Learning about Kenya through IVC

Thanks to ACELINK, Summit Middle School students in Fort Wayne, Indiana, are taking part in a Global Nomads Group international collaborative program titled "Kenya: The Power-Sharing Era." The Times Online reports that the five-part program started April 22 and will run through April 30.

ACELINK is a project run by the Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) Division of Continuing Studies and the Invent Tomorrow Education Consortium which provides and promotes the use of technology in education, especially through collaboration. ACELINK provides free programming to Allen County (IN) partner school districts and is sponsoring the Global Nomads Group (GNG) program for Summit Middle School.

The goal of the Global Nomads Group is to use interactive technology, such as interactive videoconferencing, to bring "young people together face-to-face to meet across cultural and national boundaries to discuss their differences & similarities, and the world issues that affect them." For the Kenya program, students will interact with Kenyan students and experts to examine the recent crisis in Kenya:

Through GNG’s live student-to-student interaction, Summit Middle School youth will explore the causes and consequences of the Kenyan post-election crisis and its attendant period of reconciliation. Hearing directly from experts and students on the ground, students will try to make sense of and understand how a democratically stable and comparatively prosperous place became a nightmare of violence and mayhem leading to many deaths and displaced peoples. Furthermore, young North Americans will listen first-hand to how Kenyans from both the Kikuyu and Luo tribes were affected by the crisis, and what it means for them to live in a new age of political power-sharing.

The GNG programs are widely available. You can sign up for upcoming programs at the website. May's program features Bolivia and study of its recent political tensions and changes. GNG also offers streaming of past videoconference programs such as "China: A Superpower Emerges?" and other great resources for bringing the world in to your middle schoolers.

SOURCE: "Summit Middle School to participate in ACELINK Kenya project" 4/21/08
photo courtesy of kevinzim, used under this Creative Commons license