Diversity, Cultural Understanding and Global Awareness

   I must admit when I first read the instructions for this post I was a bit confused due to the lack of specific instructions or supplemental material.  The instructions seemed somewhat vague.  So, I decided to research a bit.  I came across a paper written by Dr. James Hollenbeck and Darina Hollenbeck titled Using Technology to Bridge the Cultures Together in the Multicultural Classroom.  This article gave me some thoughts to reflect on.

   One point they made is that technology is the one thing we all have in common.  It doesn't matter what culture, socio-economic background, learning style, or political affiliation we are.  Technology is the new "melting pot."  Almost everyone has some sort of technology accessibility and our students know how to use it.  As teachers, we can capitalize on that.  Students who may not excel in the traditional pen and paper education can excel using technology. This fosters self-esteem in our students.  Technology can promote creativity and imagination that may not be present in traditional methods.  It can also help those who need help with spelling and grammar.  For ESL students, it can be a way of effectively communicating with other students as well as teachers.  The rise of technology has made the world on big classroom. For all students, technology is a way of understanding cultural differences by creating opportunities to see other ways of life.  In fact, with options such as Skype, students can collaborate with others from all around the world as well as those in the classroom.  

   For my classroom, I would like to add Skype to talk with other culinary students and chefs.  A fellow culinary instructor and I have talked about having our students work together on a project to improve cafeteria lunches.  There has been much said about school lunches in recent years.  The cafeterias are under very strict regulations about what they can and can't do.  But they do not have a lot of time or money to search out recipes that will meet the standards and still be palatable for most students.  The aforementioned teacher and I have discussed having our culinary students work together to come up with ideas, test out recipes and present to our local Child Nutrition Program Directors and eventually the state CNP Director.  For this collaboration to take place, Skype would be a great tool.  Our schools are about 2 hours away from each other so one on one contact for the students is not available.  

   For communication with parents I use Remind.  This application allows me to send out messages to students and parents about assignments, upcoming tests or whatever announcement I need to make.  It works basically like text messaging but recipients do not have my personal phone number.  I have different group numbers for each class, club, and sport that I lead.  My parents seem to like it as well.