Module 11

Using digital communication and collaboration tools to interact globally with students, peers, parents, and the larger community (March 21-27, 2016)

Course Objectives:

1. Model and promote diversity, cultural understanding, and global awareness by using digital-age communication and collaboration tools to interact locally and globally with students, peers, parents, and the larger community (ISTE 5c)

Module Objectives: 

1. Read and reflect upon global competency and engaging students globally. 
2. Practice engaging globally by either connecting with a school in another country or creating a virtual field trip.  

1) Your readings for this week cover global competency as it relates to technology.

• Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World (This is an e-book.  Only read chapters 1 and 4.)
• Sister Cities and Sister Schools The link to the Sister City is incorrect on this website.  It is actually http://www.sister-cities.org/.  Also, take a look at the links for Blogs, Presentations, Skype/FaceTime, Websites & Wikis, and Youtube under Sister Cities and Sister Schools.  There are lots of examples of schools utilizing these technologies to connect with schools around the world.
• Virtual Field Trips Pick one of these and summarize your experience for your reflective blog post (rather than summarizing all ten).  
• OERcommons- I'm including this because it is a global community sharing resources.  Read this first page and then explore a bit.  

2) Write your reflective blog post and include evidence from this week's readings.

3) For this week's activity, you have two choices.

• Option 1: Connect with a teacher/principal at a school in another country.  You may be able to find one using Twitter, or you may simply do some Google searching.  Contact individuals until you receive a response.  You can tell them that you are doing this for a course and leave it open-ended for future collaboration or, if you have an idea of something else you would like to do with that person, go for it!  On your blog, post about the school, how you made the connection and your ideas for future collaboration.  
• Option 2: Create a virtual field trip.  This doesn't have to take much technology prowess.  It could simply be a list of interesting links on a place/region that you include on your blog with some interesting pictures and a paragraph or so on where you are "going" and how to use the links.  Do some Google searching and see what you can find!  If you are feeling particularly motivated, you can create a virtual field trip in Google Earth using placemarks or within a virtual world like Second Life.  Post your virtual field trip or a link to it on your blog.  Remember, this should be your own creation, not simply a link to another virtual field trip.