Global Gazebo - Share Your Day to Day with Cultures Worldwide

I have had the opportunity to learn and teach with some amazing teachers when I lived in other countries. It is amazing to catch up and see what they are doing. You may remember I posted about my friend who was planning a trip for her imaginary student.

In this case a friend is working at a school where the students are trying to figure out how teenagers around the world respond to different cultural questions.

How cool right!

This is done as part of "The Aspen Challenge," an innovative cultural exchange project connecting students across the world. It encourages students to show their ingenuity, creativity, and teamwork to strengthen their leadership skills as they really let their awesomeness show.

The Washington Latin Charter School have set up a site called The Global Gazebo where students of all ages are invited to share their answers to different questions either in pictures or short videos via an app called Burst on their smartphone (Android or iPhone both work). If your students are unable to access smartphones you can e-mail them via theglobalgazebo@gmail.com with the video or picture.

This is all relatively short, and would probably take no more than 10 minutes for even a low level class. However, you could make it into a larger activity by looking at responses already given, discussing why they may be different from your culture and then putting students in groups to plan their answers. 

Since these students are high school students,the focus of the site is teenage, but responses from all ages are welcome.

I think this is an AWESOME opportunity, but it doesn't last long. Questions will be asked this week and next, but they stop collecting answers next week.