GLOBAL PROBLEM SOLVING – From keynote to classroom

A key theme that emerged for me from the ISTE conference was the importance of collaborating to create solutions to community and global issues.


This theme was echoed throughout the conference in a variety of contexts including:







a) Keynote: Jean –Francois Rischard examined the role educators can play in global problem solving.
His key note (depressing at times) centred around 20 global problems that he believes we must resolve within the next 20years if we are to avoid massive and adverse planetary consequences.
To begin resolving these problems he thinks we need:
1) to approach each issue globally. Bringing the best people from all around the world together in one place to explore and create solutions.
2) to develop a mindset in the next generation… one that puts global thinking first and local and national thinking second.
His book: http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2653


b) TEDx TALKS – Individuals Making a Difference





Fiona Grant and I were lucky enough to be guests at a live TED x Talks event. During this event several speakers shared their passions and commitments.
http://tedxdenvered.com/blog/2010/07/01/thank-you-for-making-tedxdenvered-a-success-post-1-of-2/

A highlight for me was the sharing from Dafna Michaelson. Dafna travelled the globe collecting stories about how communities have problem solved. See www.journeyinstitute.org
Dafna’s 7 minute TEDx talk illustrated how community problem solving might be facilitated.
This simple process involved:
1. Identifying the community.
2. Identifying issues
3. Suggesting solutions
4.Taking action.
We engaged in this process during intermission (see pics below) I was amazed at the diversity of issues and solutions that were generated. A positive feeling of working together to create solutions prevailed.
To hear more about Dafna’s project:
http://www.thebalancingact.com/show_segment.php?id=1844




c) Students Collaborating Across the World
Many high quality example of students involved in collaborate projects were shared throughout ISTE.
This is an important area that I believe needs to be explored further in New Zealand schools.
A fantastic resource to help communicate these ideas in numbers we can relate to is the miniature earth project: http://www.miniature-earth.com/
A selection of global projects that nurture rigorous collaboration and problem solving include:

Taking IT global

Rock Our World

ThinkQuest

Such projects I believe put the vision for our curriculum firmly into practice. They also provide a path for developing important relations and problem solving skills. Skills that may one take contribute to the maintenance of a peaceful nation.

Online Project - Oct 12- 30th

Consider joining the international "WHERE THE WILD THINGS WENT" online project. Another fabulous project hosted by Jennifer Wagner.

There are three ideas to choose from. Your students can extend the story, learning about endangered animals, or verbs -- or you can do all three.

Project Dates: October 12 - 30th, 2009.

http://www.jenuinetech.com/Projects/wtwta/information.htm


For more collaborative projects visit:
http://www.wix.com/rjensen/handpicked

Handpicked Collaborative Projects - Updates

Handpicked Collaborative Projects has just been updated to include:

***Feet First - a project aimed at encouraging students to walk to school more and to understand why this is such important social action.

***48 hours of Furious FilmMaking - - NZ's largest film competition! A cinematic bootcamp !!. Simply put, filmmaking teams have just one weekend to make a short film. Filmmakers don't know what genre (thriller/romance etc) they will be shooting until the start of the competition.

My Favourite
Daily Lesson Plans from the New York Times - Every day the ‘New York Times’ creates a rich lesson focused on an article from the current day’s newspaper. The lesson archive contains hundreds of free lesson plans for grades 6-12.


***Square Root Day: Join Jennifer Wagner’s mathematics project and share your resources on celebrating square root day.

Students at the Centre of Learning

There seems little doubt that student learning is becoming more and more relevant to the needs and interests of individuals. Students are increasingly aware of who they are, of their communities, their roles and of how they as individuals can support and sustain the world around them.

At a school wide level, class representatives and school councils are common place and help to ensure that a student voice informs school-wide policies and programmes.

It was great to stumble across some ‘high stakes’ technology projects that were also putting students at the centre. These projects directly sought the thoughts and opinions of students and used this information to inform policies and programmes at a national level.

Project Tomorrow - 2008
Top Ten Things We Have Learned From K-12 Students About Educational Technology
This power-point briefly describes Project Tomorrow and the 10 findings. Lots of parallels with these findings and NZ findings.
A short document is also available and provides an excellent summary of the findings.

Jevansfutureofeducation021109

View more presentations from rjensen.

EduTopia, writer Sara Bernard, is working on a story and is looking for responses from students to the following prompt:
What if you had to teach the classes you are taking now or something you learned years ago? How would you use technology to do it? What devices, software, games, networks, or applications would you use to help students learn more easily — and have more fun learning?
For instance, imagine that it was your job to teach algebra, Charles Dickens, volleyball, poetry, a foreign language, science, or the Civil War. Would you have your English students use Facebook to create profiles for each main character in Jane Eyre? Would you have them use Garage Band to create a World War II song or the national anthem of a fictional country? Would you use instant messaging or cell phones as tools for classroom discipline? Could you learn math from Mario?
For more info: http://www.ncs-tech.org/?p=2674


Exploring solutions with those directly involved in the problem sounds like a smart strategy to me. Do we do this enough at all levels of the education sector??r

Why Don’t You? - Online Collaborative Projects

“Schools should explore not only how ICT can supplement traditional ways of teaching but also how it can open up new and different ways of learning”.
(Pg36, NZ Curriculum )









Online collaborative projects are one doorway for new ways of learning. This recently revamped site provides links to pedagogically- sound, active, online collaborative projects for use especially in NZ classrooms.

Please check it out. This site is ‘work in progress’ your feedback would be much appreciated.

Link to site: http://www.wix.com/rjensen/handpicked

Collaborative Projects

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours updating ‘Handpicked Collaborative Projects’. The section I concentrated on was HomeGrown Projects. In this section you will find projects that classroom teachers have created to get their class collaborating amongst themselves and/or with other classes.
Ideas include email exchanges and collaborative stories in wikispaces.
Ideas in this section could easily be adapted for any classroom and are relatively easy to set-up. Please let me know of any similar projects happening in your area, email me with the details or post directly to the wiki.