I know, it's only got 15 letters but it is a huge topic and
I will only scratch the surface with my first post about it.
I work in a privileged
(very privileged) school in Chile, South America. I've been here for
six years so I don't feel too bad in stating that the minds of a lot of people
are closed to the outside world. Perhaps it is the media, perhaps it is the
education system, or perhaps it is purely because of the geographical location
(the Andres mountains cuts us off from the East, the Pacific Ocean from the
West, Antarctica from the South and the vast Atacama Desert from the
North). For whatever reason it is, I believe as an educator of young
learners, it is my duty to try and close the knowledge gap and bring Chilean
students closer to the rest of the world.
ICT has to be a leader in this field. With the Internet we
can reach anywhere in the world in an instant and I should be making better use
of the technologies available to me to do this. That's where this short post
fits in. I want to take a look at some of the options available to me.
ODDIZZI
Oddizzi
is a primary school resource created to help children learn about the world.
Teachers and students can use the interactive world map to click on a country,
read news feeds, or even communicate with students from different parts of the
world using ClassPals.
Here is a review I found on the Internet:
“ClassPals
is an area where students can start to communicate with other schools and
students from different areas of the world. The teacher can ask another school
to be accepted as a friend and postcards can be sent to and from each school.
This area is controlled by the teacher to give a secure interaction.
Oddizzi is
a great idea and can benefit primary schools when it is used within the
curriculum. It saves teachers time searching for quality videos, and
information across various topic areas. The curriculum zone also points
teachers to good ideas of how to use Oddizzi within the classroom, adding to
the overall effectiveness of the website.”
I have not tried Oddizzi, but I like what I have
read and they were a BETT 2012 Winner, which is a sign of quality assurance for
me.
THE GLOBAL CLASSROOM PROJECT
“Through Global
Classroom, we are building the online collaborative spaces
and global network to enable teachers and students to explore new
ways to connect, share, learn and collaborate on a global stage.”
This is a page I have just come across but
intend to investigate further. It was actually from a friend’s “Global
Education” blog entry on this site that I decided to investigate this topic
further. You can read that here:
BBC WORLD CLASS
Inspired by the Olympics is BBC
World Class:
“BBC World Class helps UK schools to twin with schools around the globe
as part of its educational legacy for the 2012 Olympics.Our mission is to support
teachers in developing school-to-school partnerships, encouraging pupils to
share creative work inspired by the Olympics.”
However, this states that it is for UK based schools……hold on, UK based schools….BBC “World” Class….that can’t be right surely.
However, this states that it is for UK based schools……hold on, UK based schools….BBC “World” Class….that can’t be right surely.
I really hope that they don't literally mean UK Based Schools only, as for obvious reasons this would defeat the purpose of this incentive.
I am sure I could have twinned our school, but perhaps I am a little late for the 2012 Olympics. However, as you can see there are other options, and I have now taken the time to look at some resources, now it is entirely up to me to investigate further and actually do something about linking our school with others around the world.
