Creating Global Citizenship: An Online Community for Secondary Education (CREATE GLOBAL CITIZENS)

Instructor Name: 
Laura Mulas
CRN: 
63539
Course Description: 

This capstone is designed to provide an opportunity to learn about Spanish culture and society by means of synchronous and asynchronous discussion group forums between American and Spanish middle and high school students.  The communities of students will be from: Portland, Oregon, various schools in Washington state and Zamora, Spain.  These forums will be between paired classes (one USA and one Spanish) of similar grade and language level and will be facilitated and monitored by both teachers of each class.  Each grouping of classes will be assigned 2 capstone students. 

The various themes that will be explored by the capstone students are: culture (American and Spanish), immigration, current political concerns, social justice, educational system (American and Spanish), disparity within the educational system, global issues, common beliefs, prejudices and practices and historical events that have affected society.  Due to the dynamic nature of this online community other relevant themes may arise and will be incorporated to this list. 

For more information please see the following course website:

https://spark.adobe.com/page/OWu7ee4Grw9Y0/

Project Description: 

The final project is the creation, monitoring, facilitation and maintenance of an online discussion forum between high school and middle school students and their respective teachers from Portland Public Schools and Zamora Public Schools.  Schools will be matched based on grade and language level of the classes.

Portland State students and teachers will develop an online international community by means of synchronous and asynchronous discussion group forums.  They will work together to investigate and discuss specific global issues, cultural traditions and regional current events or issues by presenting this issues to the individual class sets.   The American and Spanish students that will reflect opinions, values and beliefs of their culture by means of organized discussion forums will express a range of perspectives on these issues.   Later these topics will be further explored and discussed to understand the reasons for similar or different views.  Through learning about those of different cultures and societal norms the students will build their awareness of the role of beliefs and values in their lives and in the lives of others.