In today’s world, you can Skype with a cousin in Bangkok, FaceTime with your mom in Texas, and IM a colleague in the UK—all from the comfort of your couch. Constantly evolving connectivity through new media tools doesn’t just mean that you can keep family and friends up to date, it means that education has moved beyond the four walls of the traditional classroom. It means an opportunity for global collaboration that allows the world’s cultures, religions, and ethnicities to be a part of a student’s personal learning process.
Global collaboration in the classroom teaches global citizenship: a voluntary self awareness as a means of understanding one’s place in the world as it pertains to fellow human beings and one’s responsibility toward others. Global citizenship builds cultural empathy, critical thinking skills and lays the foundation for principled decision-making, helping children to understand rights and responsibilities—their own and those of others. But how do we translate this concept and its positive impact to the classroom? Most importantly, how do we do it safely?
UNESCO recently held its second Mobile Learning Week at its headquarters in Paris, France to emphasize the importance of mobile learning on an international scale. The event seeks to explore the impact that mobile learning can have on UNESCO’s Education For All movement. At the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, 164 governments pledged to deliver “Education For All,” through 6 specific goals, by 2015. It isn’t at all surprising that UNESCO has devoted an entire week to mobile learning as a means to achieve progress in this movement. The effect that devices can have on creating global citizens is precisely the reason for UNESCO’s Mobile Learning Week.
Placing mobile devices in the classroom is the portal through which global collaboration can be delivered to students. Programs like Skype in the Classroom and Collaborations Around the Planet give students an opportunity to learn from other classrooms and organizations through videoconferencing. Lightspeed Systems My Big Campus uses safe social networking to connect classrooms and foster collaboration. My Big Campus’s features like EduTalk and Bundles encourage teachers to connect with and learn from their peers. Through Connecting with Educators and Classrooms Worldwide in My Big Campus, students take advantage of pen pal relationships and collaborative projects while teachers from around the country and the world can exchange lesson plans and assignment ideas.
As progressive and beneficial as it can be, the topic of mobile learning and global collaboration is often accompanied by trepidation from administrators, educators, and parents. How can we bring the world to our students, but also keep them safe? While taking advantage of a global classroom has all but become tantamount with state standards, student and device security remains at the forefront of minds. The answer to this concern is simple: a safe mobile learning environment must begin with an effective content filter.
When learning extends beyond the classroom with mobile devices, safety needs to go along with it. The web filters of previous generations may not be conducive to this new learning platform—schools need flexible and cross-platform mobile filtering. When a powerful content filter is placed in the cloud, the result is convenient management and anytime, anywhere safety. Lightspeed Systems Collaborative Filter combines the security of content filtering with access to online resources and global connection opportunities through the integrated LMS, My Big Campus. The Collaborative Filter addresses both security and global accessibility.
With students and networks safe, the classroom can open up to the infinite online resources that make global collaboration possible. It’s with safety and mobility that collaboration can truly thrive. And through collaboration, we can help to create students who are conscientious, responsible and understanding global citizens.