As a teacher at a Unicef Chartered Rights Respecting School, Chartwell Elementary in West Vancouver, I am personally connected to the issue of human rights and equality. The topic of World Libraries is new to me, but one that is fitting with the culture of my school. Chartwell has a high number of English Language Learners (ELL), as well as a high transient population. Many Asian families who are moving to the Vancouver area choose our school because of our reputation for being a place of acceptance and cultural promotion. We boast one of the highest percentage of second and third languages in the province, and with those numbers comes a culturally diverse population of learners. This year we had students whose families came from 26 countries, who spoke 22 languages! This in a school of 243 students.
I really connected with the TedTalks video of Sugata Mitra on our class blog today; and found another to share here, Build a School in the Cloud is a winner of this year’s $1M Ted Prize. Yet another leader provoking conversation about school change! The following article, from June 15, 2013, was posted in our school’s Yammer networking site. The connections between ICT, school reform, equity, inquiry, and linguistic cognitive domain continue to grow!
At first I wondered why this video was related to the topic of World Libraries, and then something Sugata Mitra said struck a chord with me: IC4IT. I googled the phrase ‘information technology for international development’ and found a link to the topic as well as the journal that supports this field of learning. From Wikipedia,
This relatively new field of study is so important to our global shared learning base and international relations. Sharing ICT resources (people, tools, knowledge) is the socially responsible thing to do. I also believe it may help with cultural preservation (parents and children, friends can communicate visually and orally across the globe 24-7). Concerns (from our discussion group) about World Libraries replacing the physical connections to our learning communities are alleviated in this model as collaboration is something Mitra found key to the learning process.
The ITID Journal is ‘focused on the intersection of ICT with social and economic development’. I have bookmarked this journal’s website and will share it with my colleagues, as some interesting (Rights of the Child) Inquiry topics may be researched through perusing the archives.
Doni, I loved that article. It’s succinct, easy to read yet makes such a strong point (plus my internet connection isn’t great so I couldn’t watch the videos, but now definitely want to!). I especially loved this line from it, “We have a romantic attachment to skills from the past.”
It is so true. I sometimes get into big arguments with people around learning cursive. Yes, there is some fine motor skill involved that is good to develop, but other than that, what’s the point? (oh boy… I’m going to get some push back on this!) We have romanticized it. Sometimes we have to let things from the past go…. just like men don’t wear hats with their suits anymore (a la Mad Men) and women don’t wear nice white gloves with their dresses.
Ah, I love Mad Men! You were smart to read my post early, as it was in draft form – it is much longer now, for the course requirements. But I’m glad the link at the beginning was worth looking at! I am going to add Mitra to my Twitter feed, he is as easy to listen to as Ken Robinson. I like the reference he gave to Arthur C Clarke’s comment: “When children have interest, education happens.”
Oops, forgot to include the other quote from the article that really resonated with me:
“What’s work, then?” asks the teacher.
“Work is when you say things to us and we write them down.”
SO great (or sad!) that the students didn’t even recognize they were learning and doing work. Sometimes after a great inquiry-filled, hands on day, when I say it’s time to pack up, my students groan. It’s the best feeling!!
Wow. That is a truly diverse student body! The connectivity amongst ICT, school reform, equity, and inquiry is a fascinating study. There are some aspects that are as old as the writings of John Dewey – making education relevant to the learners, and as contemporary as this week – Edmodo re-designing their site. Good learning in non-formal educational settings has always been about curiosity, exploration and discovery. Bringing inquiry into school settings is an interesting turn of events. The fact is that learning happening online outside the structure of schools is inquiry-based, it is just that the learner if following their passion to learn about their interest (for example, my grandson teaching himself piano using Youtube videos). I would say it is the human rights element of ICT access and skill that is of most importance to education. That is why I don’t think it is enough for teachers to expect it to be easy or necessarily more efficient. We know that digital technologies amplify our innate human abilities. If some have access and others do not, that is going to cause increasing inequity in global human societies.