ICT/Global Awareness

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How Can ICT Literacy Skills Support Global Awareness at the K-5 Level?

This snapshot provides examples of how ICT Literacy skills can be used to support Global Awareness in K-5 curricula. It includes the following:

  • Definitions of Global Awareness and ICT Literacy
  • How ICT Literacy Skills Support Global Awareness
  • Examples:
    • Professional Development Program (iEARN)
    • Implementing ICT Literacy within a Language Arts and Arts Curriculum (video clip)
    • Implementing ICT Literacy within a Science Curriculum (video clip)
  • Additional Resources

Definitions

Global Awareness:
  • Using 21st century skills to understand and address global issues
  • Learning from and working collaboratively with individuals representing diverse cultures, religions and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue in personal, work and community contexts
  • Understanding other nations and cultures, including the use of non-English languages
ICT Literacy:
  • Using digital technology, communication tools and/or networks appropriately to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge economy
  • Using technology as a tool to research, organize, evaluate and communicate information, and the possession of a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information

How ICT Literacy Skills Support Global Awareness

Physical distances are no longer barriers to learning and sharing information about different cultures, languages, and traditions. Internet technologies have bridged the geographic distance that separate global communities, raising the importance of developing the skills needed for communicating and collaborating with people from different countries. Students, therefore, need opportunities to take advantage of the communications and collaboration tools available in today’s wired classrooms to engage in projects and dialogue with their international peers. Just as students can deepen their knowledge when teamed with their peers in the classroom, students can both broaden their perspective and enrich their understanding of the world through relationships with their international counterparts. Making this connection will be vital to navigating the global marketplace.

Professional Development Program

International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) offers online and face-to-face K-12 professional development workshops that are tied to school and classroom projects. Workshops address how to integrate global issues into project work across curricula, and how to facilitate online collaborative projects with classrooms around the world. In addition to workshops, iEARN provides several guides for educators interested in using technology to create a global classroom. A number of states have already approved iEARN as an accredited professional development provider.

Implementing ICT Literacy within a Language Arts and Arts Curriculum

The First People’s Project is an iEARN online global collaborative project that brings together indigenous communities across the world through an Internet-based arts and culture project. In completing the project, students use information and communication technology skills while gaining an awareness of other indigenous cultures participating in the project.

Students interviewing tribe members about their culture.Credit: edutopia.org

In this Edutopia video clip, produced by The George Lucas Educational Foundation, Native American students that attend an elementary school in Mississippi participate in the First People’s Project. Students from this native community develop art and language arts skills by collecting information about their tribe and creating art that represents their cultural heritage. Students post stories, digital photographs, and scanned artwork to the project website to share their culture with other indigenous schools throughout the world.

Through the digital exchange, the Native American students in Mississippi learn about global poverty when students in Thailand share information about their school’s lack of basic infrastructure and educational resources. The Native American students, and students in Mexico who also participate in the First People’s Project, decide to raise funds and donate supplies to the school in Thailand.

Implementing ICT Literacy within a Science Curriculum

Journey North, supported by Annenberg Media, is an online collaborative project in which students study wildlife migration across international borders and through seasonal changes.

Teacher Frances Koontz shows students a butterfly
created by a child in Mexico.  Credit: edutopia.org

In this Edutopia video clip, produced by The George Lucas Educational Foundation, students from an elementary school in Maryland collaborate with a school in Mexico to study the migration pattern of the monarch butterfly from Mexico to the United States and back. Students from participating schools collect local scientific data and share their data by entering them into an online database. There are also interactive activities supported by the project website that help students hone their information and communication technology skills. Journey North can be aligned with science, math, geography, and language arts standards.

Additional Resources

For additional resources, search the Route21 Database or visit:







Partnership for 21st Century Skills