Apr

12

World as Witness: Learning about Genocide

April 12, 2008 | 1 Comment

Is “Never Again” little more than a catchphrase?
Having been teaching for only a few years, I am often taken by surprise that students know little or nothing about international events or historical personalities. For example, most students have no idea who Bill Clinton is; they have never heard of Yugolslavia; when I mention Lenin, they [...]

Oct

28

Maps of war

October 28, 2007 | 1 Comment

Maps of War is a really useful resource with interactive maps that cover a wide range of conflicts from the Western Front of WWI, WWII, Iraq, Darfur, failed states index and global migration.

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Oct

20

Going Global

October 20, 2007 | 7 Comments

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 [...]

Oct

17

Empathy comes with experience

October 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment

I have just returned from an excursion to Vietnam, which as a teacher was one of the most fulfilling experiences ever. It’s hard to reflect on it without sounding trite and cliched but it was amazing. We embarked on an intense 12-day trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and explored the geographical, historical [...]

Jul

21

Experiencing the world

July 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment

 
Sylvia Martinez in technology enabled service learning projects writes how the effective use of technology is about “providing students with context and real life projects [that] makes learning come alive.” “This means students can go beyond “tech skills” to authentic learning and citizenship that lasts a lifetime”.
“It’s harder to argue that blogs or social [...]

Jul

15

Society from scratch

July 15, 2007 | 11 Comments

The following is attributed to Warren Buffet, who when prompted by a question regarding the obligations of the wealthy to society, posed the following scenario: “Let’s say that it was 24 hours before you were born, and a genie appeared and said, ‘What I’m going to do is let you set the rules of the [...]

Jul

13

Making more music…

July 13, 2007 | 2 Comments

This is brilliant - Music and Life, a production by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, was created using recordings from libertarian Alan Watts.
If we apply the metaphor to education, this short film encapsulates how we undermine the joys (the singing and dancing) of learning with our obsession with the finishing point (high stakes [...]

Jul

9

Being the change you want to see

July 9, 2007 | 1 Comment

In a previous post, Lighting Fires, Not Filling Buckets, I wrote about my Year 10 class which created some imaginative digital protest texts. The task was fairly open-ended and I was really pleased with the work these students produced. I have uploaded some of these to a protest wiki. If you get a chance, check [...]

Jul

5

Poverty and Teenage Affluenza

July 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Via Chris’s betchablog, this is a powerful five-minute video by World Vision on the realities of poverty.

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Jun

3

“Flat world” projects

June 3, 2007 | 1 Comment

Clay Burell has written an interesting post about global collaboration, in which he explores the possibilities and impediments associated with “flat world” classroom projects. He has also set up a 1 to 1 Flat Classroom Project Network Forum, at Classroom 2.0, which invites teachers from 1:1 schools to discuss future projects. Clay is the brain [...]

May

11

Making Global Links

May 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment

One exciting prospect that comes from having increased access to computers is the opportunity to make link with classrooms around the world, which can bring an international perspective to literacy, social studies, science, math, languages and history.
The Global Education Collaborative is a social network for teachers to link up classrooms around the world. Other [...]