What does it mean for one to be globally competent?
I received word early in the summer of 2016 that I was accepted into the Teachers for Global Classrooms program created by the U.S. Department of State as part of their Bureau for Education and Cultural Affairs. During the rest of the summer, I filled out and sent in paperwork, got a thorough medical exam with more paperwork, and sent off to get my passport renewed. All of this kept me busy so that I almost forgot there would be a ten-week online course required. I was about to e-mail the program to ask what was going on when I received an e-mail from them that same day asking why I had not yet submitted any assignments; the class had already begun ten days before!
The core concepts, skills, values and attitudes, and behaviors of someone who is globally competent.
It reminds me of the old college anxiety dream. You know the one. Where you discover there’s a class you’ve completely forgotten about. It’s two weeks into the semester, and you’re already behind. You run to campus and you find the class is meeting in some obscure location in the cellar of the most labyrinthine building. You run into class an hour late and only then discover you forgot to get dressed. And everyone is staring at you . . . I still have this dream occasionally and I’ve been out of college for several decades. Only this time, I really was behind. Apparently my e-mail from my former school, which I had used in the application, had been shut off so I wasn’t getting the notices.
The Four Key Global Competencies: Globally competent students investigate the world, recognize multiple perspectives, communicate ideas, and take action.
Fortunately the program leaders and my teacher, Craig Perrier, were very understanding. I was always a few days behind and posting late, so I didn’t get as many comments and suggestions in the forums as I would have liked, but the assignments were certainly interesting and educational. I finally completed all of the course just before the last deadline. It took about ten hours of work per week during a time when I was already extremely busy trying to set up a new chemistry lab at my new school.
Here are some of the topics we discussed in the class:
- Framing Global Education
- Perspectives in Global Education
- Developing Global Citizenship
- Exploring the Global-Local Dynamic
- Transforming Global Learning Through Technology
- Globalizing Your Standards
- Global Education and Competency in Your School
As part of the course, we had to learn to use various social media platforms for communicating ideas (the third global competency). I’m not much for using Twitter, as I tend to want to say more than 140 characters worth.
One of the core concepts of the TGC course is that to be globally competent, a person should do four things. They are: (1) investigate the world, (2) recognize multiple perspectives, (3) communicate ideas, and (4) take action locally to solve global problems.
We had weekly webinars with experts; watched TED talks and other videos related to global education and competency; worked on exercises, lesson plans, and unit plans that integrate global education into our own standards; and participated in discussion boards.
A still from the video we did on global competency and global citizenship.
One of the major components of the course was to learn various types of Web 2.0 and social media technologies that can be useful in teaching global competency and promoting innovation, collaboration, and communication between cultures. Here are links to two of the resources I learned:
Video and animation production tools: I used PowToons to create an introductory animation describing a cosmology research assignment for my astronomy class. Here it is: https://www.powtoon.com/c/bUypsA24f9K/1/m
The Vision of American Academy of Innovation. This is a still frame from my Teachers for Global Classrooms video.
ThingLink: A tool that turns Infographics into interactive experiences. This is my description of where my school is at regarding technology implementation: https://www.thinglink.com/ scene/853070881360969730
Here is a link to other Web 2.0 and social media tools: http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/101-web-20-teaching-tools/
As part of the TGC video, I interviewed some of my STEAM it Up students on camera before a green screen and had them speak on what global competency meant to them.
Another assignment was to create a video of how my school is integrating global education. I was teaching out of the school’s library at the time because my science lab was being built upstairs, and I hung up a green screen and interviewed my students on why they thought global education was important. They also videotaped me. Unfortunately, I got the lapel microphone a bit too close to my mouth and the audio got distorted. I still need to redo the video with better audio, but if you want to see it, here is the link: https://youtu.be/9FE78JTID9E.
Title slide from my presentation at the UCET (Utah Coalition for Educational Technology) conference in March, 2017.
In March 2017 I presented a session at the Utah Coalition for Education Technology (UCET) conference and shared some of the things I learned from my Teachers for Global Classrooms course, including what global education is and four technologies that can help in teaching the four competencies. I used Indonesia as my example of another culture and described my upcoming travel experience.
To Investigate the World, I shared a new resource by the U. S. Geological Survey called EarthExplorer. Here is the link: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/. It acts as a one-stop shopping center for digital elevation models and includes worldwide DEMs in various formats and even Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data. All you have to do is type in the name or coordinates of the area you want to download and it will list the target. Click on the correct item from the list (if there is more than one) and it will move the Google Map pointer to the correct spot. You then choose the data set(s) to download. I chose the Aster Global DEM. Then click the Results button and it will open up a window with the target grayscale height map, which can be saved (best to rename it as the numbered file name won’t be of much use to you).
Using EarthExplorer from the U.S. Geological Survey, I downloaded digital elevation models as grayscale height maps, which I then modeled into terrains in Daz3C Bryce. Here I am showing (clockwise from upper left) Mt. Toba, Gunung Merapi, most of Bali, and the Wasatch Front of Utah. I live close to the mouth of the large canyon (Provo Canyon) emptying the Wasatch Plateau in the middle of the image.
I tried this out for various volcanoes in Indonesia, including Gugung Merapi near Yogyakarta, Gunung Tambora (the one that blew up in 1815 and caused the Year Without a Summer), Anak Krakatau (the Child of Krakatoa), and Lake Toba, which caused a six-year volcanic winter that almost wiped out the human race 74,000 years ago. Once I have the grayscale height maps, I can easily load them into my 3D modeling software (in this case Daz3D Bryce) and add textures, etc.
For Recognize Perspectives, I discussed creating Infographics and turning them into ThingLinks. I also talked about looking up English translations of newspapers from around the world to get another culture’s perspective on world events. Here is a good site to visit: http://www.world-newspapers.com/
For Communicate Ideas, I showed PowToons as a technology for easily creating videos that’s much more fun to use than Adobe Powerpoint or Google Slides.
My slide for Competency 4: Taking Action. I propose to collaborate with my host school in Indonesia to collect and compare weather patterns.
For Take Action, I spoke of collaborating between schools to gather global weather data (see: http://worldweather.wmo .int/en/home.html) or take astronometrical readings.
At the end of my presentation, I included links to several other programs that promote teacher travel for global education. I am including a PDF of my presentation here:
Global Education-Digital Tech-s
You can go to the final slide and link to the programs yourself. But be warned: I plan to apply for several of them myself in the next two years.
Links to other programs that promote teacher travel and global education.
The presentation went well, with about 12 people in attendance. I encouraged them to apply for the TGC program, which had a deadline of the following Monday. I hope some of them do. It has already been a valuable program for me just from what I have learned from the online class. Of course, what I will learn in Indonesia will go much further.
The Elements Unearthed 