I introduced my Student Activist Club today to the TakingITGlobal.org Web site. The teenagers perused the site and spent some time checking it out and seeing what is available there. I believe they were most excited about being able to communicate with young people from around the globe; young people with an interest in bettering their communities, just like my students want to.
We were pressed for time today, since they're already working on a project; Locks of Love. Ours is a vocational high school, and the Student Activists are hosting a Locks of Love day in coordination with the Cosmetology shop. They have planned the fund raiser (for cancer patients) for early next year.
I hope the TakingITGlobal site is something we can build upon over time. Perhaps, if one of them strikes up some personal connections on the site, it will catch on and quietly grow as a source of inspiration and growth. Also, the site provides some very useful resources. I printed out their how-to workbook. It's about twenty pages long and is a terrific planning document. It was written by young people, for young people, and seemed to be an excellent tool for organizing and leading individual projects.
There is also a how-to on presenting workshops. This would be an extremely ambitious project for the club, since it was only founded about two months ago. However, once a track record has been established with a few successful projects, I believe this group will certainly be up to the task. The TakingITGlobal manual was very thorough and would serve as an excellent guideline.
In any event, I have found yet another outstanding resource, in this case TakingITGlobal.org, which is a perfect fit with my high school Student Activist Club.
I will add that to some other very practical things I've learned in this media course. Namely, how to create a blog, how to participate in a live internet classroom, and just today I learned what a wiki is, and went about creating a space on wikispace.com. Wikispace offers a free classroom space to k-12 teachers. I'm going to take them up on that, since I see some great potential there.
This stuff is amazing!
3 comments:
Hi Jerry,
I just wanted to thank you for introducing TakingITGlobal to your club - I'm sure that they will learn a lot from using our resources and tools. Please encourage them to become members and connect with their fellow peers around the world!
Cheers!
Nick Yeo
Development & Communication Manager
TakingITGlobal
Blogging can be a very interesting thing to do but there are also huge dangers especially in the business world, so one should proceed carefully. If you are teaching business to your students then I would like to assume that you have researched blogging and the dangers and repercussions it can have on a business as well as the future employment of said blogger. Whether they are currently employed or looking for employment. Even statements on a personal blog can have negative results and can and will be used against said blogger, often leading to legal action. It's a very dangerous place to be for the uninformed. Be sure to know the policies of your company and your school. Almost everything can be found on the internet, including old posts to blogs. But I’m sure you know this and teach it to your students. The internet is forever.
Hi jerry
Post a Comment