Friday 4ALL: How many lives can you live?

The following TED talk inspired this post. Watch the talk first…

How are we insuring that our students get opportunities to experience other lives and perspectives? How do we provide opportunities for our students to share their own experiences?

One purpose of education is to provide for our students opportunities to share in experiences outside of their own. Empathy and a greater understanding of context is developed through experiencing other’s lives, simulated or otherwise. Simulations and virtual field trips are one way to do this, but interaction with people across cultures and continents can do this as well. The trick is to find ways that we can take advantage of all the technology available to us in order to allow our students to experience others’ lives through authentic interaction.

Simulations, virtual field trips, video conferencing, social networking are just a few ways this can be done. How are you insuring that students experience as many “lives” as possible?
