GLOBAL EDUCATION TOOLS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
Assessing Students' Global Education Skills
How do you begin to build global awareness in your students? What are the skills and knowledge you need to be teaching? How do you assess this? Where would you place your students on a continuum of "very little awareness or understanding of other cultures" to "extremely aware and knowledgeable of other cultures"? Below are some tools that can help you answer all of these questions and help get you started on building a globally competent cadre of students and staff.
Asia Society has a wonderful assessment tool to help get you thinking about your students' abilities. Click on the link below to see this tool.
Measuring 21st Century Skills_
How do you begin to build global awareness in your students? What are the skills and knowledge you need to be teaching? How do you assess this? Where would you place your students on a continuum of "very little awareness or understanding of other cultures" to "extremely aware and knowledgeable of other cultures"? Below are some tools that can help you answer all of these questions and help get you started on building a globally competent cadre of students and staff.
Asia Society has a wonderful assessment tool to help get you thinking about your students' abilities. Click on the link below to see this tool.
Measuring 21st Century Skills_
Oxfam also has a great resource to get teachers and schools started on the goal of Global Citizenship for their students. Click on the link below to access their resource.
Oxfam Global Citizenship Guide
Oxfam Global Citizenship Guide
The American Forum for Global Education has a very clear, easy to use checklist for what global education skills and knowledge students should have and it also has a checklist for schools, teachers, principals and community leaders.
Click the link below to see this tool.
Global Education Checklist
Click the link below to see this tool.
Global Education Checklist
Digital Learning Environment Inventory
If we are to connect our students and community with the world we will need to understand the technology available to us today and have the skills to adapt to the innovations coming tomorrow. The TGC program asked every participant to inventory what our schools offer and what our colleagues are already doing. Here is mine:
Cindy Spoon - Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, Maryland
1. What tools, software, operating systems and equipment are available in your school and classroom?
My school provides at least one computer in every classroom and some rooms, like mine, even have multiple computers for student use. We have computer labs that can accommodate as many as 40 students at a time. Our computers do not have cameras so videoconferencing and Skyping are not possible at this time. We can use wikis, podcasts and blogs. We can use Google Docs and we have an in house system for sharing documents. This year Wifi is easily available to students and staff and we are on the process of moving towards using Google Chrome accounts.
2. How does your school make use of school and teacher websites?
I found very few teachers at my school who have their own website. One teacher who has one uses it “primarily as a repository for the applets I use in class”.
The school's website is used for connecting parents, staff and students to all that happens here. It posts schedules, has access to the online school newspaper, and provides links to Service Learning opportunities, etc.
3. How are you currently utilizing technology for learning?
Thanks to the TGC program I am using a wider array of technology for learning today. This year I have started using Google Voice software to have my ESOL students call and record a response to a prompt. I have been uploading videos to YouTube and now can easily share something I created with my class. I have also used Padlet as an interactive platform within the classroom. For once, students are allowed to use their cell phones for this activity! I continue to use Scholastic software and other purchased Reading programs. We also have a subscription to an on-line newspaper (News For You) that students can use for research. Interactive websites like Quia are a great resource to engage students in grammar and other content learning activities.
4. Which websites are blocked by your school's firewall?
Our school’s firewall blocks Facebook and online searches that contain words like “guns”, "Drugs/alcohol", "Porn", "Hate Speech", "Hacking", and "Proxy Servers". However, we have access to YouTube, Wikipedia and the internet.
5. What websites and tools are colleagues in your building using?
My colleagues use a variety of tools such as NoodleTools, Twitter, PowerPoint, Socrative, and PollEverywhere.
From a Math teacher:
Google Docs for formative assessments, Wolfram Alpha for computational methods, census.gov , data and story library, espn.com, baseballreference.com and the like for data collection, ebooks for Statistics and Calculus. Java applets linked to from my site.
From an Art Teacher:
I mainly use them as resources for text and images as well as video demonstrations of techniques to show in class and rarely send students to them. And of course, YouTube.
http://www.vangilderpottery.com/#!videos/c1g7i
http://wikiclay.com/
http://artsy.net/?dns_source=art.sy#browse
http://arted20.ning.com/
http://galleryforum.wordpress.com/
http://ceramicartsdaily.org/
6. Is there a system for evaluating student technology literacy in your school? If so, how effective or helpful have you found the assessment?
Students are required to take a Foundations of Technology class. There is a required semester final exam that assesses their skills. I am not familiar enough with this assessment to comment on its efficacy.
7. Gather suggestions from students on their ideas for integrating technology into their learning.
I asked my ESOL students for their ideas about how to use technology for learning, but with limited exposure to the technology offerings available, they did not have many responses. I did hear that another ESOL teacher used Glogster with the advanced level classes with success. My own forays into students' use of technology have been met with great enthusiasm from students.
8. What tools that are not currently available would help to achieve district objectives?
The district has a Tech Mod initiative that updates a school’s technology on an on-going basis. This year was our school’s Tech Mod year and they added access to WiFi for our school. We are a well-funded school district so our technology needs are small. I would like to see cameras on computers to allow for more authentic communication across borders.
9. Does your school promote BYOD (bring your own device) policies for students?
Our school allows students to use their cell phones before classes and during lunch and some teachers have used phones in class for a learning activity. But there is not a school-wide policy to have students bring their own devices. If I am using technology in my ESOL classes, I plan for the student who doesn't have a cell phone our computer access at home.
B. Using your Digital Learning Environment inventory, develop a solution or suggest an improvement customized to your school/classroom circumstances.
One improvement I would like to see is the addition of cameras on our computers. Through this TGC class I am getting inspired to set up a relationship via Skyping or teleconferencing with another school system in another country. This immediate interaction with another group of students would be very motivating for my ESOL students. I use Skype at home so it is technology I am already familiar with (a huge plus!!)
Creating this Digital Learning Environment Inventory turned out to be very reassuring to me. I was surprised that my level of technology use was not outside the norm. In other words, all the other teachers aren't necessarily doing amazing things in their classrooms that I am not! Many are doing wonderful, innovative activities. Yet, many are sticking with their interactive whiteboard (if that).
I realized that I use much more technology on a regular basis than do many of my colleagues. I now have a teacher website, when very few of my colleagues do. I am familiar with many of the sites other teachers use. And my colleagues do not incorporate a lot of technology into student learning. While this is reassuring to me, it is not going to make me complacent. If anything, it has fueled my commitment to learn new technologies, infuse it into my curriculum and get out and spread the word.