Global+Awareness



Learning Outcomes 4.4 Candidates develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and learners of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools ** Description ** : Our job was to design a lesson plan on cultural understanding and global awareness using digital technology. We were given a number of websites to use. These websites were structured for global learning and understanding. Although they were more for the K-8 grades, I was able to find many impressive ideas and links that could be used in the college setting. Since I am not use to writing lesson plans, I decided to use what I do teach and interplay cultural understanding and awareness into my lesson. There are a few questioned being answered by this lesson. They are: learning something new about another culture, learning about plagiarism, using software to cite and manage web sources, using appropriate websites. This class is designed as a capstone project for students in the Introduction to Computers class, using the following application software programs: Browser, MS Word and MS PowerPoint. This project is intended to help students learn how to use technology to find information, inform the class of information on another culture, and properly cite their web sources. At the college level, the student body population is multi-cultural. Students will, after this lesson, learn to go to appropriate websites to collect data on and better understand their fellow students from other countries. Their fellow students will someday be fellow employees so I am hoping this will help the students through their entire life. ** Process ** : The process started with investigation of all the web choices that our professor gave us to peruse. The websites were very interesting and the decision as to what to use was a difficult one. I actually used myself as a model for instruction. I thought about what information I would like to know about another culture. I have so many multi-cultural students in my classes. Although I begin all my classes with introduction and finding out where everyone is from that doesn’t help to learn about our classmates cultures. I decided to put together a capstone project encompassing three different software products that are taught in this class. This project is usually done with subject of their choice and is worth 20% of the grade but I decided to use cultural awareness as the subject. I asked a few of my students what they taught of the idea and they liked it saying it is difficult to decide on a topic. One of the most important aspects of this lesson is to reinforce the use of citing sources and plagiarism. I realize they are taught this in English but I am the one teaching technology so I think it is important that it gets reinforced as they learn to use software. The websites used were [|Big Picture/Small World] and [|Pin the Map]. ** Reflection ** : My mind spun with this project. I just couldn’t get it to rest in one spot. I started to think about teaching a class solely on a particular subject like global awareness. I found it to be intriguing. I also thought about our K-8 instructors and what a wonderful opportunity they have to teach our children. There are just so many choices of how to get our students engaged. I read many articles and I think I was able to grasp a bit from everyone (thus the long list of references). There are so many smart and talented people and the Internet makes it so easy to glean their information. I find I like to read all I can and then take a night or two to sleep on it. It then comes out the other side with a mix of my education/background and the new processed information. This one was a struggle but I got through to the other side. I find most growth comes from that “I hit the end of the road” deadlock. ** References ** : //Big Links//. (2010). Retrieved March 26, 2010, from Big Picture Small World: http://www.bigpicturesmallworld.com/funstuff/biglinks.shtml // CyberFair 2010. // (2007). Retrieved March 26 2010, from Global School Net: http://www.globalschoolnet.org/gsncf/ Czarra, F. (2010). //Global Education Checklist.// Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Miss Carstensen's Website: http://www.cattysd.org/webpages/pcarstensen/files/Global%20Education%20Checklist.pdf // Department of Education //. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2010, from State of Delaware: http://www.doe.k12.de.us/infosuites/staff/IE/default.shtml Duggan, S. J. (2009). //The Language Flagship Creating Global Professionals.// Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Noble: http://nble.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/what_business_wants_report_final_7_09.pdf Foster, D. (n.d.). //Don't Just Blend In.// Retrieved March 26, 2010, from Dean Foster Associates: http://www.deanfosterassociates.com/learn-about-cultures/articles/DONTBLENDIN.pdf // Free Cultural Quiz //. (2010). Retrieved March 25, 2010, from Dean Foster Associated: http://www.deanfosterassociates.com/learn-about-cultures/quiz/ // Global Education Resources. // (n.d.). Retrieved March 25, 2010, from Miss Carstensen's Website: http://www.cattysd.org/webpages/pcarstensen/index.cfm?subpage=745055 Kay, K., Krietzberg, C. B., & Reilly, E. B. (n.d.). //Essential Skills in the 21st Century Workplace.// Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Noble: http://nble.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/21st+Century+Workplace.pdf // Pete & C - Global Education Session //. (2010). Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Miss Carstensen's Website: http://www.cattysd.org/webpages/pcarstensen/index.cfm?subpage=745055 // Pin the Map //. (n.d.). Retrieved March 25, 2010, from Eden Development: http://pininthemap.com/ // Planning a Lesson. // (2007). Retrieved March 26, 2010, from NCLRC: http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/planning/plindex.htm // Portals To The World //. (2008, March 13). Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html Williamson, D. S. (n.d.). //Reading//. Retrieved 25 2010, March, from EDT6030 Electronic Delivery System: http://wilmu.blackboard.com/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_303339_1%26url%3d