In the world of education, case studies are stories shared as a teaching tool to show the application of real situations to get students around the world collaborating. In the textbook I have been reading, The Global Educator, there are numerous amount of online global collaboration case study examples. Each one is an example of online global interactive, collaborations, and projects. Teaching about these projects and doing them, gives students the ability to work with others outside of their classroom. Out of the collection of case studies in the book, one really stood out to me and I believe they can be helpful and fun for all students.
The case study that caught my eye was 3.7-Pernille Ripp: Global Read Aloud. Pernille Ripp is the creator of GRA and the winner of the inaugural ISTE Global Collaboration PLN award. This is a global reading project that has linked together over 500,000 students in six continents since she started GRA in September of 2010. This project is such a good way for not only students to stay connected but teachers too. Teachers can share books they’ve read aloud with other teachers all over the world. This gives schools the opportunity to expand the range of books they read aloud in the classroom. Pernille Ripp still has ambitions to further develop the Global Read Aloud project.
Like you would like to connect with Pernille Ripp click here for the Global Read Aloud website. You can also sign up for the 2020 Read Aloud. Her Twitter handle is @pernilleripp.
Teachers are always on the lookout to find new ways to teach their students. They want to make sure the students are learning but they also want them to be having fun while learning. With the technology we have in this day in age, there are so many different ways out there that teachers can get their students to not be so bored during a lesson, project, field trip, etc. It also seems as though, every child age five and up knows how to work a technology device. With the skills that these youngsters have, teachers can now incorporate technology into the classroom.
Something that has become very popular for kids is Virtual and Augmented Reality. VR and AR are great tools/devices that can really bring some fun into the classroom and relieve some stress off the teacher. Virtual Reality headsets go over your head/eyes and take over your vision. This headset gives you the sense that you’re somewhere else. Augmented Reality is slightly different from VR but at the same time adds to it. AR devices are see-through glasses (you can see everything around you) & while looking around the Augmented Reality projects a picture over whatever it may be that you’re looking at. This article goes into more depth about the differences between VR and AR.
Now let’s get into how VR and AR can be used for education. Google has an app out there called Google Expeditions. It is an immersive app that gives teachers and students the ability to explore the world through Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. When using Google Expeditions, teachers can have their students take VR and AR tours. As a future teacher, it excites me that these ways of teaching are out. I am no longer limited by classroom space. Now, I do not know how comfortable I am with using Virtual Reality sets in my classroom of first or second graders because it can be difficult to use and can be scary. When using VR, your vision is taken over and you cannot see anything else around you. But, using Augmented Reality is definitely more my speed since you can still see the room around you. I would use the AR devices for lots of different lessons in my classroom. Having my students take tours of different places is just one way I want to use VR and AR for education. Tours include museums, outer space, the ocean, and different places or countries around the world. Having them use AR to explore places across the globe turns them into global learners, which they then can use later on to teach others, making them a global educator. I believe that children learn better when they have visuals to look at during a lesson so using AR will be very helpful in that aspect.
Google Expedition Logo
Using these technologies keeps students interactive and interested during lessons. Many children, teachers, and schools can benefit from using either Virtual Reality and/or Augmented Reality for education. So, what you use in your classroom or school?
**Also, be sure to check out the videos on the Google Expedition link I provided to see VR and AR being used.
This week I took a look through the past of mankind on a website called Out of Eden, created by National Geographic. A journalist set out on a decade long experiment in 2013. The journalist Paul Salopek, walked in the footsteps of the first humans who migrated out of Africa in the stone age. With all of Paul’s photos, videos, and audios, a global record of human life was created. Technology today allows us to rediscover our world and how those first humans made earth ours.
As I explored through the website and took my own walk, I learned some pretty amazing things and believe that everyone should have insight into what exactly this website entails. In school, students do learn about migration and how life started on learning but never get to fully dive into how it all really happened. Using this website in the classroom is a great way to teach students about all the steps the first race of humans went through as they started migrating. Having students dive into the Out of Eden Walk website they’ll be able to really understand what it was like during migration in the stone age. Three journies that I took on my own as I took a walk through the website were Chapter 1 “Out of Africa”, Chapter 2 “Holy Lands”, and Editors Pick “Troubled Currents”. I would incorporate these into my lessons as a teacher before even letting my class explore the website on their own.
While going through each of the chapters I decided to use the option Editors Pick to read an article about Salopek’s journies. Starting with Chapter 1, I read the article Milestone 6: Red Sea. It was day 108, mile 500 of Paul’s journey. He recorded the landscape and a person that he had met. He was on the Syrian ship and went into one of the cabins. He recorded that in that particular cabin it was strung with salt-hazed Christmas tree bulbs. A stuffed red heart was hanging above the bed swaying left and right but would stop in the middle like it was being held. The ship was traveling through the Red Sea, over crashing waves yet looking through a porthole, Africa was calm & quiet. Paul Salopek would record about a person he met & the landscape of his surroundings every hundred miles that he traveled.
Chapter 2 “Holy Lands” was Paul’s journey from July of 2013 until July of 2014, a whole year! The Holy Lands that he walked included Jordan, West Bank, Saudi Arabia, and Isreal. The Editor’s Pick article that I read over was Exit. Paul and his walking partner were going through the lands, snapping pictures of the beautiful landscapes, and learning about each other. They would sing, talk, and enjoy each other’s company. On the website, Paul added the audio of his Israeli walking partner singing. Listening to him sing made the days seem easier as they went through caves that the first humans once lived in. (The audio can be found on SoundCloud by searching “The Kukal Road” or by clicking here)
The final article I read is Troubled Currents. Children in the United States do not know what it is like to not have fresh water to drink or cook with. This is something important to teach students about because plenty of places around the world have to go through their lives with no clean water. Having my students read this article can bring their attention to why we should not take having water for granted and can bring awareness to those countries that do not have access to water like we do. In this article, Paul explains what water really is and how humans are born onto a water planet and have a love for the water. Although there is water all around us and the globe, water is not the same for everyone. Here in the U.S., we have plenty of water to drink but in the village of Rajasthan, they have little to none to drink. The water there is not clean nor fresh.
The Out of Eden Walk, Paul Salopek’s journey is a website that not only teachers can have their students go through but it a great read-through for anyone. Learning about how the human race evolved and lived compared to now is something people should have the knowledge of.
This week I read the concluding chapter of the book Sail The 7 Cs With Microsoft Education. This chapter, Becoming ChangeMakers, was all about how a teacher can create change for his/her students. During the chapter, I was introduced to a website called We.org. We.org is a global organization that is also partnered with Microsoft with a mission to “make doing good doable”. The website has different things to offer to everyone, not just teachers. The WE organization does everything to empower youth and provide them with the right tools to take action in their school and community. The website is also great for educators & future educators to look over to learn the different ways they can be a changemaker in their classroom. There are different page links on the different sections of the website and once on one of those pages, there are different tools and training courses one can take/use towards their lives as teachers.
As I was exploring through the website I came across a page called “Educator Resources”. On this page, they have lesson plans, activities, etc., that are designed to help educators better their curriculum and get students to broader their understanding of world issues. The one resource they provided was a library of resources, that page would not load so I decided to download a classroom recourse overview handbook that was linked on the page. In the handbook, they had different learning experiences that can be taught for each grade level. One that I found interseting is Advocating for Children’s Rights, which they described as “students exploring the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child and discover how rights are being denied to young children”. Ideas they gave to teach this as a lesson is through picture books, case studies, and personal narratives. As someone who wants to teach second or third grade, I would want my students to understand that some children are not getting the rights that they may have. I would use the picture books to get my students to learn about the rights and the children that are being denied.
If you are an educator or future educator I definitely recommend reading through this entire website!
*PSA: some of the pages on the website are down for “construction” until November 20th, 2020*
Have you ever wanted to make a map of your favorite places somewhere? Well, with Google My Maps you can! Using Google My Maps, you can customize maps to keep track of your favorite places, explore new places, and even plan out a vacation you want to take. It is such an easy tool to use and there are many different features within it to make the map exactly how you want it. You can easily create your own map by logging into your google drive account, creating a new file, and choosing the “My Maps” option. From there you can title your map and start searching places in the search bar to add to your map. Using the features in the tool, you can change the color and icon of the marker that marks the spots you chose and add pictures that people can look at when they look through your map. Another cool feature in Google My Maps is the ability to add driving, walking, or biking directions either to your local or from each marker added. Once you have customized the map, you can share it with others through google drive or just simply share the link.
I got to look into Google My Maps over the past few days and even create my own map. Using Google Maps I was able to explore the ocean and see the beautiful sea life that lives down there. After learning how to navigate through Google Maps and learning what Google My Maps is, I created a map of cool places in Puerto Rico that I would like to one day visit. If you would like to look at the map I created, click here.
This week I took a virtual tour of Ellis Island. I followed in the footsteps of more than twelve million immigrants when they first stopped in America in 1892. The tour was broken into multiple “stops” and during each “stop”, there were a few sentences/paragraphs explaining. Video, photo, and audio tabs were also provided at different stops. There was a lot of information given to me about Ellis Island that I never learned before. Taking this virtual tour gave me so much more insight on Ellis Island and looking through the videos and reading the “Did You Know?” boxes, were so helpful. I really enjoyed the way the website was set up and how the creator’s made the pages look like they came from a book from the 1800s. Altogether there were ten stops and as you clicked through each one, the picture on the screen would show you were on the Island you were as if you were one of the immigrants.
Taking virtual tours is something that has became very big recently due to the pandemic. Virtual tours still give an individual the opportunity to learn and/or see what they need to during these rough times. On Stockton’s GSDLC website there are lots of different virtual tours that accommodate many people’s interests.
If you would like to visit Stockton’s GSDLC website click here, if you would like to just take the virtual tour of Ellis Island click here.
This week I watched a movie called Alivio. The movie is spoken all in Spanish so I used English subtitles to understand what was being said and what was going on. This movie/documentary is based around three women; Bianca, Angles, and Lupita who live in Mexico. They tell their stories about the hardships of growing up and how they overcame those painful memories to have their own families and great jobs as nurses. Click here if you would like to check out Alivio on youtube.
All three of the women come from different regions of Mexico but still have similar stories and their cultures are alike also. You can really see how much these women have grown and overcome their tough childhoods by the way they treat their families and respect the jobs they have. They did not have the best childhood like a child should, these women had absent/abusive parents that caused a lot of pain to them. There was one part of the movie where it showed Luptia sitting around with her siblings. There was music, lots of food, and laughter. There are eight women and five males in her family and while watching that scene, you can really see how close that whole family is. As having a Spanish family, I can say that Spanish people are very family-oriented. We do everything together and believe that family is the most important thing in life. One cultural difference between these Spanish women and my own is the way that they were brought up. When they were children and they did something wrong or tattletale on someone, all the siblings got a beating. When I was growing this did not happen to me. I do see this as something in the Spanish culture only because many people I know, were never told they were going to get a beating when they did something wrong.
During the film, I also learned about their everyday life as adults. They work in hospitals as nurses, which was a hard job for them to get. It is not common for women to be the one working, they’re supposed to be at home cooking and taking care of the children. But these women are not like the rest. They fought hard to get where they are and being a nurse has changed their lives. When it comes to food, they go out onto the streets and buy their food from markets. There are no supermarkets they can drive to, all their food is there being sold by others in the community under tents. All the meats are sitting out on tables and are cut right there in front of them with only a knife. But, to them, this was their normal and they seemed to enjoy walking around from tent to tent to get what they needed for dinner that night. By the end of the film, I could really see what these women most valued in life. They do value their jobs as nurses, but most importantly they value their life in general and family. If they were not brought up the way they were or did not go through what they did, then they would not be the women they are today.
I recommended this movie to anyone who needs a little bit of encouragement in life. It was emotional but it was very inspiring!
This week in a course I take called Web Tools For Global Leaner, I read a chapter in the Sail The 7 Cs with Microsoft Education, all about Communicators. The chapter explained multiple ways that people can communicate with everyone around the world. Some of the communication platforms that were discussed are Immersive Reader, Microsoft Translator, Minecraft, Powerpoint, Sway, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft Temas, Flipgrid, and Skype. All of these platforms are very useful when it comes to using them in a classroom for communication propursoes. Communication is very important in the classroom, not only just between students and teachers or students with other students, but between a classroom and another class across the globe.
The one platform I learned more about that I am going to be speaking on using Minecraft for communicating. In chapter two of Sail The 7 Cs with Microsoft Education, Monika Limmer, a teacher from New Zealand, tells a story on how her more reluctant students began writing from frequently because they used the chat in Minecraft to communicate with others in the game. These students are the ones who do not feel comfortable speaking or can not physically speak verbally. With the in-game chat function, all her students are able to communicate when it comes to doing group projects. Monika’s students are able to contribute and show their understanding in a way that fits their learning goals when they use this technology source to communicate.
Now I do not think I personally would use Minecraft in my classroom because the age group I want to teach is too young for gaming, but I think that Minecraft is a great way to get older students to communicate easily. Not only can Minecraft just be used during work between classmates but by using the in-game chat, youngsters can talk to others around the world. If a teacher wants to create a project and have their students get in contact with others in a different location, then they can use Minecraft as a fun way.
I recently took a course called Teach Sustainable Development Goals, that was created by Microsoft. During the course, I learned a lot about the many goals that the United Nations want humans to reach by 2030. 193 countries have adopted these goals and to reach them by 2030 will take heroic effort, determination, and the ability to adapt to change. All of the development goals should be taught to schoolchildren because they are the ones that can have a big impact on being able to achieve the goals. Children are where change starts and teaching them young will get them ready for the future when it comes their time to make a difference.
Aside from reading about the goals while taking the Microsoft course, I did my own research on The United Nations SDG’s. One goal that I believe is very important for children to learn at an early age is goal number five, Gender Equality. I went onto the United Nations Developmental Programme website to learn more about gender equality. The plan for this goal is to put discrimination against all women and girls to an end. Empowering women helps economic growth and development, which is just what the world needs. This website is full of lots of information and many facts and figures to help people better understand why it is important to end discrimination towards girls. After reading through the section on goal number five, I thought of a way to teach this specific goal in my P-3 classroom.
The lesson that I have come up with is easy, informative, and fun. Since I want to teach younger grades, lessons should be fun/exciting and not too difficult. My idea on how to teach my students about gender equality is to make a game about it. I would have a set of questions or facts that relate to both males and females and ask them to the class to see if the students think if it relates to a male or female. By doing this they will be learning about what gender equality really means and that girls can do anything boys do while having fun playing the game. I will also be sure to treat all my students the same and make sure all their voices are heard. I believe that doing that, will set an example for the children to follow throughout their whole life. Making sure they understand that everyone is equal and no person should be left out or left unheard.
Ever since the start of middle school, I have always used google platforms. From writing papers in google docs, creating projects in presentation, to keep my pictures saved in google photos. Google presentations are one of my favorite ways to create presentations for class projects and even keeping different events in my life in order. Google Presentations is so easy to use and they offer many different themes that you can add to your presentation. I find this tool useful when doing a group presentation. By sharing the presentation with everyone else in the group, you can all work on the project at the same time and you can even edit someone’s work while they are working. It was also useful during my senior year of high school. We were going on our senior trip to Disney and I used google presentations to plan out each day for myself and my friends. There was a different slide for each day and a different park. The slides explained what time we would get to the park and what times we had fast-passes for the different rides. Being able to share the presentation with all my friends on their google accounts, gave us all a copy of it and kept us all organized.
I found an article How to Use Google Slides In The Classroom, that discussed six different ways to use google slides in the classroom with your students. One that caught my I that I want to expand upon is the drawing/painting tool that is offered in google slides. Students can create a slide in the presentation that the teacher created and draw pictures or paint on the slide. I think this tool is great for teachers who teach early childhood education (P-3). The teacher can create a presentation, share it with the students and then have them either draw a picture after a book or even have them practice making shapes, all on their own slide. This is definitely something I will be incorporating into my classroom in the future with my kiddos.
Check out these helpful links about google slides!
