Challenge 2

How can schools and learning environments for children and youth go global today?

In my primary school years attendancy, in the mid-seventies, there were only libraries, telephones (including telephone books from the monopolized telephone company) and the postal service (also monopolized), as tools to connect with the outside world. Almost all information on connecting to the outer world, depended on the skills of these organizations and their willingness to deliver service and information. At that time we compared our situation to the generations before us, we compared ourselves to the USSR, and thought it was amazing, how the telephone and postal services were able to connect us all (in western Europe) to the rest of the world. Television was sometimes brought via satellite, and only few imagined the future to be at near hand, as described in science fiction literature and in scientific exhibitions and magazines. In fact, we were already living in a science fiction, when it came to infrastructure.

Fourty years has past since then, and what should have been an evolution became a revolution. All infrastructure, but especially 'cyberspace', has changed the world as we knew it. Right this moment people around the globe are risking their lives to freedom, because they know, they can be part of a new world order - they can make a difference in creating tomorrow via the internet. 

In the future, there will be no need for books to find information. It will all be on the internet. Every human being on the planet should have the birthright to a computer and internetconnection to participate with a global membership. This is the demand of millions, and cannot be dictated otherwise. Many sources on the internet are deficient today. The task is to expand and increase the level of information and sources. As an example, when I'm in doubt about translating, I use Google Translate, but only because my knowledge of the english language is sufficient enough to know whether it is a fairly correct use of the language, that Google suggests. In most cases Google is absolutely inadequate when it comes to translation of foreign words or combined words.

By studying the pages of E-twinning, ESP (European Schools Project Association), Comenius and other attempts to connect with pupils and teachers around the globe, I found that the means and the tools haven't really changed since I attended to primary school in the seventies. But these sights have made it so much easier to connect and choose from the variety of possibilities of cooperating, learning and inspiring each other. There are multiple ways of learning from each other, and I find it nescesarry for all students around the globe, regardless of position, that we increase our understanding of our own and others' cultures. Where do we meet? Or what is the premise of meeting, exchanging and learning? First of all, I believe, that exploring and knowing ones own culture and being aware of it's distinctive characteristics, is the foundation of learning about other cultures. Knowing something about prejudice and ethnocentricity from the beginning, is also basic and essential in being able to expand ones consciousness of cultural differences.

On a practical level I prefer using computers for all subjects in school in 10-20 % of the lessons, which is also the recommendations of the Danish Education Ministry. I sincerely hope that all of the danish students will have access to their own personal computer in school, or at least one for sharing in the classroom, by the end of this decade. I am fortunate to be a language teacher - I will be able to start a project of "The image of the other". There is no doubt, that this program will give both teacher and pupils basic skills of communicating with a class situated in another culture. Having this experience, I would like to try a more practical project, exchanging methods, trying them out and evaluate. It would be obvious to experiment with daily needs like cooking, gardening or "A day in the others life" in continuation of "The image of the other".