Mobile Learning and Digital Games in School

Global Learning

What is global learning? Global Learning means to learn about world issues important for everybody; it is about learning to understand the way the world works. Children and grownups learn about other cultures by interacting with them directly without barriers, they learn how other peoples live; they share experiences and knowledge in order to make a better world. Interaction with other countries gives the groups an insight into the culture, economy, history, geography and climate of a foreign country; they learn for instance the correlation between actions taken in one country and their consequences in another. Political decisions in one country can lead to war in other countries, while overfishing in one country may cause famine in another and so on.(read also Mobile Project with Brazil)

Is there a better way to learn the meaning of “responsibility”? In order to think before you act, you have to be aware of possible outcomes. Global Learning intends to prepare people to cooperate with each other in areas like environment, education, nutrition and technical development. The target is to keep peace and justice in spite of declining natural resources and overpopulation. Unity of diversity will probably save the planet providing everyone gets his fair share. Schools have the opportunity to teach how to think global through important issues that concern the whole world; they can prepare their pupils and students for the future. Internet and mobile devices facilitate the task. English teachers can profit most because all interaction is done in English; it is easy to find partner schools in English speaking countries. USA and the UK seem to be leading Global Learning. There are many sites full of ideas, projects and resources for teachers who want to join. In Global Dimension resources are separated by subjects, age and topics. One can read about an ICT project dealing with using computer technology in the classroom to learn about global issues, or join directly one of their international projects on global issues, there is a wide variety of them, for instance international, cross curricular projects and projects in different subjects. Amnesty has got more resources, interesting lesson plans and worksheets to download for free, for example the story of Ana Frank. Global footprints have online, short, digital games on fair trade to use for free.  “How global is your school?” is a quiz that can be used to introduce the topic in class. The British Council offers a wide range of topics on Global Learning, like using Skype in the classroom and short videos with international news for use in class. The topics have to do with children, schools, environment and human rights. It also has global activities to join. A good explanation on how to make learning without frontiers work by integrating mobile devices in class can be found in global learning in education. The thinkquest foundation shows how to integrate devices and online activities into the school curriculum trying to solve the most common problem of this century. East End Talking offers history lessons on the net, legends and museum pages to use in class, as well as animation films on waste. The most interesting thing about the site is the free downloadable speech to use in English classes to practice listening comprehension. The idea of adding speech and reading support to online content is helpful when you have a group of learners of English as a second language; it also makes the lessons more interesting. Freelancers teaching company staff can profit from downloadable resources of Global learning Partners  Students who want to become teachers have the opportunity to practice and become a global teacher at a primary school abroad. Back to the question, what is Global Learning? Global Learning is learning to experience the world by doing, learning in a non-linear way, the way we learn to use mobile devices or play digital games, the way children learn, so we can prepare best for the future because it keeps us flexible and open minded.