Lec 2 MIT CMS.930 Media, Education and the Marketplace

star Festival is a new CD ROM based career curriculum that enables teachers to take their students on an interactive electronic field trip to explore other cultures and their own cultural identity originally based on Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the CD ROM tells the story of real life MIT Professor Shigeru miyagawa as he returns to Japan during the star festival and rediscovers his roots and Heritage finally the seventh day of the seventh month is arrived it's a beautiful clear day so the tanabata lovers will probably meet I feel like I've made a journey too from My adoptive culture back to my roots am I American or Japanese or American and Japanese maybe like the magpies of of the Tabatha my I'm a bridge between two [Music] cultures I thought I knew all about Japan and I realize now I just made a lot of [Music] assumptions the professor recorded his notes into a Hightech diary known as the PDA during the festival he loses the PDA we find it and are able to experience his rediscovery of his native [Music] land attemp toage please reset please reset complete welcome to the PDA prototype X lv7 you are in browse mode the professor visited 20 sites in his hometown we never see him but we can listen to his memos performed by George teay famous for his role as Sulu on Star Trek Star Festival is um to peek into another world and discover something of your own and get an appreciation of yourself and your culture via an exposure to another map mode is another way to navigate to a new site let's go to the high school we see a picture of the professor's mother and artifacts all clickable related to her experiences during World War II let's listen to his [Applause] [Music] memo July 5 11:33 a.m. day 3 I hope I'm not getting off track but I can't stop thinking about the stories my mother told last night so I've asked her to let me interview her about the war now let's listen to Mrs miwa's memories of the war the b29 bombers flew right over hka on their way to Tokyo when they came the sirens would go off and we had to turn off all the light we went into the bomb shelter when it seemed really dangerous on the day herka was bombed I was sleeping on the second floor of my Suka home there was shouting wake up wake up the bombing has started students can explore the family [Music] home the professor's field notes full of factual [Music] information and his diary where he stored family [Music] photos [Music] now we [Music] doing not everybody learns the same way not everybody is a visual learner so for some kids this is a real challenge to to do anything manipulative and creative cretive is a real Challenge and for some it it fits like a glove some kids are Auto Learners and some learn by reading some learn by doing so as many ways as you can present material to kids the more ways you can present material to kids I think the better off you are and I think this multimedia approach the the the idea of having a CD ROM in a classroom for kids to to have right there and to do research from is fantastic plus um our kids are computer literate that see the house it's kind of interesting because it's like you can see how Jaan is and um what lifestyles are like and um it holds so much information it's like unbelievable to complement the award-winning CD ROM a practical and Innovative curriculum has been developed for grades K through 12 by Boston's Children's Museum renowned for their work with teachers and Intercultural issues the curriculum is easy to use and tied to the national standards in areas such as social studies language arts geography and history the material is of exceptional quality developed over a 6-year period and beta tested by teachers of all grades in Boston public and Suburban schools because it is based on a true story the CD ROM is engaging for all ages from kindergarten through high school learners find age appropriate material just as they do in real [Music] life with you have to okay now you need to go to here see that right over here cck they like the CD because it's not like most of the things we have on the computer cartoons or drawings and so this wasn't it was like real people and it was like real photos and you know really being in the place and then I thought well you know they can't read but they could operate this because most of it is language that they can listen and figure out what it is and even though it does have a lot of writing that I could read to them or I could read and then shorten it down they would go to the places that the people were talking and they enjoyed that and I thought this is really an advantage because you don't really have to be a great reader you can sort of follow along and they were great at reading the map it was I never showed them the map all by themselves they figured out oh look here's the map gave them an opportunity to really experience a different kind of life and a different kind of people and a lot of the children I have come from different cultures and actually probably gave them more insight into another culture because even though they go to school with one another they don't know that much about each other's uh backgrounds and and where they come from or what part of the world or what language they speak at home so I think it really did give them a new horizon [Music] it was fun and they learned and I think they have a different feeling about people of different backgrounds by just meeting the professing himself by learning about themselves and learning about their classmates instead of being from one place he could be from both because he had ask him stuff like whether is he Japanese or American or American and Japanese so it it would be a hard decision too to decide like what are you and stuff um I used to hate the Japanese people because my great-grandfather died of a bomb because of Japanese people and now I don't really hate Japanese people as [Music] much [Music] students respond to the multimedia approach and Hands-On self-directed exploration as they learn about the professor's story they relate his experiences to their own they would just encourage each other and I stopped doing my before school workor in the morning you know that paper and pencil kind of an activity because I saw them going right to the computer and I said hey they're learning more from there what they are from just a review sheet so it was easy for me to get excited about doing this with them I was able to do letter writing I was able to do a data collection and do a product out of that so I Incorporated my curriculum the Boston curriculum into the lessons so it wasn't hard the curriculum outlines activities that address learning skills at each grade level including letter writing data collection reading research skills presentation skills critical thinking and collaborative work in small groups I just had them basically do from year one to the present it was nice and warm outside that was the day that he was born cuz I asked him to go back and interview their parents and whoever they could to find out information about themselves just like the professor was interviewing people to find out more about his own background or his family I wanted them to go home and interview their parents or grandparents auns and [Music] uncles the CD ROM makes it easy to utilize the computer in your classroom well first of all I was scared to death of the computer and I I think I told you right away I hate computers I'm a computer not a computer nerd a computer I don't know how to turn it on I don't know what to do when the gentleman brought it in installed it in my cage in the back room here they gave me one simple sheet that just told me how to turn it on how to get into the program and then the program really explains itself and it really invites you to explore the pieces of it by itself I mean the instructions are all there and I felt so good about it that I would stay after school and and look at it and I really wasn't afraid anymore so I think that it's a it's a good tool1 surprisingly enough they got very involved very emotional about it and um they felt very close to the professor because many of them had come from other countries or their parents had come from other countries so they knew the feelings but how important it is to find out more about your own background and not just become one of many you have to really stick out and become yourself and be proud of what you are and I think it really enabled them to do that and they got to look at both the sides they got to look at the nice things about it and they also got to look at how hard people worked and how difficult it was for the um storkeeper how things were changing for him and how sad that was the war part how sad that was but they also got to move on and to see how things can be rebuil and how things can be changed and how en richy life could be and how you contribute and I you make it better I really had a great time I can't wait for next year's class to do [Music] it think of star Festival as a textbook that has come to life an environment where students can observe and draw their own conclusions it is a pathway to a new type of learning that is independent yet guided that fits the national standards and that integrates the technology of today with the wisdom of the [Music] past fore foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] are [Music] for