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Global Efficiency

I am helping with this project through one of my graduate classes. My class is studying the topic of “global learning”. There are lots of different definitions of global learning, but I believe that global learning can be summarized as teaching a student about the world’s people and problems so that he or she will be able to live responsible and productive lives.

Living and learning in a global context means that we have to know about the people and the places around the world. We need to know about their cultures, languages, values and ideas. We need to know about their struggles and victories. By knowing more about the world around us, we are better able to evaluate the concerns and needs of our own communities. For example, Ahmet thinks air pollution is a problem in Turkey and Steven thinks that homelessness is a problem in Hawaii. These things are probably problems in other parts of the world as well. Maybe the place where you live has found a way to combat some of these problems. If so, we can share our ideas and out thoughts with others to help them solve these problems. There is no need for every country of the world to start from scratch or “reinvent the wheel” when we can learn from each other how other places are dealing with these same concerns. We can save time, money and resources by evaluating what other locations are already doing that may work for us. In this way, global learning helps to create global efficiency.

We live in an interconnected world whether we want to or not. In this project alone, students from 4 nations and 2 US States are using technology to communicate with each other. We are able to see pictures and videos from almost any place in the world just by “googling” a word or phrase. Projects like GLIP2012 can encourage global learning by helping the future leaders of the world see the potential of learning from different peoples and cultures.