During the week of June 22-26, 2009, the World Affairs Council held our second annual Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI). Thirty high school students from 14 different Puget Sound area schools spent five days together learning about global issues and planning to take leadership roles in raising awareness among their peers.
We have taken on a big challenge with this program. The idea is to reach more than just the thirty individuals who attended the program. By helping these students connect with others who share their interest in global issues and by supporting them in their peer education plans, we want to be a catalyst for community building and for prompting many teens to think about the world beyond our borders.
Skoolaborate can help with both of these goals. So, we jumped in, anxious to see how the students would react and what they would make of all this.
In one short week, we saw both joys and challenges.
Going “in world” for the first time with this large group of students, we were nervous: Would they like it? Would they just feel overwhelmed by the notorious learning curve? Would we have enough helpers to answer all their questions?
What a joy to immediately find several members of the Skoolaborate community there to greet us and help the students get oriented! We met welcoming students and teachers from Australia, Chile, and Canada. It really speaks volumes about the sense of community that is building within Skoolaborate that these individuals were willing to make time in their busy schedules to come and help us, not just for one session, but across four sessions. We are so impressed by this and so grateful for the support.
Our GYLI students had lots of fun learning to get around “in world,” practicing their Spanish language skills with their peers from Chile, and touring around some of the fantastic builds such as the Great Firewall of China and the Taiwan area. By the end of the week, most students were able to contribute a panel to the Dilemmas Tapestry, which involved learning some beginning building skills and selecting an issue they want to highlight.
So, what did we learn? First, we learned that a week is awfully short! Some students were just starting to get the hang of it (or see the point of it) when the week ended. Challenge #1: Next time, we need to do a better job of introducing the virtual world and explaining how/why Skoolaborate uses this tool (in addition to other tools). Some students reported that they enjoyed it, but had trouble seeing the application, at least at first.
We also learned that these students are thirsty for knowledge of the world. In the end, we asked students to fill out an evaluation form for the whole week. The GYLI experience included expert speakers, a field trip, workshops, and more. So, we were trying to squeeze in quite a bit of activity and Skoolaborate was just one part of it. But among all of that, 7 students reported that Skoolaborate will be one of the most memorable parts of the experience, and 17 rated it a 4 or a 5 (on a scale of 1-5). Since the evaluations were anonymous, we can’t say for sure, but it seems as if the younger students were more open to this experience.
Keep in mind that this is a very serious group of students. After all, they did apply to spend a week of their summer holiday learning about global issues. So, activities need to combine high interest, educational value, and fun in order to meet with their approval. There is no doubt that Skoolaborate has all three of those qualities, but it is a challenge to get students oriented fast enough to make it clear for them in such a short time.
The GYLI students gave the highest ratings for the week to the expert speakers that we brought in. They heard first-hand from a former US Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a veteran CIA officer in the Directorate of Science and Technology, and two international journalists who co-founded the Common Language Project. These students are hungry for knowledge about the world! Which brings us to Challenge #2 . . .
Challenge #2: How can we bring expert speakers into Skoolaborate – perhaps through live streaming of presentations – in order to continue the learning and also include other members of the Skoolaborate community in these events?
Looking ahead, we aim to keep in touch with our GYLI students and entice them to return to Skoolaborate by holding meetings and events that will interest them. This can be a place where we keep in touch with one another while simultaneously forming relationships with peers overseas and discussing vital world issues.
While this work is not easy, there is clearly a powerful group of individuals within Skoolaborate who share a vision of an international community where students can safely interact, share ideas, ask questions, learn about the world, and communicate their own ideas through creative builds. Here at the World Affairs Council, we look forward to seeing Skoolaborate grow and finding ways to contribute to this exciting project!
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