Students Sparking Global Thinking

In the articles on this blog you can see how interns have been looking at ideas that I originally launched in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC blog or in Power Point essays and then creating new visualizations to interpret these ideas in their own words. Visit the Intern Project pages for Spring 2012, Winter 2012, Spring 2011 to see how I coach this process.

I've been reading a book by Curt Bonk, titled The World is Open and it is providing me with a wide range of ideas for sharing information and supporting on-going learning of students and adults from any part of the world.

In Chapter 6 of the book he shows how millions of people are sharing ideas on platforms like YouTube. In one example he described how a power point presentation created by a teacher in Colorado had been viewed by more than 10 million people. This is that first presentation.

After the first version of the PPT was created and viewed by thousands of people others began to remix the video for their own purposes and locals. This is a version created by a professor at the University of Minnesota.

Because of the ways that many people have shared the original video others have created versions that many more people have viewed and shared. Bonk writes in the book "With the participatory power of the Web 2.0, one person in a high school setting in Colorado could now spark global thinking as related to school change ---not from a book or a series of speeches, but from a compelling six-minute video posted to the Internet."

In this page I describe a goal of students from throughout the world constantly creating and sharing new versions of the ideas I've originated over the past 18 years of leading a tutor/mentor program in Chicago and a strategy intended to help mentor-rich learning programs be available to youth in every high poverty neighborhood.

One chapter of The World is Open talks about the rise of open source technology and how universities are now putting their entire curriculum on the web for anyone in the world to access it.

Bonk writes "today a thought or idea can truly make an impact on anyone anywhere on the planet. It might not be today or tomorrow when that thought or idea is needed. However, once posted on the Web, it will likely be reflected upon or employed by someone sometime in the future."

Students and faculty who look at the ideas I've shared and who remix those ideas as part of their own learning and sharing can be part of this movement. Our collective thinking can be the catalyst for new and innovative strategies that increase the distribution of high quality learning and mentoring to young people in more places.

Browse through this blog and visit this page to see some of the projects that have been done. Join the Tutor/Mentor forum and become a part of this process.