MyPlace What might be my place in the 21st Century? Welcome Guest | Login or Register

As we come to the end of the school year, those of us involved in the MyPlace Project would love to get a snapshot of what young people think about their place in the world. A special blog post form has been created for this purpose. There are three videos to choose from. The idea is to pick the video that most interests you and write your best response.

1. Write a post where you answer the question “What can we do to make the world a better place?” Use one of the three videos as the starting point for your response.
2. Write as well and honestly as you can.
3. When you’ve finished writing, please take a short survey if you haven’t already.

This research is designed so that we can create better learning activities for students. When you are ready, click on the image above or click here to make a post about how we can make the world a better place.

Watch this video and see what you think. It illustrates some of the issues we’re looking at in MyPlace - mostly those related to changes in demographics and careers. See what you think and put your reflections online so others can give you feedback and together we can see if people are in agreement about any aspects.

Perhaps the best Thinking Routine we can use here is:

SEE-THINK-WONDER

1. What do you see?
2. What do you think about that?
3. What does it make you wonder?

You can post your thoughts either in the comments below or register with our online community and put your ideas on your own blog (here’s a Help page if you need it).

(You can read more from the creators of the video)

This video from the TED conference is a three minute expert call to consider the question:

Does Globalisation have to mean adopting an unhealthy diet?

Download link

Consider using the Thinking Routine:

CLAIM-SUPPORT-QUESTION

1. Make a claim about the topic
2. Identify support for your claim
3. Ask a question related to your claim

James Fallows is one of the great journalists of the US. He is a former speech writer for President Carter and editor of US News & World Report and The Atlantic Monthly. His interests and expertise range from current events and politics to technology and Asia. He recently moved to China and has been reporting on a country he’s known first-hand for over 20 years. Watch this slideshow that he narrates and apply some thinking routines like:

You can also watch a previous slideshow - Our Man in China - that is more about first impressions on first moving to China at the end of 2006.

The New York Times recently posted an audio-visual slideshow on how global warming is likely to be most severe for those peoples’ already struggling to survive.

Here’s a suggested activity:

Needed equipment: data projector and an Internet-connected computer with speakers.

Watch

As a group, watch the slideshow. You might watch it more than once.

As you watch, note something that strikes you. Maybe something surprised you. Perhaps something seems unfair or wrong. Maybe it makes you feel like taking some kind of action.

Discuss

As a group, start to share the things that struck you. After everyone who wants to has shared, start to “chunk” these things into main groupings. See if you can’t find 2 - 4 main categories. Think about mind-mapping these out to make the activity easier to visualise.

Decide

After getting everyone’s input, decide what you think. This could be a sentence or a paragraph depending on your age, interest and time. A decision is different than an idea or a feeling. A decision expresses a belief and its reasons. You might find it easier to do this is you use words like “it is wrong,” “we should / should not,” or “In order to.”

You can write in a notebook or set up your own MyPlace blog in the Online Space. Even easier, you can add your decision as a comment to this post (see the link below).

Let us know what you think!