Group items tagged

"As part of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), students need to "ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century." Many teachers have little to no formal training on how to teach about climate change. Along with the ever-changing research and the controversy that comes with it, some teachers inevitably shy away or even prevent students from digging deep into the content. Some suggest that teachers might be getting climate change all wrong. Since teachers can't rely on books to stay current with all the new research, digital resources are the only effective way to stay on top of such a dynamic field. Consider these practices when using technology to teach about climate change:" Sites include NASA Global Climate Change, Climate Kids for younger learners, Global Oneness Project, and Earth-Now to analyze realtime data.

Newsy.com is a multi-source online video news site that monitors, analyzes and presents the world's news coverage. In an increasingly connected world, access to multiple sources of news is in demand by global citizens. News sources are abundant yet redundant. Newsy.com delivers context with convenience to help keep you better informed. Through short video segments available on the web and mobile devices, Newsy.com offers a way to accelerate your global understanding of a news story. Newsy.com takes a step back to show how the world's news organizations are reporting a story - providing an unprecedented global and macro point of view. You'll find CNN right next to Al Jazeera, the BBC right next to ABC. Newsy.com also covers major newspapers, news magazines as well as top blogs from around the world. Like FORA.tv, this site presents current news, but with the added feature of allowing students to compare various news sources.

"Global collaboration projects, which allow students to work with peers across state and national boundaries, aren't just fun. They can also address several of the ISTE Standards for Students, including Digital Citizen, Global Collaborator and Empowered Learner. "

An interview, but describes an interesting global project, http://gng.org/, which uses a news feed and Twitter to connect young people around the world.

Has global roundup by country of news and developments in politics and technology use. Also Podcasts from around the world.

"To make the paradigm shift with campus wireless possible-or even advance its evolution-wireless must be ubiquitous and seamless. Wireless devices need to work, not just on campus, but globally, and they must be able to go from campus to home to plane to Sri Lanka seamlessly. And we can't teach a course that makes effective use of wireless technology without an appropriate wireless device. With these infrastructure requirements, we could have classes that really use the mobility of mobile devices. One small step in that direction would be to have distributed classes where some students would physically be in a classroom while others would be distributed to various action sites. Learning about pollution? Have some students locate different polluted sites and participate in the class on site like the evening news. "This is Sue reporting Podunk the toxic chemicals are pouring into the Crimea River."

In this TED talk, Andreas Schleicher describes a new scale, "PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment), an initiative of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). PISA not only tests students on their mathematical understanding, reading level and ability to apply learning to new problems, but also looks at what teachers get paid, how long the school day is, what the average class size is and whether quality of education is uniform across schools and social stratifications. It even measures cultural attitudes, like whether people in the country expect all students to achieve or only a small segment of them to. It's this broad approach to data collection that makes PISA so powerful, says Schleicher." An interesting way for a country to compare where it is and how it compares globally.

How do we educate our children to meet the needs of the new economies of the 21st century, and retain local cultures while recognizing globalization? The current system of public education was conceived and designed for the 19th century period of industrialization with the social and economic imperatives of the Enlightenment: academic vs non-academic views of the mind. The result is kids being medicated to sit still in school while besieged with the information overload of the digital age. How do we allow divergent thinking and creativity?

"In the month of March 2012, an International team of 4 elementary school classrooms are conducting Action Research about quality writing through blogging. You can support them by giving them an authentic global audience and modeling quality commenting on their posts. " A great way to collaborate internationally with blogs.

"As one of the largest producers and owners of educational content in the world, the BBC has created a global classroom for teachers, students, and passionate life-long learners. " This is really an eye-catching site with wonderful resources from the BBC laid out with visual links. Too many different ideas to even begin to catalog them. Give it a try. Learnist, the host site, is like Facebook but with a more serious leaning (almost wrote "learning" there...)

"iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is the world's largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the world."

"Storybird is a free online service for families, friends, teachers, and students to collaborate in creating short, visual stories together that can easily be shared, embedded or printed. The website provides fun and simple tools to make short, visual stories in a user-friendly and kid-friendly environment. You can search by artwork or theme to begin. Stories can be written by one person or two or more people in a round robin fashion and can be shared privately or publicly. Publishing with Storybird is "global, viral, and instantaneous" which provides extra motivation for young authors and artists."

" Creative collaboration for teachers globally. "If you are a teacher looking for international partners for your school and would like a safe, secure, easy-to-use space to share your partnership work online, then you've come to the right place. "You can find new partner schools and projects to work with or get support to develop a school partnership you already have." Sponsored by British Council and Dept. for Education in the UK.

This is a classroom-classroom collaborative clearinghouse. Schools or classes must join GLOBE first. There are 110 participating countries and 139 US Partners, 40,000 GLOBE-trained teachers. Students work with real scientists to help take measurements of the earth's environments. - EHS

GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program. GLOBE's vision promotes and supports students, teachers and scientists to collaborate on inquiry-based investigations of the environment and the Earth system working in close partnership with NASA and NSF Earth System Science Projects (ESSPs) in study and research about the dynamics of Earth's environment.

"From Shore to Shore, or "De Orilla a Orilla" (in Spanish), is an international teacher-researcher project that has focused on documenting promising classroom practices for intercultural learning over global learning networks. Since 1985, Orillas has employed modern telecommunications to promote and extend an educational networking model first developed by the French educators Cèlestin and Elise Freinet in 1924. Use the menu bar on the left to find out more about De Orilla a Orilla history and projects, get to know some of the teachers and students involved in the network, and join a project if you are interested."

"In 2007, my co-teacher and I noticed that students felt increasingly like the world was "happening to them," as if they had no ability to affect positive change. This, coupled with the question "When am I going to use this?" led to the inspiration which has become the Fifth-Grade Environmental Project. "Our goal was to create an educational model in which students' passions are the driving force, empowering them as global citizens. While we have limited time to cover required curriculum, we are committed to finding ways of embedding curriculum in "real-life" applications within the project. "While the project's topic changes each year, the roots (or required elements) are the same, and the work evolves based on student passions, allowing each individual to find and contribute his or her gift to the whole, and reaffirming our belief that together we are smarter." Explains how service learning can inspire student passion, critical thinking, and learning to affect change. Describes partnerships with community nonprofits, and products that students can create to inspire others.

The Knowledge Tree is an e-journal generated by members of the Australian vocational education and training (VET) system to enable the sharing of research and learning innovation in national and global e-learning practice.

News and information oriented to the Africa setting. Blog roll, news feed, etc., calendar-based.

"How are schools working to encourage the next generation of innovators? By developing unique, project-based learning opportunities that foster students' passion and creativity, teachers are promoting innovation and Deeper Learning. Deeper learning experiences help students master core academic content, think critically, solve complex problems, work collaboratively, communicate effectively, and engage in self-directed learning. " Good blog article showing the importance of PBL

Be sure to view the 2.21 min. video of Mazur at work in his "lecture" class. If students "end up understanding nearly three times as much..." in a flipped classroom, how can this approach best be used in a language class?