Best Global Video Ever!

This was a video a friend shared with me that I thought you all would like. It's the story of Matt who goes all over the world to dance. The film is hilarious, but also really heart-warming. For all of us who believe in global education and cross-cultural exchange, it's a fun film. Enjoy!

Videos: an interesting tool

The more I look at online video banks like YouTube and TeacherTube, the more I realize that each individual teacher really needs to take the experience at their own pace. For some teachers, sifting through tons of videos may just be a distraction and not all that helpful. For example, for me, I only go to YouTube when someone sends me a link or I am looking for something specific (like a Palin or Tina Fey clip). It's rare that I just go poking around. This was reinforced when I went looking around as part of our activity this week. I found myself overwhelmed and completely understand why some teachers want nothing to do with it.

iCue, on the other hand, is a great resource. The main reason I like it is because I can pretty much guarantee that all of the clips are legit since they came from news sources. That doesn't mean they're all true--I would use them to launch a discussion with students about an issue or about bias. But at least I know where the clips came from and they are legit sources. For that reason alone, I think iCue would be a great resource for teachers.

In fact, one of my former Moldovan students just emailed me and asked for a place to find video clips in English so that she could practice her listening comprehension. I sent her to iCue because I think it's a great way to not only study history and current events, but it can also be used as a tool for ESL students.

I think video is a great pedagogical tool--it's engaging, fresh, and offers students some variety in how content is presented. I worry for teachers that use it too much. Just like back in the day when a teacher would pop in a video and show it in its entirety to students, I worry that teachers may show video clips with little to no context or follow-up activities. For this reason, videos should be seen as a "tool" and not as a sole source of content to be presented to students.

Update for staff meeting

Here is an audio update from Julia to be played at the Staff Meeting on 12/17/08. It explains the changes in my job at the start of 2009. Enjoy!

A Little Lost in the Land of Ning

Well, this week was a challenge for my attention span. I'm realizing that the more I learn about Web 2.0 tools, the more I realize that my learned method of processing information is very different than those of students today. I'm realizing that people--young and old--are engaging in dialogue in a very different way than what I am used to.

In exploring a variety of social networks this week, I found myself a bit lost in the maze of nings, blogs, and wikis. The more I clicked, the more I navigated away from my starting point, and the more I realized just how much information is out there. To be honest, I kind of had to take a breather and just soak it all in. I wasn't quite able to post anything yet.

Part of the reason is because many of the nings I checked out were not very active. I was a bit discouraged when the last posts were October or early November. I kept waiting to find a social network where people were actively talking about global education and posting regulary. Instead, I found lots of "small" nings (with fewer members) and limited dialogue. Did anyone have any luck finding a really active site? Even the GEC was a bit puny in terms of quantity of dialogue.

One idea I did have is thinking about how we could create a ning as part of a course. I saw several nings that were by invitation only, so I thought this could be a possibility for one of our courses that has an online component (like Global Understanding, for example). We could create "groups" that helps subdivide participants. Then they can post discussions within those groups--I think. I still have some exploring to do, but I like the idea and want to learn more.

Are you free?

I have enjoyed learning Google Calendar for a few months now, as I have been using it as my new calendar from San Antonio. I love it because you can add other people's calendars and with the click of a button, see if they are free or not. It's a great way to know when to reach people or schedule meetings with them. The only setback I have seen is that Google Calendar cannot deal with multiple time zones. For our purposes at PS, there is no real problem with that. Almost everyone is on EST. For me, I need to list my tasks an hour earlier if I have a meeting with any of you--a small price to pay for the ease of a shared calendar system that is web-based and user-friendly.

Google Docs is slightly newer for me. I am working with Google Docs in my work with EDC around the online course. We are developing the course materials together using this system. It's not the first thing I think of when I want to edit a document, but I know it's much easier than sending documents back and forth, wondering if it is the latest version. I'm excited to see how we could use it more often.

Program Wikis

I've thought quite a bit about how we might use wikis in our programs. One idea was to have a course wiki that was used as a place for teachers to network and share resources throughout a program. Teachers could add links, share books, comment on course content, etc. We could either use it as a replacement for a discussion forum with Google Groups, since wikis have a discussion board, or we could have it as a shared activity throughout a program. Perhaps we require teachers to add content a certain number of times throughout the course of the program. Maybe there is a way we could encourage teachers to respond to each other and give feedback. It could also provide a space where teachers could evaluate elements of a program. I'd be curious to talk to others about how we might use this.

In the not to distant future, I hope to create a wiki for use in the online course on Ancient China. It could be a nice web-based way for teachers to create a collaborative product or resource. What do you think?

Mmmm...Delicious!

I had the pleasure of checking out both Technorati and Delicious. I must say that Delicious has transformed the way I think about bookmarks. I bookmark things all day long and now have a ridiculously long list of folders and subfolders. I am now finally used to it and know where to go to find the websites I want. But I am sold on Delicious. There are often times when people will ask me for resources or websites. I usually have to export my bookmarks and then send them to the person, who then has to import them. I love this idea of having them online and being able to share them with others.

I just started transferring over my bookmarks and have only done a small percentage. But feel free to browse my bookmarks. If you go to the delicious website, click on the "people" tab at the top of the page. Then click on "go to a user". My username is "delatorrejulia"--you can then view the bookmarks I have so far. Enjoy! I will continue to add as I go along. I hope others on staff will also use this tool. I'm excited about the idea of creating a network through our bookmarks and resources.

I love Peanut Butter--pbwiki, that is

Hi everyone! I discovered a great tool called pbwiki. This site allows you to set up a wiki in less than 60 seconds and it is FREE! To be honest, I haven't been all that comfortable with wikis, since I didn't really know what they could do. I've heard people talk about them, I sort of get what they are, but until I visited this site, I was living a bit in the dark.

pbwiki is a tool that lets you set up a wiki for business, school, or personal reasons. They have a great demo video that is done by a teacher. She shows you how she uses her wiki to organize her class, upload files for students, allow certain students to access certain folders (depending on what class they are in), and invite others to participate.

Wikis seem like a great way to upload files and share them with other people in a web-based setting. I am particularly excited about this so that I can share powerpoints or other large files that are too annoying to email to people.

I set up my own wiki, but I'm not quite sure how I will use it. As I explore what wikis can do, I hope to change the focus of it, so that it can be more useful. I think you can even use it as a personal web space for organizing and saving files, etc, so you don't always need to run around with a CD or thumb drive. It also seems like a nice collaborative space where you can invite others to post comments or share files.

I am particularly interested in this because I am considering having teachers in our first online China course develop a course wiki together as one of our course assignments. I thought it could be a great way for teachers all over the map to upload files, share ideas, and post comments. I'll let you know what comes of this brainstorm, but pbwiki seems like a great way to go.

The Power of Girls

Someone just emailed me this video that shows the large-scale impact that educating a girl can have on the development of a country. I think I may use it in some way in next year's global understanding summer institute. In the meantime, I thought you all would enjoy it.

RSS: Really Simple Solution

I LOVE this tool! I can't believe I didn't know you could do this. I have a gazillion (well, maybe just a dozen) news sites and blogs bookmarked on my computer and I go through them every day. This is such a great solution to this time-sucker. And I love the resources you guys put together, especially Jennifer's video explaining how to set it up. It was a piece of cake.

And to all of you folks out there starving for Moldova news, there are tons of feeds to subscribe to, so get searching!

I particularly enjoy the newsfeeds that involve travel writing and photography--so great. I feel like I'm discovering sources I didn't even know existed because I was given a chance to search for them on Google Reader. All of a sudden, it feels like my post is an advertisement for the service. But really! It's so great--thanks.

World Bank Photos on Flickr

ISB-BR005 World Bank
Originally uploaded by World Bank Photo Collection

I had the great fortune of getting to know Flickr.com earlier this year, as I was researching photos to use for the Global Understanding course. The World Bank has a huge bank (no pun intended) of photos that people can download and use. Most of them are available through "creative commons", which means that they can be used under certain conditions. Most of the time, it just means you need to give credit to World Bank when using the photo. The vast majority of World Bank images on Flickr are great for our purposes and match closely with our mission and work. I was particularly mesmerized by this photo of urucan seeds from Brazil.

The World Bank has organized their photos by theme and have tagged them all really well, so it's easy to search for photos (for example, "education", "agriculture", "Asia"). You can check out their photo collection at http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/

When you follow this link, look past the boring World Bank guys in a meeting and view the list of collections on the right hand side of the screen. These are beautiful collections of images from around the world.

Enjoy!

Film on Brazil

I just finished previewing the Wide Angle film Brazil in Black and White. It's a one-hour documentary that looks at race and discrimination in Brazil by following affirmative action and the lives of 5 college hopefuls in Brasilia. I'm going to do a workshop on teaching activities around this film for our one-day course on Brazil.

I'm eager to hear the ideas of others. If you have an hour and are interested in the topic, click here to watch the film. I'd like to create activities that high school teachers could use to talk about racism in Brazil, but also any parallels to U.S. history. If you have any ideas, I would welcome your input.

Thanks!

Julia Source begins

Hi everyone. With all these new "sources" at Primary Source (China Source, Middle East Source, Global Source), I wanted a "source" of my own...even if it only exists among the staff. So now when you need to know everything there is to know about Julia and web 2.0 (and I know you want to know), you can go to "Julia Source." I know you've been searching hi and low for this--the wait is over.

I'm really excited about this new initiative and challenge for us as a staff. There are so many things on the list of 12 things that I'm eager to learn. I'm most excited about exploring Wikis and how we might use them as part of our programs. I'm also interested in nings and social networking in general. I think this could be a cool way to connect teachers within and across courses and help match people with similar educational interests. I also think it will help us establish a broader professional network. I just know VERY little about this, as certain social networking sites (like Facebook and MySpace) have completed eluded me in recent years.

Before you leave my blog, make sure to vote in my latest poll (see left margin). I'll try to put up a new question every few weeks. What kind of authoritative source would Julia Source be if it didn't have hard data? I look forward to following everyone's blogs.