Chapter 12: Exploring ISTE Standards for Students “Global Collaborator” - Part 9
Date/Time: 15th May 2024 Wednesday- 11:54 pm & 16th May 2024 Thursday - 5:23 am
This is another interesting post exploring a new ISTE Standard “Global Collaborator”. The post will reflect my key learning from this module of the online ISTE Student Standards course. As always it was a great learning experience and it helped build a lot of clarity about the global collaborator standard. We live in an ever changing world of technology and it is pivotal that both students and teachers are not efficient users of technology but are well aware of how to use technology to collaborate with their global peers to achieve their goals. Each one of us has access to loads of technology around us, what is important is how we can use it to gain access to diverse opinions and global perspectives.
This standard too has four indicators and I will try to explain each in detail with examples. Let’s start exploring this amazing standard.
ISTE Standard Global Collaborator 1.7 says that students should be aware of digital tools that they can use to collaborate with their global peers to enhance their knowledge and understanding about issues and challenges that we face in the world today. Students should be able to gather different views about a real issue, look at an issue from different angles to have an impartial and unbiased approach towards solving a challenge or global issue. This is only possible if they know which tools to use, when to use and how to use them. While collaborating online with their global peers, it is important that learners/students are assigned roles which helps in completing tasks timely and efficiently in teams. It also increases patience and respect among team members, when they learn to listen to similar and opposing views with respect, and critique or analyse with sound arguments and evidence.
ISTE Standard Global Collaborator 1.7a says that students connect with their global peers using a variety of digital tools , they discuss and work collaboratively on global issues and challenges , ask questions to seek understanding about an issue, and develop mutual consensus and understanding about the issues under discussion. This standard requires awareness of digital tools that can be used to connect with global peers. These include the following among others:
Video conferencing using Google Meet
Email communication using GMail or any other emails online
Mystery Hangouts using Google Hangout or Meet
YouTube Live Events with peers joining from different parts of the globe
Google Sites for working on a collaborative project among different classes/schools in different cities/countries
Using social media like Instagram, Twitter,Threads to connect with experts online
Using online collaborative forums like SeeSaw, Purplemash, Schoology, Blackboard Collaborate to connect and work with global peers
Google docs or Slides or Sheets can also be used for collaboration with global peers
Virtual field trips is also a great way to learn about a different culture
As always I have reiterated that fact that only the knowledge of the right tools is not enough, it is the sound understanding of the pedagogy that makes the difference. I remember working on a OneWorld Classroom project with children at the SOS Children’s Village (a school for orphans) and Ranaa Child Welfare Foundation (a school for street children) in Peshawar. It was a great opportunity for students from different countries to share artwork about their culture. Students ended up creating amazing and wonderful drawings that depicted the culture of their province and country. These were then sent to the USA and Canada. The interesting part was that we received a similar package from USA and Canada which was displayed in both schools in Peshawar. Furthermore these were shared on social media by me and the OneWorld Classroom organization. The images were saved in Google drive and the hard copies were sent through post. Students explored one of the schools that sent art work using Google Maps. The images were a great insight into the amazing world that we live in.
Another interesting global collaboration project was the International book club project of iEARN. The students of SOS Children Village collaborated with children in a New York based school. We read different versions of the Cinderella story and reflected on the different cultures portrayed in the Cinderella story. Flipgrid was used to record videos of students, students recorded their video about sharing about themselves. This was followed by discussing the story book read. The other school also posted videos in the Flipgrid section. It was a great learning experience for me to be able to connect students in Peshawar to students/teachers in New York, USA.
ISTE Standard Global Collaborator 1.7b says that students use different collaborative technologies to connect with not only global peers, but experts in their domain, community members using digital tools. They get an opportunity to discuss, share and analyze global issues from different angles. While exploring some resources shared in the module, I came across a safari live event. It was worth exploring. Students and teachers can join a live safari event going on and asking questions from an expert who is sitting a thousand miles away from them. The videos are quite intriguing and interesting, they definitely trigger thought provoking questions. Also I am sure students would be eager to join a live expedition with an expert in Africa.
One of the videos was about an impala trying to protect herself from a crocodile in water. When the crocodile moves to the side , the impala jumps in water. Suddenly two hippos arrive in the middle to save the impala but the impala got attacked by the crocodile and according to the reporter might be in heaven now. I was literally caught up in the video. Similarly another video was about a Kingy Tail - the oldest lioness in the Sausage Tree Pride. She has a lot on her plate, five young females, two young males and cubs depend on her for food and water. It's a very interesting video where she attacks the buffalo. There is a split nose that joined their tribe. His size helped to take down the buffalo. These are the challenges she and her tribe face daily. The video was inspiring and I am sure if I was watching it live I would have asked a dozen questions and I expect the same from students. It is a very unique experience being part of a live stream in the forest of Africa.
Similarly while exploring I came across another live stream sharing Gowrie dam on Djuma game reserve, in the Sabi and Wildtuin, South Africa. Students can see different kinds of animals and ask questions in the chat box or leave a comment. This was a YouTube live event and I could be part of it watching it from a thousand miles away. It was a different habitat with a different environment.
While exploring online discussion forums I came across Kialo Edu is an educational website designed for discussion and debates on useful topics. Teachers can create teams and assign debate topics. Students can add comments to build a discussion. Students must add comments with strong evidence either supporting their claims or vice versa. It helps teach digital citizenship skills to students. Another interesting asynchronous discussion tool is Flip that could be used to create video based responses. The teacher can moderate the responses, and co teachers can be added to moderate along. Teachers can use the Flip tool to check for students understanding about a topic, she can also ask them to record a response to a debate, or summarzie the process of growth of plants, or the process of photosynthesis in plants, reflect on the learning, explain how they solved an algebraic problem step wise, critically analyze an historical event and much more. Schoology is another online discussion forum that could be used for not only sharing of resources with students but having meaningful discussion among both students and teachers. Even Google Classroom could be useful for sharing resources and having discussions online. I remember using Google Meet for having online training sessions with teachers who were sitting in different places and I could live chat and discuss with them, using Google Sites they could respond to tasks as well online. Google Jamboard was used for sharing feedback among teachers and it was very effective. There are a number of other digital tools available online that could also be used for online collaboration among people sitting thousands of miles away. What is important is teachers know which tools to use for the right purpose at the righ time.
ISTE Standard Global Collaborator 1.7c says that students work in project teams and take on different roles to achieve an objective or goal. It is important that students are assigned various roles in a project and they are well aware of their expectations. Students could be assigned the following roles while working on a project, these could be:
Team Leader
Group Facilitator
Subject Expert
IT Expert
Moderator
Notetaker
Timekeeper
Record Keeper
Students could help prepare guidelines to complete the project, they could set deadlines for tasks, they could keep an update on tasks completed, timely update all group members of the tasks completed and tasks remaining, they could set the rules and responsibilities, keep record of the work in hard/soft form, they could keep a calendar for upcoming events, they could share ideas on a project, they could share feedback about the tasks, evaluate the performance using checklists and rubrics, prepare checklists and rubrics to measure performance etc. Let’s take an example of a recycling project for grade 6 or 7 in Science. Students have to use recycled products to create something innovative and reusable. All the work has to be done on Google Sites and Google Drive, the whole product would be presented to students, teachers and parents using YouTube Live events. Students could be assigned different roles:
Creating a Google Site - students who are good at ICT/IT work
Creating list of Tasks - Students who can organize and manage work
Creating a Calendar - Students who can organize and manage work
Creating Check lists and Rubrics - Students who can honestly evaluate work
Saving work in Google Drive - Students who are good at technical work
Taking pictures and video and uploading on Google Drive - Students who are good with photography and movie making skills
Making a presentation in Slides or any other software - Students who can lead and take all members along
Keeping notes - Students who are good at writing and note taking, can take notes in Google Keep or Google Docs, upload to Google Sites.
Arranging & distributing resources equally (water bottles, cans, boxes, old newspapers, paints, colors, glues, tapes etc) - Students who are good at gathering, managing resources and distributing without bias.
I think it adds calrity to the work that needs to be done and most importantly all students in the groups get to work on some tasks and no one is left behind. Almost all students become part of the project, which normally is a difficult task to achieve in class.
ISTE Standard Global Collaborator 1.7d says that students research local and global issues / challenges that we face together and work on creating solutions in collaboration with their global peers, experts and community members. There can be a number of ways to do this, for example students can work on the “Talking Kites” project of iEARN that aims to promote peace among nations. I had a great opportunity to introduce this project to the children at the SOS Children’s Village in Peshawar. I had arranged kites for the students, they wrote messages of peace and hope for a better future. It ws about encouraging coexistence, peace and tolerance among all. Some students recorded their hopes for the future using Flipgrid. These were then uploaded on the iEARN Talking Kites project site. The students then flew the kites in the huge blue sky and they looked amazing. This could also be linked to the UNSDG goals, peace, equality and justice for all.
Another interesting project was the IEARN Global Food and Tell project. It is about healthy eating, good manners and ettiquettes, comparing food eaten in different countries. Students made chicken and egg sandwiches. The younger students explored noodles around the world, the different recipes and how noodles were eaten in different parts of the world. Through food students got a glimpse of different cultures in different countries. All the pictures and work was uploaded on the iEARN Global Food and Tell project site. It is a great space to connect with global peers and educators. This could be extended to reducing wasting food and ensuring it goes to the deserved needy people and no one remains without food. Students could work on a plan to recycle and reuse the remaining food in a hygienic way. There are countries around the world who have procedures to ensure no food is wasted. This could be linked to the UNSDG goals.
Students could also work on projects like conserving water and energy. They could get connected to experts using technology (YouTube Live, Twitter, Google Meet etc) and actually come up with an innovative solution to solve the issue. Another interesting idea came after I explore an online flip book Frieda Makes a Difference (shared in the module), a girl who tries to explain how we can work on the UNSDG goals. Students could create a similar flip book and instead of all UNSDG goals, select one or two and explain with examples how they can work in achieving the UNSDGs. It sounds challenging but worth working. Such projects give students a lot of ownership of their work.
As always it was a great experience working on this module of the ISTE Student Standards Course. I learned a lot and had a great chance to reflect on some amazing work done with amazing learners in schools in Peshawar. I would strongly recommend the online course exploring “ISTE Student Standards” to all passionate educators.
Enjoy Reading till my next post soon InnshaaAllah.
Regards and prayers
Sheeba Ajmal
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