I just finished looking at Sergio Chaparro-Univazo’s online powerpoint presentation Some Issues on LIS Education and Collaboration in Latin America (2005). In this presentation Chaparro-Univazo asks questions such as: why collaborate, why should we cooperation with Latin American Library Schools, and where should we start?

The link between the developing nations and the developed ones (like Australia), especially in the area of education, has always been of great interest to me. As Chaparro-Univazo asserts, online education offers a wide array of possibilities for enhancing the collaboration process. Collaborating with students in classrooms in areas of the world that are almost the opposite to their own is an ideal way begin students thinking about issues such as social justice, poverty, human rights and racism. In this way collaborative internet activities would complement and connect well with an HSIE unit and values.

Of course there are many many problems with this idea. Online education requires IT infrastructure that is not available, or is limited, in a lot of Latin American countries. However, Chaparro-Univazo suggests one place we could start with this endeavour would be with agencies and international organizations that promote cooperation (such as The Educational Portal of the Americas, and United World Colleges). He also outlines many reasons that this area must be approached in a careful way, which i completely agree with, however, I feel it is important enough, and would have enough benefits to make it worth the effort.

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I just read the article How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century, by Claudie Wallis and Sonja Steptoe (2006).

I found this article interesting because it discusses the use of the internet in creating the genereation of global citizens, that can work effectively in the global community and global economy.
One point made in this article that really struck me was that students learn how to ‘distinguish good information from bad’ on the internet. It seems so obvious I am wondering why I never thought of it. The internet is the ideal resource to use when teaching critical literacy, media studies, anything that involves analysing a text and determining whether it is reliable, biased, valid, ridiculous, or whatever. The internet has the whole range of types of texts. Books on the other hand, have all been published, and therefore editted and criticised before they are read publicly. It is the biggest differenence between the two (besides the ease of finding information of course).
I find I have to agree with Wallis and Steptoe, we do need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century.

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The main idea expressed in Idel Harel’s (2003) webpage Learning Skills for the Millennium – The Three Xs seems to be that students require more, and different ‘learning tools’ and skills today, than they have previously. The internet has provided students (and teachers) in the developed countries of the world, with the possibility of infinitely more creative tools for ‘eXploring, eXpressing and eXchanging’ ideas. These three key areas are what Harel defines as the new ‘X’ skills necessary for students. He claims that these three skills are an essential addition to the traditional ‘three R’s’ in education. He claims that the internet has expanded the idea of a tool to include a “veritable warehouse of creative instruments that includes sounds, color, motion.” Students need to be able to use these new tools to become versatile and successful communicators.
The idea of ‘eXchanging’ (or in other words sharing your ideas with others), seems to be one of the most important learning tools for students. Harel claims that real learning only occurs in a social context, with questions, discussions, debates and the exchanging of ideas between peers. If this is true, then it is the exchanging of ideas that will lead students to be active participants in their education, as well as that of their peers. Harris (2002) agrees, stating that collaboration and exchanging ideas develops higher-level social learning. One advantage of the internet is that the student’s peers need not only be the ones in the classroom with them. There is a whole interconnected world of global students, which opens new opportunities for the students through interactive exchanges.

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I just read the article Wherefore art thou, telecollaboration? by J Harris (2002). One of the main ideas in this article is that research shows students are using the internet in classrooms primarily for exchanging information in different ways, not for projects that focus on discussion and communication. The latter of which has proven to develop students higher-level social learning and problem solving skills.
I found this article interesting because it talks about using the internet in another way, taking the next step almost, in the classroom. It outlines the benefits of devising programs that require students to use the internet in a telecollaborative way, interacting and communicating across and between classes, schools, and countries. This type of thinking and discussion would encourage a very global mindset from both the students and the teacher.
This idea is very exciting for me. It is exactly what I would like my students to one day think about. The problems with actually incorporating these types of computer skills and activities into a program have been pretty substantial so far, however. So obviously it is going to take some work and more trials and experiments to get it well intergrated into a curriculum.
I think this type of project would work well with topics like media studies. One good idea i found in the article is the Global Novel Project.

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