Project: Google Earth

I have talked a lot about using digital media in the classroom so far in this blog. It was pretty obvious that it would be like that because that is the name of the course for which I created this blog. Well, this is the last post that I am required to add. It deals with our last project assignment that I created using Google Earth. Here it is:
http://www.googleearth.com/places/myplaces/lanocheviejacongoogleearth

The purpose of this project is for my students to see how New Year’s Eve is celebrated in several different Hispanic countries and to compare these celebrations to the typical celebration in the USA. I hope that they will see that in all these places New Year’s Eve is a popular holiday but that each local has its own traditions, some overlap but others are very different from the others.
I have had the wonderful opportunity to travel a great deal in my life. No matter where I have been, America, Europe, Asia or Africa, I have always been awed that people in all these places are all the same, but at the same time we are very different. I think it is very important for my students to learn this. The differences are what make life interesting and we all should learn to celebrate the differences and, at the same time, realize all the similarities. That is the goal of this project.
Howard Gardner in his book 5 Minds for the Future states that our students need to develop respectful minds and ethical minds. I believe that the message that I am trying to convey with this project will help them to achieve this; at least I hope so. Our world is shrinking. Never before has the saying “the world is a handkerchief” been more true. Thanks to the internet, we can communicate with people from anywhere on the planet. Our students do indeed need, more than ever, respectful minds and ethical minds.