Come
and see us on Stand S97 Grand Hall Gallery
BETT08 |BETT07 | BETT Seminars | BETT Meetings | Highlights from BETT06
The World Ecitizens Charity – Giving young people a voice
The advent of the internet offers opportunities for innovative approaches to continuing professional development (CPD. The MirandaNet Fellowship is an internet-mediated community of practice in education, which has been experimenting with the potential of new technology to support participative models of CPD since 1992. MirandaNet’s practice is shown to exemplify a model of CPD as induction into an internet-based community of practice in education. The inclusion of representatives of industry, academia and policy makers in the community is shown to facilitate the integration of practice-based research with real transformation in the material and social conditions of teachers and children.
This interest in the social environment and the community of the schools resulted in a positive response to the 9/11 in New York. Members raised the funding to set up the charity, World Ecitizens, which offers free the use of a Virtual Learning Environment and Gallery. The objectives of the charity are to ensure that young learners have a voice on public affairs (www.worldecitizens.net). The hope is that the surge of violence between ethnic groups in the playground which concerned member after 9/11 would be calmed through working across cultures within and between schools. Shared projects are seen as a means of shared understanding and tolerance.
Learners can become World Ecitizens by publishing on this site. Because there is evidence that the Internet can facilitate those with evil intentions, it seemed important to the ecommunity to provide the conditions where the use of educational technology would also be a powerful source for good.
Christina Preston, Chair of MirandaNet and World Ecitizens
(Interview with George Cole, TES)
Christina Preston, the chair of MirandaNet, is also the Chair of Trustees of World Ecitizens. She argues that ICT should be used much more for giving young people a voice and breaking down cultural barriers.
“It’s a fallacy to think that children are not interested in politics or are unaffected by major world events. I can remember as a child cowering under the table when the 1962 Cuban missile crisis appeared on my parents’ television screen. War, conflict, poverty, homelessness and the environment are just some issues that are important to many children, even those living in comfortable Western societies. You don’t need me to tell you that we are living through a turbulent period. September 11th, the Afghan War and the conflict in Iraq have all made the world seem a less safe place, so what impact must these be having on children, as they are bombarded with images on their TV screens and on the front of newspapers? Children do not go around this world with their eyes and ears closed. They know a lot more about what is going on than we often give them credit for. What is true is they often find it difficult to articulate their thoughts and feelings, especially on a face-to-face basis with an adult.
What is also true is that despite living in an information age of 24-hour news programmes, the internet and teletext, there is still a lot of ignorance about other people’s cultures and there is a lack of understanding on how others live. Let me give you an example. I have just returned from Syria and I was very much taken by the fact that there are women with very good jobs and that it’s a secular state. Now, Syria is also a presidential dictatorship, which I don’t support, but I was still a surprised to find how tolerant the Syrians were when it came to women’s rights and religious freedom.
Teachers are reporting increased tension both in the classroom and the playground as a result of the current conflicts. There has been a rise in religious intolerance. There has been an increase in bullying. There has been a growth of racism. It’s a truism that much of the mistrust in our world is due to ignorance and lack of understanding. It’s a failure to listen to someone else’s point of view and to learn more about their situation. That’s why I believe ICT can be a force for good, because it makes it easier to communicate with others across both time and distance.
At present, a lot of ICT tends to be focused on the established curriculum but I’m really interested in the new subject, citizenship, and using ICT to develop our creative and thinking skills Fortunately, I believe the pendulum is swinging back and there’s a realisation that we need to do more in the area of citizenship.
Of course, a number of schools have already forged links with overseas institutions and that’s a good thing. But I’m more interested in people talking to each other and discovering more about each other rather than simply working together on curriculum-based projects. That is why MirandaNet has established the World Ecitizens Fellowship. World Ecitizens is a non-profit making organisation that aims to promote understanding of other cultures and customs, especially amongst younger people. We now have 25 WE chapters in places such as Africa, Australia, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Japan, the USA as well as the UK.
The projects involve communities working together towards conflict resolution. Collaborations focus on joint activities like developing creativity, communication life and thinking skills. To support these projects MirandaNet Fellows have developed a web based learning environment. This website provides a place where World Ecitizens can join together to envision a sense of a shared future; create a sense of shared history; and capture and share learning experiences. It is a safe learning space, which we see as a rich and exciting resource for community exchange and international understanding.
Since the WE environment was set-up, communities and classes of young people have produced posters, video clips and comic strips about citizenship issues of their choice such as homelessness and international citizenship. Some young people have worked with artists and writers in residence. In one project exploring homelessness, children from East London produced a graphic novel and a video highlighting the issues they had researched. The publishers of 2000AD worked with schools and homeless charities. Two freelance cartoonists were involved and film makers from Kushti Moving Image. These young artists were keen to lend their skills to help the children communicate effectively, and they were impressed by the childrens’ professional approach. The George Mitchell School in London examined a variety of citizenship themes such as social exclusion and immigration. Holy Cross Convent School in Kingston upon Thames has established collaborative Internet and video conferencing links with the Ikeda Junior High School in Osaka, Japan, allowing them to share each other’s culture through sound and video.
The World Ecitizens (WE) website started with UnITy, a project supported by Domex and the DFES in which UK teachers and students collaborated within schools, across the wider community and internationally to begin building knowledge base and communication hub with children from the UK, Portugal, Ireland, Bangladesh and China. In these projects children are getting the opportunity to think about how the world can be made a better place.
It’s ironic that in today’s so-called global village, the world seems more divided than ever. With ICT we have the opportunity to bridge this divide; to help bring young people together to share cultures, ideas, thoughts and feelings. If we can help spread the message that all of us are citizens of the same planet and that we all share a common humanity, then many of the barriers that divide us can be broken down. What could be a better use for ICT than this?”
BETT Contact details
- Stand S97 Grand Hall Gallery
- Christina Preston: 07801 336 048
- Maria Causon:
[Back]
