Global Community Education

We connect with global educations in multiple forms now more than ever because of our ever-advancing technological world. I know some ways in particular that I used to connect with children from other places around the globe was through pen pals in Elementary School. I remember specifically having pen pals from Africa that we would write to. In addition, I have found that there are more and more social networking sites where children and teachers can connect with others in an educational reference. For instance, Sun Microsystems has launched two new social networking portals intended to connect the global education community. One is called EduConnection.orgwhich is set up for the Sun’s education sector costumers. However, the Open Source University Meet up is the second social networking site that allows students to communicate between each other about open source programming tools and platforms. According to the website, “Educonnection.org offers a platform for schools to exchange information and best practices that will help them to mitigate the challenges of purchasing and implementing new technology in an era of increasing budgetary pressure. It also provides an opportunity for Sun to directly energize, engage and support the education community.” In addition to social networks, I was able to find a variety of different organizations that are designated for global education. I believe that by reading these websites and blogs, children can learn about schools in other countries and therefore be connected through technology to these schools and places. There is one website that I found for the Global Community for Education which is a website that teaching the public about building schools and changing lives in various countries where schooling is not set up. This website in particular reminded me quite a bit of the book Three Cups of Tea. I believe that because children have so many opportunities to connect themselves with their outside words now through the computer that we can all be connected through blogs, websites, and a traditional form of written print in a book. In addition I think that as a teacher it would be neat to subscribe to some of the newsletter that these various programs have in order to show them to your class. Another tool that I found to be really interesting is called Global EdNet, which is a global education website, blog, discussion board, and email. The website has global education news as well as new ideas, lesson plans, and information on different cultures and education systems globally. Some ways that students can connect are through international video conferences, international education and research network, iEARN. I found that children in rural Washington State were able to connect with international schools through research, art, and ultimately the video conference with thanks to their teacher, Krisi Rennebohm Franz. I found this information athttp://www.edutopia.org/going-global-rural-washington-students-connect-with-world. One place that I found particularly interesting and useful for students to connect with global education is the Student Circle Network. According to author Chika Uwazie, “Students Circle Network, a Kyrenia-area start-up (GirneAmerican University Roots) founded in 2010 - is an educational social network for college and high school students with interests in providing free course resources/materials, live faculty/teacher/lecturer help to students, scholarship offers, study groups and many more students services across the globe for FREE.” Some discussion questions for children can include everything from, “what do other children in other cultures eat, to what books are popular in other cultures and are their translated books that we can read I order to learn about another culture. “ In addition, children should be asked “how are classrooms set up in other countries, what tools do they use, how is our education system similar and different (funding?).

global-ednet@edna.edu.au