Global Collaboration is an empowering opportunity for students and teachers to connect and engage in authentic, meaningful experiences. It is an opportunity for students to learn about people from different cultures and backgrounds. These connections don't need to be with learners in other countries. You will find people of different cultures and backgrounds in different states, cities, or even down the street.
What is Global Collaboration?
Global Collaboration involves using technology to connect learners in different parts of the city, state, nation, or world. These partnerships are made for the purpose of working and learning together to accomplish goals and learn/develop new things. When learners work with people from other locations, they can become aware of people and cultures outside their immediate surroundings.
Learning about the structure and content of global collaboration is important, but the real question is whether the students can learn anything from this experience. Students are looking for authentic learning events and this can provide them. Watch as 4th-grade students in Fairfax, Virginia, share their experiences through connecting with other 4th graders in Costa Rica.
What is Cultural Competence?
Learning about cultures other than our own is the first step towards achieving "Cultural Competence." Cultural Competence is the ability to understand and interact effectively with people from other cultures. These people may be from another country, state, or in your own classroom.
You won't have the opportunity to actually engage in a global collaboration project in this course, Ed Tech and Design, but learning about the various projects/strategies, resources, and digital tools will help prepare you for turning your students into global collaborators. It's the recognition of differences and the interest in learning about those differences to better communicate and work with others.
Professor Juanita Sherwood describes cultural competency in the video below. Pay careful attention to how she explains the importance of cultural competence in our lives. An interesting aspect is the need for understanding one's own culture as well as other cultures.
ISTE Standards
Global Collaboration and Cultural Competence are important parts of the ISTE Standards for Students and Educators. Global Collaborator is the 7th standard. "Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally." More specifically, 7a states that we should "Connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning."As educators, we are expected to "Demonstrate Cultural Competency when communicating with students, parents, and colleagues and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning." The world is a big place and it is our duty as educators to prepare our students (and ourselves) to recognize, communicate, and collaborate with people of a variety of backgrounds.
Global Collaboration Projects
Connecting with other classrooms requires organization and connections. The most efficient way to get involved in global collaboration is to join projects that are already organized. This is called Managed Global Collaboration. The managing organization has already created the activity and all that you need to do is join and get engaged. It is suggested that this is usually the best way to begin introducing Global Collaboration into your classroom. Here is a project that has connected thousands of learners around the world.
Global Read Aloud
Taxonomy of Global Collaboration
The Global Read Aloud project involves students around the world reading one or more of a set of selected books during a 6-week period and then they try to connect with other students who have read the book so that they can share their ideas and thoughts.
Watch the What is the Global Read Aloud? video and then visit the official website where they have identified a set of 10 books from which they can select their reading material. These books range from picture books to young adults. Envision how you could do something like this in your future classes.
Starting a Global Collaboration Project
Global Collaboration projects can be life-changing experiences. They can bring a whole new meaning to topics that we can only read about in our books. Instead of reading about how the Chinese celebrate the Chinese New Year, you and your students can connect with students in Beijing to learn from the actual people who live this celebration.
Here is a brief overview of how to create a Global Collaboration project for your students. It doesn't identify the actual steps for making such a project happen, but it provides an overview of the stages you will go through and how to approach specific challenges. It also provides 4 exciting projects that you should explore (The Winter Around the World link doesn't work.)
Consider how you can enrich your students' learning opportunities through Global Collaboration. You are preparing your learners for living in a global society where it is important to connect with and understand other people.
Imagine extending your Thematic Unit to include global collaboration. What would YOU do?
Begin your dreaming here . . .
