Technology Use Across Cultures

Reposted from Trevor Lindsay and Stacey Walker’s Gr 5 blog:

This afternoon we had a unique opportunity to learn how technology is used in the native countries of Riverstone’s international students. Students from China, Norway, Germany, France, Israel, Spain, and Albania shared the technology use in their home schools. It was a great way to make international connections, learn from the experts at our school and inquire further into our line of inquiry. Surprisingly, Riverstone uses technology more than any of the other students’ home schools. Students from China shared how many teachers view technology as a distraction and entertainment rather than an educational tool. Norway was the only country similar to Riverstone’s technology use in school. In relation to our central idea, technology enables individual expression while diversifying interactions with others, these students shared how frequently they use technology to communicate with their friends and family in their home countries.

Some of these students also shared their family’s email address so we can make contact and share our summative assessment, a creative articulation of expressing themselves to communicate internationally.