersection of language and culture is what gave us the idea for a global project on English idioms. As a vestige of British colonialism, English is spoken across the world as a first language, second language, or lingua franca. Many dialects classified as English sound very different from what we hear in the United States. Our initial goals for the project were to explore English idioms in a number of countries where it is an official or commonly used language. However, because this is our first endeavor in designing a project of this type, we decided to keep it simple and limit the countries involved to those where English is the primary language or one official language out of three or fewer. We decided upon Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. It is hard to draw the line, though, because technically, the UK is made up of four countries and it would be a project in itself comparing language use within that nation alone. Because this is a global project, our focus is directed at partnering with those outside of the United States, but in truth, American idioms can vary a great deal regionally and within different demographics, so it would be an interesting project to engage in within an American setting. The goal is for students to enjoy learning about word play they use every day, experience pride in knowing that something they create will teach other people across the world, and learning as teens from other countries share their language and culture as well. -L.F. |
AuthorsLaura French ArchivesCategories |