I will be leading several workshops called "Exploring Cambodian Culture" at the Sage School (preK-8 school for gifted students) during "Cluster Week." Cluster Week concept is based on Joseph Renzulli’s Triad Model of learning for gifted students where students participate in a variety of workshops that emphasize higher-order thinking skills, providing opportunities for creative and productive applications of these skills to real-world situations.
While doing research on the Web for the course content, I stumbled upon an article called "A Field Guide to Cross Cultural Projects" which lead me to an educational technology integration model called CultureQuest . The site defines it as:
CultureQuests allow students to examine, understand, and appreciate diverse cultures, including the student's own culture. These inquiry-based projects are rooted in student questions and interests, and involve the focused, intensive study of one or more aspects of the literature, art, music, history, religion, language, daily life, customs, and traditions of other cultures. A CultureQuest is undertaken by an entire class working together, within which small groups of students focus on areas of the culture that are of particular interest to them.
A secondary goal of a CultureQuest is to provide students with the technology skills they will need for the 21st century.
I will be working with K-2 students and most likely be in a one-computer classroom that does not have an Internet connection. So, for starters I'm focusing on the content, instruction, and learning tasks and have these available on my site, Cambodia4kids. Once I've implemented the workshop in the classroom and revised it, I hope to explore how to better integrate the technology basics as part of the classroom activities such as:
- Internet basics such as searching, evaluating, and citing Internet resources, and developing appropriate and ethical use policies
- Using the Internet for access to experts, other student helpers, and cultural ambassadors
- Creating and designing Web sites to publish student work
- Using desktop videoconferencing.
I have a lot more reading and digesting to do, but for starters I wonder what the difference is between a Culturequest and Webquest?
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