7 Edtech instruments to attach college students to a worldwide group

Excerpted from “Deliver Historical past and Civics to Life” by Karalee Wong Nakatsuka and Laurel Aguilar-Kirchhoff. ©2022 Worldwide Society for Expertise in Training. Reproduced with permission from the writer.

Edtech to Join

There are numerous methods we are able to harness instructional know-how to construct group inside our school rooms and to convey college students into the worldwide group. ISTE Scholar Customary 1.7 International Collaborator presents a framework for the way to method this: “College students use digital instruments to broaden their views and enrich their studying by collaborating with others and dealing successfully in groups domestically and globally.” 

There are numerous edtech instruments that assist foster group constructing whereas offering world views and engagement for college students, each inside and out of doors of the classroom. Incorporating world group connections into group constructing helps college students kind bridges between all of the communities they take part in. It might additionally open new avenues for college students to see themselves as half of a bigger world group and provides them new consciousness and understanding of their place on the earth.

StoryCorps

• What It Is: A digital archive of recorded interviews and private tales that convey the humanity of individuals from everywhere in the world. “StoryCorps’ mission is to protect and share humanity’s tales as a way to construct connections between folks and create a extra simply and compassionate world.”
• International Group Connection: College students can discover tales from throughout the nation and the world, or they’ll seek for particular tales that correlate with content material and initiatives for the classroom. College students have the chance to acknowledge the worldwide humanity that brings us collectively, together with views which may be totally different from their very own.

Flipgrid GridPals

• What It Is: Whereas many lecturers and college students could already be aware of creating short-form movies utilizing Flipgrid of their school rooms, there’s a distinctive alternative to attach with different college students and school rooms the world over utilizing Flipgrid GridPals. 
• International Group Connection: After logging into their instructor accounts, lecturers can search and join with fellow educators from the world over. This permits lecturers to collaborate on studying experiences that make connections between their school rooms asynchronously via video (no time zone constraints) in a protected on-line studying expertise.

Digital Citizenship Institute

• What It Is: The Digital Citizenship Institute’s focus is on serving to our college students join the world via our shared citizenship in a digital world. It’s all about “humanizing the individual subsequent to you, all over the world, and throughout the display. . . .In at this time’s interconnected world, that is our alternative to place world training into apply to empower others to change into change makers for utilizing tech for good in native, world and digital communities.”
• International Group Connection: “DigCitKids” is one side of scholar engagement and group that’s out there from the Digital Citizenship Institute. This initiative is concentrated on creating digital citizenship alternatives for youths by youngsters, with a concentrate on fixing actual group issues.

Google Earth

• What It Is: Google Earth is extra than simply a web-based map; it additionally supplies assets, classes, and integrations for use with college students. These embody “. . . step-by-step guides and tutorials on Google’s Geo Instruments, inspirational tales, plus lesson plans, product info, and way more.”
• International Group Connection: Serving to college students study geography and place offers them a greater sense of the world and their place in it. These classes and assets are assorted and assist college students make connections between folks, the land they inhabit, and their influence on it.

PenPal Colleges

• What It Is: Making connections and collaborations with college students from dozens of nations the world over permits college students to learn, write, and create unique initiatives. “PenPal Colleges join college students from 150 international locations to make mates and uncover the world.”
• International Group Connection: College students can collaborate with college students from different international locations on initiatives that matter to them. This can be a distinctive alternative to not solely talk with college students from the world over but in addition work collectively on initiatives with an academic context.

Thriller Skype

• What It Is: This can be a strategy to construct a worldwide group with different school rooms from the world over. It has been described as a worldwide guessing recreation, during which lecturers collaborate and have their lessons meet through Skype (or another on-line conferencing platform), then have college students attempt to guess one another’s location. There are numerous types of this “Thriller Skype” format, and lecturers will be inventive of their collaboration to arrange the actions (reminiscent of solely asking the opposite class sure or no questions).
• International Group Connection: With actions reminiscent of this, lecturers and college students join with school rooms the world over, increase their cultural consciousness, and hone their geography abilities—whereas additionally collaborating as a category to guess the situation of the thriller classroom.

International Learn Aloud

• What It Is: What in case your college students might learn the identical guide and collaborate with college students from the world over? They’ll! Every year throughout a six-week interval, the International Learn Aloud helps college students and lecturers join with assets and actions which are primarily based on a typical guide. Lecturers can join with different lessons from all over the world which are taking part and determine how a lot time they want to dedicate and the way concerned they want to be.
• International Group Connection: To make these world connections with different lessons, lecturers can harness the facility of edtech to attach utilizing instruments reminiscent of Skype, Twitter, Padlet, or Flipgrid. “Lecturers get a group of different educators to do a worldwide mission with, hopefully inspiring them to proceed these connections via the 12 months.”

Karalee Wong Nakatsuka, M.A. E.D., is a veteran center faculty U.S. historical past instructor. Additionally a Gilder Lehrman Grasp Instructor, she was acknowledged in 2019 because the Gilder Lehrman Historical past Instructor of the 12 months for California and was a prime 10 finalist for the nationwide award. She serves on the American250 Historical past Training Advisory Council, the Gilder Lehrman Instructor Advisory Council and the Monticello Instructor Advisory Group. She’s a member of the California Council for the Social Research (CCSS), the Nationwide Council for the Social Research (NCSS), the iCivics Training Community and the Nationwide Council for Historical past Training (NCHE). Nakatsuka appeared within the New York Instances multimedia story “What’s Really Being Taught in Historical past Class?” and was featured in an article in Time Journal’s September 2021 difficulty titled “From Lecturers to Custodians, Meet the Educators Who Saved a Pandemic Faculty 12 months.” She’s captivated with utilizing know-how to have interaction and excite college students; sharing the tales and the locations the place historical past happened; constructing group in her classroom; and getting ready college students to develop as empathetic, knowledgeable, engaged and energetic crucial thinkers and residents who care and make a distinction on the earth.