Julene Reed’s article “Global Collaboration and Learning” has the apt subtitle “How to create a world of success without leaving your classroom”. Reed writes, “Knowledge of other cultures around the world leads students to understanding and compassion. That, in turn, creates students who take action to make a difference in resolving problems and changing the world to be a better place.” For my Google Earth project, I am working on a math outcome that results in students demonstrating understanding of the mathematics involved in an historical event or an area of interest by doing inquiry based learning that requires data collection. One of the locations will Nunavut, home of the Inuit, a First Nations group.
Using our Elluminate Live! virtual classroom, I can see connecting our students in Saskatchewan with those in Nunavut to respectfully and ethically collect demographic data together, evaluate it, use statistical methods to interpret it, and then draw conclusions. As well as the virtual classroom and email, students might use a wiki for asynchronous collaboration and then a web site with photos and video to share out their findings.
Sources
Global Collaboration and Learning - EDTECH: Focus On K-12. (n.d.). Welcome To EDTECH™. Retrieved April 21, 2011, from http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/events/updates/global-collaboration-and-learning-2.html.
Image “Winter Shoreline” from Art Explosion Image Library. Nova Development Corporation
