Director’s Column
Greetings Educators,
As you may know from my past columns I have a project funded by the U.S. State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) that is coordinated through Creative Associates in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this project is to establish global connections between U.S. and Algerian secondary schools using the Internet. We are connecting 11 schools in Algeria with 11 in the United States. But, rather than discuss the particulars of this project, I would like to focus for a bit on the idea of “globalization” and how classrooms, teachers, and kids have the opportunity to connect to our global society.
In a broad context, globalization is a multidimensional set of social processes that focus on and transform the “economic, political, cultural, technological, and ecological dimensions of contemporary social life.” (Steger, M., 2003, Globalization – A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford Press). When we, as teachers, focus on education we can see that it has the power to transform our social networks by reaching far outside our established communities, and enables us to create new social networks and a better understanding of communities world wide.
One observation I’ve made while managing this project is that programs such as this have real people involved. Normally, when we connect using the Internet and technology, there’s a somewhat detached or impersonal process taking place. We’re directing our communications at a computer screen and then waiting for that computer screen to respond back. But I’ve visited both sides of this communication channel and I’ve seen the faces of the global connections. We need to keep that in mind. There are real kids on both ends and they are anxious to tell the stories of their communities, cultures, and countries.
As educators, given the advent of new technologies and ways to communicate worldwide, we have an obligation to do more than just inform our students about other communities. We must connect them with real people in real communities across the globe. We should take advantage of the many programs already available that allow classrooms to connect with other classrooms and allow the kids to build new international relationships and understandings. Three programs that come to mind are iEarn, ePals and Think.com. It is with programs like these and the one in Algeria that we can help our students truly become global citizens.
The program with Algeria continues through the end of this academic school year and I’ll have far more to report at that time. If you have any questions or comments on globalizing our classrooms please let me know. I am very interested in hearing from you.
Best Regards,
Joseph Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program
Contact us at: 517-432-9259
http://edutech.msu.edu