thinking 2.0 » Global Projects

Earth Hour “goes global”

msbarnsley — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:15:24 +0000

According to Reuters, more than half (58%) of Australian adults turned off their lights to support the second year of Earth Hour on Saturday night (March 29). In an amazing demonstration of the powers of viral marketing, Earth Hour made its way across the globe with an estimated 30 million people taking part worldwide.

Started in Sydney in 2007 to raise awareness of the effects of our dependency on coal-fired electricity, Earth Hour spread to 35 cities across the globe in 2008. Last year, more than 2.2 million Sydneysiders and over 2100 businesses switched off lights and non-essential electrical appliances, leading to a 10% energy reduction across the city. This year, 30 million people in 35 cities turned off their lights for 60 minutes by the time “Earth Hour” — which started in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand — completed its cycle westward.

Earth Hour aims to encourage people to make changes that will help achieve its ultimate goal of reducing emissions by 5%.

Students speak out

msbarnsley — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:32:35 +0000

There has been lots of discussion about realising student participation in the edublogosphere in the past year. Driven be a belief that students “should be participating in our edublogger conversations on an equal footing, as equal partners”, Clay Burrell and others have helped students set up Student 2.0, a blog that is “administered, designed, edited, and written by a global mix of students of varying ages, interests, voices, and points of view, Students 2.0 will feature content written by both staff writers and guest contributors. From Hawaii and Washington, from St. Louis and Chicago, from Vermont, New York, Scotland, Korea, and other points on the globe, these writings will be united in one central aspect: quality student writing, full-voiced and engaging, about education.”

Watch this space – Flat Tales ‘08

msbarnsley — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:50:06 +0000

Clay Burell has set up a new high school wiki for the 1001 Flat World Tales ‘08 project that will link students from Korea, Honolulu, Australia (X2) and Atlanta. This project follows the inaugural Flat World Tales project last year and is an innovative way to introduce students and teachers to the benefits of a purposeful, collaborative and international project. Most importantly, the focus is on literacy, storytelling and the process of writing. I can’t wait!!!

1001 Flat World Tales (HS) is part of an overarching K-12 project, with primary (elementary), middle and high school groups working together to produce a collection of original student writing that reflects the cultures of participants from across the globe. You can check out selected stories from ‘07 here.

Here’s an overview from the first project wiki FAQ:

“What is The 1001 Flat World Tales Project?
This project takes the traditional language arts “Writing Workshop” into the 21st Century in three easy (but radical) ways:

it replaces pencil and paper (or MS Word) drafting, revising, and peer editing with a better (and more simple) writing tool: a wiki;
it expands the options for peer response and peer editing beyond the walls of your classroom–and your clock, city, nation, and culture–by enabling peer feedback, editing, and connection with students from around the world;
it replaces the “authentic” publishing of the 20th century classroom–hallways, newsletters, literary journals, etc–with authentic publishing in the 1001 Flat World Tales “blook”: a potentially endless series of stories from students around the world, inter-linked on individual student blogs.

Going Global

msbarnsley — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 06:19:07 +0000

I’ve written before about the possibilities and difficulties associated with global or “flat world” projects. This is an area of learning that I am really fascinated by and hope to get a feasible project off the ground next year (as we only have about five weeks of class time remaining until the summer holidays).

[slideshare id=140143&doc=global-projects-presentation-1192860619592528-3&w=425]

I gave a workshop on global projects last week because this is one way that we can meaningfully use the new 1:1 environment to create engaging and authentic learning rather than using the laptops as glorified typewriters. The aims of global projects are to empower, enable and connect students around the world using technology.

Global projects can foster:
* Cross-Cultural Communication
* Collaboration
* Citizenship
* Creativity

Skills developed by global projects can include:
* Multiple Literacies: digital, cultural, media,
* Communication
* Critical thinking
* Synthesis and summary
*Information literacy, research, validation, authentication of facts
* Negotiation and collaboration

Examples of projects we had a look at included:

Flat Planet Project
1001 Flat World Tales
International teen life
Global Cooling Collective
The real world actually
Young Writers 07
Mission Possible
Charlotte’s Web Writing Project
The Flat Classroom Project
The Flat Classroom Project overview video
Download Video: Posted by julielindsay at TeacherTube.com.

I also pointed colleagues who were interested to the following sites, which are dedicated to globalised education:

TakingITglobal
Global education collaborative
The Learning Foundation
Global SchoolNet Foundation
International and Educational Resource Network
1:1 Flat Classroom Network

Kim Cofino, has uploaded this Developing the Global Student presentation, which discusses “Practical Ways for Infusing 21st Century Literacy Skills in Your Classroom.” She has also created a global collaborations wiki that lists a range of projects from the Learning 2.0 Conference in Shanghai

[slideshare id=138266&doc=developing-the-global-student-1192710777188581-4&w=425]