STEMX Teaching Resources
Educational Resources
Maps, Math, and Media: Innovative Transdisciplinary Projects in Teacher Education
Your Name and Title: Melda N. Yildiz, Faculty
School or Organization Name: Kean University
Co-Presenter Name(s): Ibrahim Yeter
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: NJ & TX, USA
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): Teacher Educators, Pre-service and In-service Teachers
This session will benefit teacher candidates, K16 educators and students, parents, media specialists, and administrators who seek alternative strategies and tools in teaching and learning 21st Century Skills and develop innovative transdisciplinary curriculum focusing on project based learning.
Short Session Description (one line):
The purpose of this session is to meaningfully integrate geography, mathematics and media literacy skills into “Maps, Math, and Media” project as a means of further developing the 21st century skills among teacher candidates and to develop innovative transdisciplinary projects and teaching strategies and possibilities of integrating global literacies with limited resources and equipment in global education context.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
This session outlines the mixed study based on the role of innovative transdisciplinary projects in teacher education; offers creative strategies and possibilities for integrating new technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) and Social Interaction Software (SIS) into K16 curriculum; demonstrate Hi5 (Hiking for Health, Happiness, Head, Hand and Heart) to Nature project[1] that integrates Math, Maps and Media in Project Based Learning; and showcases pre-service teachers’ cross disciplinary active learning projects and digital stories as a gallery walk[2]. The study was conducted while teaching teacher education math and science and technology courses and investigated teacher candidates in New Jersey and Texas. The study explored wide range of meanings participants associated with experiential and exploratory learning activities; impact of GPS and SIS technologies in the math and science curriculum; the ways in which participants integrated math, maps and media into their multimedia projects; and how they gained alternative points of view on environment and renewed interest and commitment to community service.
The goals of the session are: a) to investigate the role of new technologies in order to argue the challenges and advantages of Global Positioning System (GPS) and Social Interaction Software (SIS) in K-16 curriculum across content area s (i.e. math, science, geography, cultural studies); b) to introduce maps and media across content areas in developing multiple literacies (i.e information, technology, geography, media literacy): c) to identify creative strategies and possibilities for engaging K-16 students in meaningful experiential global literacy activities while incorporating math, science, maps and media.
Outcome
Conference participants will be able to:
The format of the session will be showcase of Gallery Walk as a slideshow, selected multimedia projects, interactive group discussion, and a brief presentation of the study and the resources. The research paper and the results of the study will be provided as a hand-out. The presentation slides and online course outline will be posted on our social networking page. In addition to participants’ narratives, our presentation slides, online resources, virtual gallery walk and bibliography of recent literature as well as our GPS/ GIS and SIS projects will be made available to all participants on our social networking site for further dialog and collaboration.
Innovative educators seek to develop transdisciplinary project based learning modules integrating math, maps and media. Here are several math links that our pre-service teachers used in their Universal Design of Learning (UDL) model lessons:
Today new generation use variety of mediums to communicate and form communities of interest outside “the classroom.” There is an obvious disconnect between current educational practices and what the students are exposed to in their daily lives. GPS and SIS are no longer the for the corporation and communication professionals. These software such as ning, google earth are successfully adopted by many, although their use in education is still in its infancy. (Hendron, 2008, p. 238)
GPS/SIS provides space for its participants to co-construct meaning using multilingual (Google Translator) and multimedia (slideshare) tools. Participants are bricoleur (Levi-Strauss, 1998) where they are the author as well as the cast, collector, and the director of their projects. Content of their knowledge is co-constructed by the participants.
This study discusses the impact and power of GPS and SIS and outlines its promising implications for global education, creativity and collaboration among its users. Social Interaction Technologies and Collaboration Software have been changing the way we experience our world. From showcasing digital portfolios (secondlife) to posting online reflections and journals (blogspot); co-writing books (wikibooks) to co-producing digital stories (voicethread); cocreating interactive maps (communitywalk) to collecting data (GPS) to solve community based issues, new technologies are increasingly being used for educational and lifelong learning environments as part of 21st century skill. The usage of social interaction software develops opportunities and supports “Open Learning” practices and processes, and promotes exchanges, connections, and collaboration among people who share common ideas and interests.
Maps, Maps and Media Activities (sample activities to be shared)
Station 1: Giving Directions: Please give direction to get to X from the conference center. There are more than one way to give directions. Are you comfortable giving directions? Do you draw maps, provide landmarks? Multiple ways to see and learn. We will provide books and material and bibliography on children’s books.
Station 2: Printed Maps. Pleas explore different maps with various orientation and leave a note what you learned. What made you surprised? Why are there different representation?
Station 3: Community Walk. Explore Perth Amboy, NJ on communitywalk.com created by high school students and view their historical site project linking their research, picture, video and the GPS coordinates on a their community walk map.
Station 4: Upside down map: Look at the video clip- http://www.odt.org/Pictures/map.mp4
or http://www.odt.org/Pictures/mapsmall.mov Please discuss what other ways we may be able to map the world. What about drawing maps side up? Why is it important to bring alternative maps into the classroom?
Station 5: GPS in the Classroom: Go though the attached slides and write how you may be able to include maps/ GIS/ geography in your classroom/ discipline.
Station 6: Layered Maps on GoogleEarth. Check Google earth and find Ataturk Dam and layered maps. You can see the changes between 1976 to today. Record your changes and share with the class. This activity is intended to show them how the ecology will change based on human intervention on the earth by comparing maps in two different era.
Perspective
Research documents how Global Positioning System (GPS) and Social Interaction Software (SIS) can be used to support traditional literacy practices as well as facilitate the further development of multiple and critical literacies. According to Jenkins, Purushotma, Clinton, Weigel, and Robinson (2006), “The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom. (p. 4)” National Standards such as International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and International Reading Association (IRA) advocates the use a wide range of instructional tools, and curriculum materials to support instruction and promotes access for students to a new media and technologies in classrooms and libraries.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2007) suggests that teaching and learning in the 21st century requires that students and teachers have: subject specific knowledge, learning skills, use 21st century tools to foster learning, teach and learn in the 21st century context, connect learning to the real world, and use assessments that measure 21st century learning. Therefore, in this workshop, my twelve students and I got familiar with GPS and SIS technology to better prepare ourselves for the literacy demands we encounter as global citizens in the 21st century.
With the advent of new handheld devices such as GPS and social interaction software, there will be an expanded access to alternative resources and global connections. Teaching and learning have potential to be a continuous life-long process; it is personalized, learner-centered, situated, collaborative, and ubiquitous. Suter, Alexander, and Kaplan (2005) summarized the notion of social interaction software “as a tool (for augmenting human social and collaborative abilities), as a medium (for facilitating social connection and information interchange), and as an ecology (for enabling a 'system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment')." (p.48)
Growing number of initiatives and projects directed for K16 education such as Oercommons.org[4] will be shared during the workshop not only to seek out for teaching and learning content around the world but also to share and showcase our multimedia projects, and collaborate others using Web 2.0 features. Mejias (2006) wrote in response to his teaching and using social interaction software in his classrooms: “Social interaction software allows students to participate in distributed research communities that extend spatially beyond their classroom and school, beyond a particular class session or term, and technologically beyond the tools and resources that the school makes available to the students.”
Despite all the concerns and challenges integrating social interaction technologies into the curriculum, there is a growing number of research and support by academics. For instance, Digital Youth Research [http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/] is a collaborative project that studies number of empirical and theoretical work on youth subcultures, new media, and popular culture. Wesch (2008a) argued the importance of welcoming social media into the classroom as powerful learning tools and wrote: “When students recognize their own importance in helping to shape the future of this increasingly global, interconnected society, the significance problem fades away.” (p.7)
Methods
After the formal introduction to Maps, Math and Media workshop that I presented in class, all youth participants explored a Gallery Walk[5] that was designed for exploring the goggle earth, role of and different types of maps. Gallery Walk for this project was a collection of artifacts (i.e. maps, pictures, posters, audio and video clips) designed to showcase the importance of geography across content areas. It also provided learning centers for each individual to interact and complete the tasks while interacting in group discussions and writing responses. There were different maps were available for participants to view and explore. The participants wrote their reactions next to these maps and discussed in the significance and possibilities for incorporating these maps and technology across curriculum areas.
The next project was designed to provide hands on experience with using GIS and SIS as well as to use new technologies to develop interactive maps and social interaction modules online using a five computer lab with internet connection. Participants engaged in Geocaching - high-tech treasure hunting game using GPS device. This outdoor experiential learning activity was called Hi5 (Hiking for Health, Happiness, Head, Hand and Heart) to Nature. After geocaching, they continued to explore GPS and SIS software such as googleearth.com and communitywalk.com, collecting data using GPS device on the bus routes and historical sites in the city of Ashgabat and created interactive maps and online projects of their own.
Methodology includes analysis of background and digital media surveys, process papers, video narratives, questionnaires, electronic journals and reflection papers, responses to online activities and the process of producing documentaries, transcripts of interviews, and the content analysis of multimedia projects and presentations. The study used three theoretical framework; multicultural education, global competency and 21st Century Teaching Skills (http://www.p21.org/).
Data sources
This study is based on the mixed study conducted on teaching interdisciplinary Math, Maps and Media workshop and investigated 28 (9 male and 21 female) participants, ages between 18-29. There were over 20 community members (including teachers, business people, and taxi drivers) attending and contributing and supporting our GPS/SIS project. Each were from different backgrounds and educational levels.
Our investigation was guided by these questions:
I was invited to go back to Ashgabat last Fall. I had a chance to explore to current status of the GPS project and to continue collecting data on participants’ reactions, reflections, and experiences with GPS and SIS. I have been in touch with them through facebook and skype under the leadership of two colleagues who co-presented with me recently on two international conferences as virtual presenters. They have been focusing on specific strategies utilizing Geographical Information System (GIS), the reading and writing of interactive maps to facilitate multiple literacies. They have been continuing to collect resources on Art in Geography, Cartography, Environmental Ethics, and Education.
Their projects such as communitywalk.com project and video narratives reflects not only on their experiences but also international issues and perspectives through their online contact to global community. Their stories articulate the realities of conditions in their schools through their research, analysis, and dialog.
They argued the challenges and advantages of integrating new media into Turkmen curriculum; developed 21st Century skills in researching and creating digital resources and media messages using ning, voicethread and community walk; examined the national curriculum and GPS/ SIS software in developing global understanding; experienced how a critical approach to the study of new media combines knowledge, reflection, and action to promote educational equity, and prepares new generation to be socially responsible members of a multicultural, global society.
One participant said, “I am happy to have met you, because you have given me much more to think about than just the content of this class.” Another wrote, “More than learning new technologies, this course gave me chance to reflect on my own Internet habits and learned something about myself.” They found the online activities and the resources engaging and helpful in understanding the role its unique characteristics.
The participants repeatedly said how much they were intimidated by the social software but they eventually enjoyed being part of the world community. As one said, “I don’t believe what you see on television or read on the Internet. All these statements are untrue, after recently producing a video; I believe anything is visually possible with the help of fancy equipment.” By actively involving participants in producing media (i.e facebook, communitywalk, toondoo, wikis, blogs and digital stories), they understood the conventions of the medium and gained alternative points of view on their environment and renewed interest and commitment to community service. As they became the producers of their own media projects, they developed 21st Century skills, and became informed consumers and citizen of the world.
REFERENCES
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Jenkins, H. (2006, October 20). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century (part one). Retrieved from http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/10/confronting_the_challenges_of.html
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., Weigel, M., & Robinson, A. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Chicago: The MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.projectnml.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf
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Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:http://myildiz.weebly.com/stemx.html
[1] Hi5 (Hiking for Health, Happiness, Head, Hand and Heart) to Nature project- provides examples and handouts (i.e. http://buttermilkfalls.wikispaces.com/)
[2] Gallery Walk is based on Museum approach to teaching. Gallery Walk can be collection of artifacts (i.e. maps, pictures, posters, audio and video clips) designed to present the particular topic to the audience.
[3] Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world.
[4] Oercommons.org - is an open learning network to create an online experience that engages educators in sharing their best teaching and learning practices. It offers P-16 educators access to course materials, provides platform to share and learn.
[5] Gallery Walk is based on Museum approach to teaching. http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/gallerywalk/index.html
Maps, Math, and Media: Innovative Transdisciplinary Projects in Teacher Education
Your Name and Title: Melda N. Yildiz, Faculty
School or Organization Name: Kean University
Co-Presenter Name(s): Ibrahim Yeter
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: NJ & TX, USA
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): Teacher Educators, Pre-service and In-service Teachers
This session will benefit teacher candidates, K16 educators and students, parents, media specialists, and administrators who seek alternative strategies and tools in teaching and learning 21st Century Skills and develop innovative transdisciplinary curriculum focusing on project based learning.
Short Session Description (one line):
The purpose of this session is to meaningfully integrate geography, mathematics and media literacy skills into “Maps, Math, and Media” project as a means of further developing the 21st century skills among teacher candidates and to develop innovative transdisciplinary projects and teaching strategies and possibilities of integrating global literacies with limited resources and equipment in global education context.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
This session outlines the mixed study based on the role of innovative transdisciplinary projects in teacher education; offers creative strategies and possibilities for integrating new technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) and Social Interaction Software (SIS) into K16 curriculum; demonstrate Hi5 (Hiking for Health, Happiness, Head, Hand and Heart) to Nature project[1] that integrates Math, Maps and Media in Project Based Learning; and showcases pre-service teachers’ cross disciplinary active learning projects and digital stories as a gallery walk[2]. The study was conducted while teaching teacher education math and science and technology courses and investigated teacher candidates in New Jersey and Texas. The study explored wide range of meanings participants associated with experiential and exploratory learning activities; impact of GPS and SIS technologies in the math and science curriculum; the ways in which participants integrated math, maps and media into their multimedia projects; and how they gained alternative points of view on environment and renewed interest and commitment to community service.
The goals of the session are: a) to investigate the role of new technologies in order to argue the challenges and advantages of Global Positioning System (GPS) and Social Interaction Software (SIS) in K-16 curriculum across content area s (i.e. math, science, geography, cultural studies); b) to introduce maps and media across content areas in developing multiple literacies (i.e information, technology, geography, media literacy): c) to identify creative strategies and possibilities for engaging K-16 students in meaningful experiential global literacy activities while incorporating math, science, maps and media.
Outcome
Conference participants will be able to:
- argue the challenges and advantages of GPS and social interaction software in K-16 curriculum across subject fields,
- examine the process of preparing nature walk/ geocaching[3] activity ideas as an interdisciplinary classroom tools for teaching and learning,
- outline various use of GPS and social networking software in a science, math and educational technology context,
- explore lesson plans, assessment tools, and curriculum guides that incorporate new media and technologies across grades and subjects,
- organize geocaching activities such as Hi5 to Nature project in order to explore various social interaction software such as ning, geocaching, google earth.
The format of the session will be showcase of Gallery Walk as a slideshow, selected multimedia projects, interactive group discussion, and a brief presentation of the study and the resources. The research paper and the results of the study will be provided as a hand-out. The presentation slides and online course outline will be posted on our social networking page. In addition to participants’ narratives, our presentation slides, online resources, virtual gallery walk and bibliography of recent literature as well as our GPS/ GIS and SIS projects will be made available to all participants on our social networking site for further dialog and collaboration.
Innovative educators seek to develop transdisciplinary project based learning modules integrating math, maps and media. Here are several math links that our pre-service teachers used in their Universal Design of Learning (UDL) model lessons:
- Kahn Academy
- National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (Utah State University)
- Illuminations (NCTM)
- Internet 4 Classrooms
- Virtual Laboratories in Probability & Statistics (University of Alabama, Huntsville)
- HyperMath
- BrainPop
- Kids Teach Kids with Mathcasting
- There is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch: 8 Free and Easy Ways to Begi...
- 21st Century Educators Don’t Say, “Hand It In.” They say, “Publish It!
- Innovative Ideas That Make Sense for Those Hungry for Math Instruction
- Free Math, Language Arts, and Geography Games
- Timez Attack Helps Kids Have Fun Tackling Math Times Tables
- Game-Based Learning Site for Innovative Math Educators
- 100 Incredible Open Lectures for Math Geeks
- 5 Innovative Ways to Differentiate Instruction as Witnessed During ...
- Teacher's TV - Math
- Science Activities
- http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
- http://www.mathway.com/
- http://www.brightstorm.com/
- Funbrain- www.funbrain.com
- Proteacher www.proteacher.com
- www.kean.edu/~soed/ICA
- www.enc.org/weblinks/lessonplans
- www.edupuppy.com/page.cfm?id=8
Today new generation use variety of mediums to communicate and form communities of interest outside “the classroom.” There is an obvious disconnect between current educational practices and what the students are exposed to in their daily lives. GPS and SIS are no longer the for the corporation and communication professionals. These software such as ning, google earth are successfully adopted by many, although their use in education is still in its infancy. (Hendron, 2008, p. 238)
GPS/SIS provides space for its participants to co-construct meaning using multilingual (Google Translator) and multimedia (slideshare) tools. Participants are bricoleur (Levi-Strauss, 1998) where they are the author as well as the cast, collector, and the director of their projects. Content of their knowledge is co-constructed by the participants.
This study discusses the impact and power of GPS and SIS and outlines its promising implications for global education, creativity and collaboration among its users. Social Interaction Technologies and Collaboration Software have been changing the way we experience our world. From showcasing digital portfolios (secondlife) to posting online reflections and journals (blogspot); co-writing books (wikibooks) to co-producing digital stories (voicethread); cocreating interactive maps (communitywalk) to collecting data (GPS) to solve community based issues, new technologies are increasingly being used for educational and lifelong learning environments as part of 21st century skill. The usage of social interaction software develops opportunities and supports “Open Learning” practices and processes, and promotes exchanges, connections, and collaboration among people who share common ideas and interests.
Maps, Maps and Media Activities (sample activities to be shared)
Station 1: Giving Directions: Please give direction to get to X from the conference center. There are more than one way to give directions. Are you comfortable giving directions? Do you draw maps, provide landmarks? Multiple ways to see and learn. We will provide books and material and bibliography on children’s books.
Station 2: Printed Maps. Pleas explore different maps with various orientation and leave a note what you learned. What made you surprised? Why are there different representation?
Station 3: Community Walk. Explore Perth Amboy, NJ on communitywalk.com created by high school students and view their historical site project linking their research, picture, video and the GPS coordinates on a their community walk map.
Station 4: Upside down map: Look at the video clip- http://www.odt.org/Pictures/map.mp4
or http://www.odt.org/Pictures/mapsmall.mov Please discuss what other ways we may be able to map the world. What about drawing maps side up? Why is it important to bring alternative maps into the classroom?
Station 5: GPS in the Classroom: Go though the attached slides and write how you may be able to include maps/ GIS/ geography in your classroom/ discipline.
Station 6: Layered Maps on GoogleEarth. Check Google earth and find Ataturk Dam and layered maps. You can see the changes between 1976 to today. Record your changes and share with the class. This activity is intended to show them how the ecology will change based on human intervention on the earth by comparing maps in two different era.
Perspective
Research documents how Global Positioning System (GPS) and Social Interaction Software (SIS) can be used to support traditional literacy practices as well as facilitate the further development of multiple and critical literacies. According to Jenkins, Purushotma, Clinton, Weigel, and Robinson (2006), “The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom. (p. 4)” National Standards such as International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and International Reading Association (IRA) advocates the use a wide range of instructional tools, and curriculum materials to support instruction and promotes access for students to a new media and technologies in classrooms and libraries.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2007) suggests that teaching and learning in the 21st century requires that students and teachers have: subject specific knowledge, learning skills, use 21st century tools to foster learning, teach and learn in the 21st century context, connect learning to the real world, and use assessments that measure 21st century learning. Therefore, in this workshop, my twelve students and I got familiar with GPS and SIS technology to better prepare ourselves for the literacy demands we encounter as global citizens in the 21st century.
With the advent of new handheld devices such as GPS and social interaction software, there will be an expanded access to alternative resources and global connections. Teaching and learning have potential to be a continuous life-long process; it is personalized, learner-centered, situated, collaborative, and ubiquitous. Suter, Alexander, and Kaplan (2005) summarized the notion of social interaction software “as a tool (for augmenting human social and collaborative abilities), as a medium (for facilitating social connection and information interchange), and as an ecology (for enabling a 'system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment')." (p.48)
Growing number of initiatives and projects directed for K16 education such as Oercommons.org[4] will be shared during the workshop not only to seek out for teaching and learning content around the world but also to share and showcase our multimedia projects, and collaborate others using Web 2.0 features. Mejias (2006) wrote in response to his teaching and using social interaction software in his classrooms: “Social interaction software allows students to participate in distributed research communities that extend spatially beyond their classroom and school, beyond a particular class session or term, and technologically beyond the tools and resources that the school makes available to the students.”
Despite all the concerns and challenges integrating social interaction technologies into the curriculum, there is a growing number of research and support by academics. For instance, Digital Youth Research [http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/] is a collaborative project that studies number of empirical and theoretical work on youth subcultures, new media, and popular culture. Wesch (2008a) argued the importance of welcoming social media into the classroom as powerful learning tools and wrote: “When students recognize their own importance in helping to shape the future of this increasingly global, interconnected society, the significance problem fades away.” (p.7)
Methods
After the formal introduction to Maps, Math and Media workshop that I presented in class, all youth participants explored a Gallery Walk[5] that was designed for exploring the goggle earth, role of and different types of maps. Gallery Walk for this project was a collection of artifacts (i.e. maps, pictures, posters, audio and video clips) designed to showcase the importance of geography across content areas. It also provided learning centers for each individual to interact and complete the tasks while interacting in group discussions and writing responses. There were different maps were available for participants to view and explore. The participants wrote their reactions next to these maps and discussed in the significance and possibilities for incorporating these maps and technology across curriculum areas.
The next project was designed to provide hands on experience with using GIS and SIS as well as to use new technologies to develop interactive maps and social interaction modules online using a five computer lab with internet connection. Participants engaged in Geocaching - high-tech treasure hunting game using GPS device. This outdoor experiential learning activity was called Hi5 (Hiking for Health, Happiness, Head, Hand and Heart) to Nature. After geocaching, they continued to explore GPS and SIS software such as googleearth.com and communitywalk.com, collecting data using GPS device on the bus routes and historical sites in the city of Ashgabat and created interactive maps and online projects of their own.
Methodology includes analysis of background and digital media surveys, process papers, video narratives, questionnaires, electronic journals and reflection papers, responses to online activities and the process of producing documentaries, transcripts of interviews, and the content analysis of multimedia projects and presentations. The study used three theoretical framework; multicultural education, global competency and 21st Century Teaching Skills (http://www.p21.org/).
Data sources
This study is based on the mixed study conducted on teaching interdisciplinary Math, Maps and Media workshop and investigated 28 (9 male and 21 female) participants, ages between 18-29. There were over 20 community members (including teachers, business people, and taxi drivers) attending and contributing and supporting our GPS/SIS project. Each were from different backgrounds and educational levels.
Our investigation was guided by these questions:
- What are the participants’ personal experiences and reactions in GPS, SIS and geocaching and mapping and multimedia projects?
- What skills, methods, strategies, and tools do we need to provide to our students to improve global literacy education?
- How do we design and implement community based globally connected effective instruction models with limited resources and equipment and prepare them for the 21st century skills?
- What common problems and discoveries do the participants share during the process of developing maps and using GPS and SIS?
- What suggestions do participants make in order to improve teaching and learning?
I was invited to go back to Ashgabat last Fall. I had a chance to explore to current status of the GPS project and to continue collecting data on participants’ reactions, reflections, and experiences with GPS and SIS. I have been in touch with them through facebook and skype under the leadership of two colleagues who co-presented with me recently on two international conferences as virtual presenters. They have been focusing on specific strategies utilizing Geographical Information System (GIS), the reading and writing of interactive maps to facilitate multiple literacies. They have been continuing to collect resources on Art in Geography, Cartography, Environmental Ethics, and Education.
Their projects such as communitywalk.com project and video narratives reflects not only on their experiences but also international issues and perspectives through their online contact to global community. Their stories articulate the realities of conditions in their schools through their research, analysis, and dialog.
They argued the challenges and advantages of integrating new media into Turkmen curriculum; developed 21st Century skills in researching and creating digital resources and media messages using ning, voicethread and community walk; examined the national curriculum and GPS/ SIS software in developing global understanding; experienced how a critical approach to the study of new media combines knowledge, reflection, and action to promote educational equity, and prepares new generation to be socially responsible members of a multicultural, global society.
One participant said, “I am happy to have met you, because you have given me much more to think about than just the content of this class.” Another wrote, “More than learning new technologies, this course gave me chance to reflect on my own Internet habits and learned something about myself.” They found the online activities and the resources engaging and helpful in understanding the role its unique characteristics.
The participants repeatedly said how much they were intimidated by the social software but they eventually enjoyed being part of the world community. As one said, “I don’t believe what you see on television or read on the Internet. All these statements are untrue, after recently producing a video; I believe anything is visually possible with the help of fancy equipment.” By actively involving participants in producing media (i.e facebook, communitywalk, toondoo, wikis, blogs and digital stories), they understood the conventions of the medium and gained alternative points of view on their environment and renewed interest and commitment to community service. As they became the producers of their own media projects, they developed 21st Century skills, and became informed consumers and citizen of the world.
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Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:http://myildiz.weebly.com/stemx.html
[1] Hi5 (Hiking for Health, Happiness, Head, Hand and Heart) to Nature project- provides examples and handouts (i.e. http://buttermilkfalls.wikispaces.com/)
[2] Gallery Walk is based on Museum approach to teaching. Gallery Walk can be collection of artifacts (i.e. maps, pictures, posters, audio and video clips) designed to present the particular topic to the audience.
[3] Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world.
[4] Oercommons.org - is an open learning network to create an online experience that engages educators in sharing their best teaching and learning practices. It offers P-16 educators access to course materials, provides platform to share and learn.
[5] Gallery Walk is based on Museum approach to teaching. http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/gallerywalk/index.html