There was a day when teachers and students could go about their business inside the classroom with little if any concern to the outside world. The skills and concepts taught within the four classroom walls needed not be connected to the world at large, and issues of multiculturalism among students and globalization were afterthoughts (Hilt 2011). In the classroom of today, teachers are met with students from varied backgrounds who will one day work in a world in which they will interact with others from around the world and from different cultures on a daily basis. That mixture and that eventual interaction require that educators possess unique skills to reach those groups of students. The students are also required to learn unique skills to be able to survive in a world of globalization. The increase in globalization has lead to what the World Health Organization (2014) calls the global village. In the global village, cultures some closer together to share values and interests. This sharing leads to more interdependence among nations and a positive overall outcome.
Eduction for a global world starts with a teacher's ability to reach all students in his or her classroom, many of whom come from diverse and varied cultures. Often the largest barrier that teachers face with reaching those students is a language barrier as many students from different cultures are also English Language Learners. The main focus that teachers should work towards to reach those learners, according to Arturo Guajado of the Austin Independent School District (2009) is educational content with instruction in listening, speaking, reading and writing in English. Guajado's key to reaching that content-level instruction is to provide students with authentic opportunities to use their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in learning the content. These authentic opportunities can be offered through the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Listening and speaking skills in English can be fostered through recording podcasts with technologies like Audacity or Pod-o-matic. Those same skills can be further honed by adding an interactive component through the use of other true Web 2.0 tools like Voicethread and Skype. While podcasts allow students to practice speaking English, Skype and Voicethread boast the added component of interaction with other students who speak back and listen to what is said. Teachers can provide authentic learning experiences in reading and writing through the use of Blogs, like those available at KidBlog.com, or microblogs platforms like Twitter, Edmodo or Padlet. In addition, the use of those Web 2.0 tools can help to positively influence many of the components of performance that lead to the performance gap that Dave Edyburn (2006) cites. Simply using web-based technologies can change the organizational system of the classroom by streamlining some processes,provide incentives for good work and tools for cognitive support, and transform the setting of the learning environment.
Likewise,Web 2.0 tools can be used to introduce students to the world outside of their comfort zones and in which they will live when they leave school. While telling students about other cultures can provide some clues about what is out there, showing them can be a far more effective method, and streaming video services offer a wealth of information about cultures of foreign countries or simply different areas of the United States. Discovery Education, formerly United Streaming, offers a variety of videos grouped by topics. As a bonus, the site allows teachers to create classes, assign videos for students to watch independently, and create quizzes about those videos. If Discovery Education does not offer what a teacher is looking for, YouTube offers myriad videos about topics of all sorts. Aside from the variety offered by YouTube, the site also offers videos made by average people, many of whom are actually parts of the cultures that are represented. If watching can be that much more effective than reading or hearing, live interaction can be even more impactful. Services like Skype, Facetime, or Google Hangouts allow for real-time interactions with people from around the world and from the attendant cultures. Reaching out to people from different cultures via these technologies can help a teacher achieve some of th basic strategies of the National Education Association's (n.d.) Diversity Toolkit. Online meeting and videoconferencing can help teachers pursue and provide opportunities to learn about other cultures as well as to celebrate those other cultures.
Finally, while it may be more effective in learning about cultures to watch and interact than to read or write, the necessity for reading and writing still exists, and as we have found, blogging is one effective method through which interactive reading and writing can be accomplished. Students can create blogs through sites like Weebly or Wordpress. Younger students who present more pressing privacy concerns may find those sites too restrictive, and in those cases, sites like Edmodo or KidBlog can offer safer alternatives for students in particular. The chief aspect of blogs that allow for their use in teaching about globalization is the pervasiveness of the internet. While specific countries sometimes have specific internet top-level domains, most information on the internet is available worldwide. With that being the case, teachers and students need to be cognizant of the requirements and dangers of worldwide publication and interaction. Not only does blogging help to encourage students to learn about other cultures, it allows them to practice the skills that they learn. Students should learn about some of the practices for writing for an international audience. IBM (n.d.) offers tips that seem like common sense but often are not such as succinctness, avoidance of the use of jargon, slang or American idioms, using shorter sentence constructions, and avoiding negative constructions. These tips help to insure that international readers understand the content, are not insulted by the style, and overall are not repelled by the blog. Aside from learning about different cultures and interacting with people from other cultures in a theoretical sense, blogging for an international audience can give students a chance to practice the very skills that they will need in the future.
Edyburn, D.L. (2006). Failure is not an option: Collecting, reviewing, and acting on evidence for using technology to enhance academic performance. Learning & Leading with Technology, 34 (1), 20-23. doi:
Guajardo, A. (2009). ESL 2.0 - Web tools for English language learners [Slideshare Slides]. Retrieved from: http://www.slideshare.net/artugua/esl-20-web-tools-for-english-language-learners
Hilt, L. (2011, October 26). The case for cultivating cultural awareness. Retrieved from: http://plpnetwork.com/2011/10/26/the-case-for-cultivating-cultural-awareness/
IBM. (n.d.). Writing for an international audience. Retrieved from: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/topics/writing/style.html
National Education Association (n.d.). Diversity toolkit introduction. Retrieved from: http://www.nea.org/tools/diversity-toolkit-introduction.html#S
Eduction for a global world starts with a teacher's ability to reach all students in his or her classroom, many of whom come from diverse and varied cultures. Often the largest barrier that teachers face with reaching those students is a language barrier as many students from different cultures are also English Language Learners. The main focus that teachers should work towards to reach those learners, according to Arturo Guajado of the Austin Independent School District (2009) is educational content with instruction in listening, speaking, reading and writing in English. Guajado's key to reaching that content-level instruction is to provide students with authentic opportunities to use their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in learning the content. These authentic opportunities can be offered through the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Listening and speaking skills in English can be fostered through recording podcasts with technologies like Audacity or Pod-o-matic. Those same skills can be further honed by adding an interactive component through the use of other true Web 2.0 tools like Voicethread and Skype. While podcasts allow students to practice speaking English, Skype and Voicethread boast the added component of interaction with other students who speak back and listen to what is said. Teachers can provide authentic learning experiences in reading and writing through the use of Blogs, like those available at KidBlog.com, or microblogs platforms like Twitter, Edmodo or Padlet. In addition, the use of those Web 2.0 tools can help to positively influence many of the components of performance that lead to the performance gap that Dave Edyburn (2006) cites. Simply using web-based technologies can change the organizational system of the classroom by streamlining some processes,provide incentives for good work and tools for cognitive support, and transform the setting of the learning environment.
Likewise,Web 2.0 tools can be used to introduce students to the world outside of their comfort zones and in which they will live when they leave school. While telling students about other cultures can provide some clues about what is out there, showing them can be a far more effective method, and streaming video services offer a wealth of information about cultures of foreign countries or simply different areas of the United States. Discovery Education, formerly United Streaming, offers a variety of videos grouped by topics. As a bonus, the site allows teachers to create classes, assign videos for students to watch independently, and create quizzes about those videos. If Discovery Education does not offer what a teacher is looking for, YouTube offers myriad videos about topics of all sorts. Aside from the variety offered by YouTube, the site also offers videos made by average people, many of whom are actually parts of the cultures that are represented. If watching can be that much more effective than reading or hearing, live interaction can be even more impactful. Services like Skype, Facetime, or Google Hangouts allow for real-time interactions with people from around the world and from the attendant cultures. Reaching out to people from different cultures via these technologies can help a teacher achieve some of th basic strategies of the National Education Association's (n.d.) Diversity Toolkit. Online meeting and videoconferencing can help teachers pursue and provide opportunities to learn about other cultures as well as to celebrate those other cultures.
Finally, while it may be more effective in learning about cultures to watch and interact than to read or write, the necessity for reading and writing still exists, and as we have found, blogging is one effective method through which interactive reading and writing can be accomplished. Students can create blogs through sites like Weebly or Wordpress. Younger students who present more pressing privacy concerns may find those sites too restrictive, and in those cases, sites like Edmodo or KidBlog can offer safer alternatives for students in particular. The chief aspect of blogs that allow for their use in teaching about globalization is the pervasiveness of the internet. While specific countries sometimes have specific internet top-level domains, most information on the internet is available worldwide. With that being the case, teachers and students need to be cognizant of the requirements and dangers of worldwide publication and interaction. Not only does blogging help to encourage students to learn about other cultures, it allows them to practice the skills that they learn. Students should learn about some of the practices for writing for an international audience. IBM (n.d.) offers tips that seem like common sense but often are not such as succinctness, avoidance of the use of jargon, slang or American idioms, using shorter sentence constructions, and avoiding negative constructions. These tips help to insure that international readers understand the content, are not insulted by the style, and overall are not repelled by the blog. Aside from learning about different cultures and interacting with people from other cultures in a theoretical sense, blogging for an international audience can give students a chance to practice the very skills that they will need in the future.
Edyburn, D.L. (2006). Failure is not an option: Collecting, reviewing, and acting on evidence for using technology to enhance academic performance. Learning & Leading with Technology, 34 (1), 20-23. doi:
Guajardo, A. (2009). ESL 2.0 - Web tools for English language learners [Slideshare Slides]. Retrieved from: http://www.slideshare.net/artugua/esl-20-web-tools-for-english-language-learners
Hilt, L. (2011, October 26). The case for cultivating cultural awareness. Retrieved from: http://plpnetwork.com/2011/10/26/the-case-for-cultivating-cultural-awareness/
IBM. (n.d.). Writing for an international audience. Retrieved from: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/topics/writing/style.html
National Education Association (n.d.). Diversity toolkit introduction. Retrieved from: http://www.nea.org/tools/diversity-toolkit-introduction.html#S