Globalize This! Film Festival   School: Macklin Public School Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Name: Sue Roliff

"TakingITGlobal gives them a connection outside the four walls of the school."

	Creativity
	Education and Technology
	Film Festival
	Global Awareness
	Photo Project
	TIG and Curriculum
	Why Technology
	Diversity
	Education
	Employment
	Environment
	Health and Wellness
	ICTs and Digital Opportunities
	Media - How does IT affect you?
	Peace
	Poverty
	Social Justice and Human Rights

During Sue Roliff’s thirty years as a teacher she experienced the evolution of technology in the classroom, from the Apple IIE and “floppy” software to Web 2.0.

In 2004, Sue’s 8th grade class used TakingITGlobal.org to create the Globalize This! Film Festival. Over five months, with help from TakingITGlobal staff, the students used the site to research global issues, contact organizations working on those issues and discuss their findings with TIG members The festival gave her students the opportunity to refine their research and writing skills, and experiment with a number of different technologies. The public nature of the festival—parents, teachers, and community leaders were invited—presented these 13 year olds an opportunity to be the experts in the room. After all the films were shown, students fielded questions from the audience, impressing people three to four times their age with the depth of their knowledge.

The impact of the project was so profound that in 2006, Sue used the Understanding the Issues section of TIG again, this time to create a photography project for her 6th grade students:

Assignment Description Each group has been assigned one Understanding to research; choose one or two subtopics and present your findings to the class. Make sure that you thoroughly understand the issue as the class will be asking you questions. A computer presentation will also be marked as a component of your assignment. The background knowledge that you have gained will be very important to the next step of this project… photography, with your Understanding as the focus.

Students were then provided with cameras to create images that represented their Understandings research. Sue used TIG’s Global Gallery and the public exhibition of her students’ work as a means inspire engagement in the process, and give students the chance to spark a dialogue with youth from around the world.

Incorporating TIG into the curriculum
"There is so much there, that you just need to make the connection to your curriculum. I am sure that your curriculum is different than ours, but you just need to look at it and say, ‘ok, this works!"

Developing Global Awareness
"When we started this the kids didn’t have an understanding of what education was like in Africa or the treatment of women in Iran. When they began researching they were amazed at what they found out, and they were proud of themselves for being able to talk about issues."

Best Practice:
Media such as games and film provide engaging methods to introduce students to complex issues. Giving your students the opportunity to create this kind of media forces them to understand both content (issues) and techique (technology) at a deeper level.