This week, we read a series of case studies regarding global collaborations. Each of the studies involved different conferences and collaborations around the world. The first study was about the Global Education Conference. This conference involved a group of global educators that sat together discussed a new paradigm for using educational technologies.
The second case study was The Learning2 Conference. This conference focuses on leveraging technology to aid in global learning and collaboration. The Learning2 Conference takes place in Asia, so educators from all around the world meet there.
These conferences are important because they bring educators and professionals together from all over the world to meet a common goal. All of these people want the same thing: global education and collaborations. Technology has made these conferences more easily accessible and they are continuously growing every year.
This week, I chose to explore Google Earth Tours. This virtual reality (VR) technology has showed me that is is possible to visit anywhere in the world, from the comfort of your own home. While it is not the same as physically being in that location, it allows us to see what it is like. Since a majority of the country is in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Google Earth Tours is giving us the ability to see the world because we are not allowed to travel there!
Google Earth completely astounded me when I went on the website. The updated version of Google Earth allows you go to anywhere (and I mean, ANYWHERE) in the world. It gives 3D visuals where you decided to go and descriptions of that locations history and some historical landmarks. I was totally blown away by how amazing the visuals were, it made me feel like I was physically there.
The first place I was super excited to explore was Ireland. So of course, I set my location to Dublin, Ireland! I ended up in Saint Stephen’s Garden, which is your typical park with a lake, waterfall, garden, and playground. It was so cool to be able to “walk around” this park and get a feel for what it would be like if I was physically there.
This tool has made me realize how important global collaboration is. I was able to “visit” so many places I have always wanted to go because of the technology we have today. I think this is such an awesome tool to use in the classroom, especially when studying topics like history or geography. This will give students a more real feel of what it is like in those areas, despite not being able to be there physically. Hopefully, it will also inspire students to travel! This assignment really showed me how much there is in the world that I would love to visit… and not just virtually!
Hi everyone! I have not fully introduced myself to my fellow classmates and colleagues. In order to do that, I used an app called Animoto. It was completely free and gave me the ability to make a slideshow about myself. It was super simple to use and I am so excited to share it with everyone!
https://animoto.com/play/sq5I6Fm1ll45GWOCT9RR7g
Animoto made making this slideshow ridiculously easy. There were various different themes for videos. It even offered prompts! All I had to do was upload the photos, tweak some of the prompts to fit what I wanted to say, and add music. It published the video very quickly and provided a link right after. This was such a cool tool to use and I will definitely be using it in the future with my classes!
Now, I’ll explain a little about myself. My name is Tori Ellis and I am from Northfield, New Jersey. I go to Stockton University and I am studying Elementary Education with a minor in Disability Studies. I hope to one day get my Master’s in Special Education, but I am taking it one day at a time!
I work at the AtlantiCare Life Center in EHT. For those who do not know what AtlantiCare is, it is a hospital/healthcare service in South Jersey. The Life Center is a gym, so it is a popular gym for (mostly) geriatric patients from AtlantiCare. Sadly, the Life Center was closed due to the pandemic so I have not been working for the last few weeks. Typically (when the world is open) I work 3-4 days a week and then use the facility on my own time to squeeze in some workouts.
That is a little about me and I cannot wait to get to know everyone! Feel free to follow me on socials!
For this week’s assignment, we went on a virtual tour on National Geographic. The tour was called the Out of Eden Walk, which was the journey of a reporter who retraced our ancestor’s migration trail on foot in 2013. The reporter’s name is Paul Salopek. Paul traveled 21,000 miles in almost ten years, learning stories and the history of our ancestors along the way. I loved following his journey and seeing the beautiful pictures and stories attached to them.
One of the three locations that stood out most to me was The Holy Lands. Paul arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia after crossing the Red Sea. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Paul sat down to meet with a man about purchasing cargo camels to accompany him. Paul explained that in order to purchase a camel, there are very strict rules and guidelines that need to be followed first. In Africa, to acquire a camel, you have to squat outside of an Afar hut and profess to a nomad (who has a deep spiritual love for animals) that you would never sell them, kill them, or harm them in any way. I thought this was really awesome because I love animals and I love that people who sell cargo camels have so much love for them as well. A few days later, Paul purchased two camels and named them Fares and Seema.
Another location that stood out to me was Chapter 4 of Paul’s journey; Aktau, Kazakhstan. This one stood out to me because of how beautiful the photos were and the history behind it. Aktau is a city where the streets have no names. Aktau did not exist until 1958 when Soviet Union engineers built it up as a “closed city” for mining of uranium: Guryev-20. None of the neighborhoods, streets, and buildings have any names. I thought this was incredibly interesting that they kept it that way throughout the years. There were underground mosques and hundreds of necropolises (cities of the dead).
Aktau, Kazakhstan
The third location that stood out to me was Chapter 5 of Paul’s journey; Hoachong, Manipur, India. Chapter 5 of his journey is still in progress, so this was just recently posted on March 11th, 2020. This chapter involves Bakebonang Bariam, a farmer in Manipur, who has been collecting relics from previous wars in his rice and ginger fields. Bakebonang has never found any bones, but he finds coins that date back to 1943 from the British Raj. One of them was stamped with the bust of George VI. The rest of this section goes on to tell the history of the wars that took place in Manipur, where Bakebonang Bariam and his family reside.
This assignment truly gave me more insight into the trails our ancestors walked and the history behind so many of these cities and nations. The Out of Eden Walk is a great source and I will most definitely be using it in my future history classes!
This week’s assignment involved investigating Google Maps. I enjoyed doing this because I was able to look around the globe to places I have yet to see! This was also a cool assignment considering our current situation here in the United States. While we are nearing a nation-wide quarantine, it was nice to be able to look around Google Maps since we clearly cannot go anywhere right now!
The map I made included places to visit in Arizona. I chose this because I have visited Arizona in the past but I was not able to visit all the sights that I had wanted to because the state is so big! We took a family vacation to Arizona in 2018 and we went to Phoenix, Sahuarita, and Sedona. In the future, I would love to visit Havasu Falls and Flagstaff. Hopefully I will be able to go back sometime soon!
So far in our GEN2108 Web Tools online course, I have learned so much! From Flipgrid to Twitter, I have branched out in the world of technology. I was never really a tech-savvy person, so I was a bit nervous for this class in the beginning. Luckily, I have yet to run into any road blocks!
I have started to love using technology as a way of communicating with other educators and learning from them. I am becoming more and more confident every day in my abilities to use technology for education and I cannot wait to have my own classroom and use these tools! Technology also makes the classroom more inclusive. This is especially important for students who may have special needs when it comes to learning. Technology makes communication and learning much easier for students who may struggle. Since I am such a strong advocate for inclusive education, the use of technology will help me make my classrooms comfortable for all of my students.
The most intriguing thing I have learned so far is the Sustainable Development Goals. Before taking this class, I had never heard about it and I was shocked! We only have ten years left to reach those goals and it is so important that we start teaching our students about it. We will not reach these goals if no one takes part!
I also learned how influential Global Education is. It is not just for educators, but for students as well. Students are able to reach out to other students that they normally would have never met! This creates relationships and bonds between students. For educators, they are able to learn from each other and ask questions and get opinions. Global Education is the future of education and I cannot wait to see where it takes me as an educator!
For this week’s assignment, I chose to watch the French film The Intouchables (2012). I chose a French film because I took four years of French in high school and thought it would be cool to see if I remembered any of the language. To be honest, I did not remember much but I really enjoyed the film. This movie touched my heart in a way I did not expect it to!
It is about a paralyzed man who is searching for a full-time caretaker. There are plenty of perfectly qualified people for the job, but he did not like any of them. Then a man shows up late for the interview, is rude and disrespectful to everyone in the room, and that is who evidently gets the job.
The two men start off with a rocky relationship but overtime they become unlikely friends. They form such a strong bond and become best friends. It was a lesson for the caretaker to be more giving and respectful and it was a lesson for the paralyzed man to be more accepting. Both men gain a new appreciation for life throughout the film.
They lived in a very wealthy neighborhood, which was much different from what the caretaker came from. He was originally from a poverty-stricken part of France, so this was a big change for him. Because of this, it made them very unlikely friends. The culture was very similar to that of our culture here in the United States. They traveled by car, ate regular food, had a normal climate. Obviously the only difference was that they spoke French and not English!
While I knew some of what they were saying, I relied heavily on the subtitles during the movie. I have never really enjoyed watching foreign films because I do not like subtitles, this movie gave me a new appreciation for them! I would recommend this movie to anyone who has the time to watch it. It truly is a beautiful story (based on true events, too!) and will touch the heartstrings of many.
Over the last few weeks, we have been building our Personal Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter. At first, I had some trouble finding the EdChats but eventually got used to it. I really enjoy using Twitter as a way of communicating with people in our GEN2108 class. Since it is an online course, it is hard to form relationships with classmates. Twitter has made this much easier!
My favorite part is seeing professionals in the field of education tweet out their observations, questions, and advice. I have learned a lot about what types of technology to use in the classroom to make lessons more interactive. The use of social media has changed my way of thinking about learning: students can use social media as a learning tool that allows them to reach out to people that they normally never would have met!
I have been able to communicate with both my classmates and professionals in the education field. I have formed relationships with my classmates, which is the most exciting part! I am so excited to continue building my PLN and meeting new people!
In 2015, The United Nations came up with a Sustainable Development project that involves fighting climate change, poverty, world hunger, inequalities, etc. The “deadline” for this project in 2030, so that now only gives us 10 years to accomplish the goals of the project. There are 17 set goals that are listed here. The website gives a complete overview and description of the goals for Sustainable Development. In short, when the project started, they were given 15 years to end hunger, fight inequality, fix climate change, help the economy grow, and a variety of other social issues.
When it comes to education, this is very important to teach to students. We, as educators, need to stress the importance of these problems in our classrooms. The goals of the Sustainable Development project cannot and will not be met without the help of everyone. It is not a project that can be tackled by just one area of the world, it is going to take everyone to pitch in and contribute. By teaching this to our students (especially at young ages), they will grow up to be more informed about the problems faced around the world. We can teach it in the classroom by giving take-home projects and showing more videos about the impact the Sustainable Development project has on society and the environment.
Since there is only ten years left to accomplish these goals, we all need to start working together. These are important social and environmental concepts that need to be addressed, and it will not work without the support and contributions from around the world! This is why we need to start teaching it to our students as well. The more they learn now, the more they will know later and that will help them in the future endeavors of fighting for change!
Technology in the classroom has proven to be one of the best inventions yet (depending on who you ask). As our technology progresses more and more, we find new ways to incorporate it into our lesson plans. There are so many types of educational technology, including; Skype, Google+, Remind, Twitter, and LinkedIn (just to name a few). By utilizing these in the classroom, students are able to communicate with their teacher and other classmates.
One form of technology that I find incredibly helpful and useful in the classroom is Khan Academy. They provide video tutorials for just about any lesson you can imagine. Khan Academy goes in-depth and explains content for students who may not have completely understood it in class. I like using Khan Academy on top of the lesson taught in class because it provides students with an alternative way of thinking.
This video shows a teacher using Khan Academy in her classroom. It provides a second learning opportunity to her students while they are still able to ask her any questions they may have. Khan Academy provides practice tests and video tutorials to help students master the content.
Khan Academy also provides lesson plans for a variety of grades and classes. One that I found was Operations and Algebra. It starts with adding and subtracting with 5, then moves to adding and subtracting with 10. It ends with word problems after the student has successfully mastered the first few steps.
