Session+9

"9.1 Global Education Opener":
 * __9.1. Opener:[[image:africa-globe-g.gif width="105" height="120"]]__**

__ How would you define global awareness? __

Global awareness must be an intrinsic appreciation for peoples and places around the world. Technology, economy, politics, the arts, travel, and fashion, to list a few, are some of the areas where everyday citizens are in touch with the reality that we live in a global community. When a crisis strikes, television shares the destruction and need around the globe. The entertainment industry brings places from around the world into homes thousands of miles away. Political turmoil involves countries in the strife endured by others. Companies employ, manufacture, and participate in intercontinental trade. We vacillate between identifying ourselves in our immediate, provincial community to seeing ourselves as members of the global village. Global awareness is this appreciation of connectedness to individuals in all regions of the world.

__ To what extent would you say global awareness is an important 21st century skill? Please explain your answer. __

Travel and trade had been realities longer than 2,000 years ago; trade between Europe and China via The Silk Road, later Europe with Japan took place before Marco Polo traveled to China late 1200s. Historically speaking, we should all understand the world has had global connections long before the advent of transcontinental flights. What is unnerving is that these lessons from our ancient past of trading and sharing seem have been buried along with tolerance and understanding.

So, why is global awareness a skill to be appreciated and embraced in the 21st century? Economic global interdependence is a motivator. Much of our national economy depends on manufacturing and resource procurement globally, and, in turn, we depend on global markets to purchase/distribute our goods and services. We are for better or worse wedded to the world, to money from around the world, and to the economies of countries beyond our borders.

Politically, our country has associations of varying degrees of commitment around the globe. We are connected to allies and encumbered with responsibilities in countries no one would have foretold twenty years ago.

Ecological, medical, health, and humanitarian concerns tie us to all countries around the world. Altruism drives much of our global energy, but our need for scientific discoveries and experiments in other places further cement our connections. We also are home to immigrants from around the world who further unite us to countries around the world. Besides our friends, there are others less interested in our success, and these forces stress the need for global education, understanding, and tolerance.

Certainly, above are only a few broad-stroke reasons for building global bridges. Technology serves to shrink the globe; this tightening connectedness demands that we increase our global awareness and that we discover how to work collaboratively with each other.

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First of all, I am still curious about the philosophical beliefs behind the reading and views about Global Awareness and education, but I am not tangentially paranoid about the future direction of global education because pragmatically the global interconnection is a significant reality and is in synch with my comments above. The need for global citizenry peacefully blending and working to understand each other hit home again as I watched 15 minutes of tonight’s news. There will be no profitable global economy for global citizens if people don’t learn to respect and bridge cultural differences. That said, the Crawford and Kirby paper provides insights about how global education must be and can be seamlessly intertwined within all content areas. =====

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Global Awareness can enhance the development of skills and understandings and appreciations across high school courses. Many content areas rely on teaching with global awareness in mind; social studies and literature make important connections to universal concerns and conflicts and help students travel through content to other peoples and other places. Crawford and Kirby explain the benefits and reasons for global education. A “Pluralistic and interdependent” future needs citizens prepared to learn and work cooperatively and compassionately. Planning lessons that “emphasize students’ social and emotional learning needs” will help students develop the skills to work collaboratively and to improve their critical thinking skills for their immediate tasks and for their futures. =====

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The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge model explanations show how content, classroom management, and technology used in conjunction can best help students learn and understand content, global realities, plus develop skills needed for future employment, lifelong learning and effective citizenship. Crawford and Kirby also suggest that there is a valuable symbiotic relationship that benefits the students directly. The importance of using technology integration reaches new significance: When electronic technologies are integrated. . . they offer the potential to promote cross-cultural understandings and awareness in areas such as equity, diversity, and discrimination among both students and teachers.” Helping nurture the development of tolerance and appreciation for mutual respect are attitudes that will benefit the students within their own classroom, school, and neighborhood before transferring these skills around the globe and foster understanding. =====

__"Fostering Students' Global Awareness"__



__9.3 Use of Google and/or Scribble Maps:__
__Here's hoping my Google Map pops up.__ media type="googlemap" key="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201227029852465178290.0004aa77ca43b52bbc169&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.0625,-95.677068&spn=0.002486,0.012403&output=embed" width="425" height="350"

Brief Reflection on How to Use Google Maps in My Classroom:
It is pretty easy to appreciate how using Google Maps for before, during, and after reading activities centering on literature. So many stories use specific and significant settings as devices for complementing themes, lessons, conflicts, and more. Ancient texts through contemporary stories can be connected for students by expanding their knowledge of places and relationships between different locals. Stories usually rely heavily on use of setting but this is often of little use for students. Many of the stories coming out of Africa or theMiddle Eastwould grab students’ and elicit greater reactions by using Google Maps and actually allowing students to see the satellite version of the location.

One of my independent reading topics is Other People, Other Places. Students complete the activity with a Book Talk and presentation. Posters and PowerPoints are as fancy as we have gotten. Google Maps would add a wonderful and prescient addition to the older formats and make the stories so much more real. //Infidel// for example traces the nomadic journey of a young Muslim woman throughout the Middle East, up to Germany, to Hollandand finally to theUnited States; tracing her journey visually would make her difficulties and repeated culture clashes so much easier to understand. The project does have a global awareness component, and the maps would allow a greater appreciation of geographical interconnectedness which a book read in isolation does not. Other titles students read and which would increase student perception and understanding about global connectedness include //The Kite Runner//, //Chinese Cinderella//, //Funny in Farsi, Jarhead//, etc. Students find these books informative, but overall, I hope that they discover the universal themes, concerns, and lessons that connect each of us to the other – a global appreciation by a global citizenry.

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