“The Village Project”            

Global Villages for Early STEM Education  

Global Knowledge Exchange 409 Minnisink Road, Totowa, New Jersey 07512 USA

Tel: 973-890-0010 www.GKE.com Contact: JChang@GKE.com

“One World, One Classroom”

“One World, One Classroom” Global Knowledge Exchange (GKE) is a worldwide membership organization. GKE brings together corporations, government agencies, educational institutions, community-based organizations and interested individuals in a unique global alliance. GKE and its members are dedicated to empowering the new global learners. GKE actively promotes its trademark “One World, One Classroom” program through conferences, seminars and demonstration projects and is the designer & developer of the “Global KnowledgeWEB Learning Systems” and the “Global Knowledge Exchange Program.” The Need for “The Village Project”-- A Global Perspective

As society shifts from the “Information Age” to a new “Learning Age,” learning is no longer the preparation for a job, it is the job. Business and industry understand that the next wave of productivity gains will be realized through improved human capital management and by a massive and worldwide re-alignment of talent which can respect no national borders. The worldwide education community is responding creatively to this unprecedented challenge. Educators have developed an innovative, a richer and more systematic framework for learning – i.e. the “21st Century Learning Initiative.” Within this rainbow framework, students and their teachers are expected to function as self-directed lifelong learners. They are required to internalize a whole new set of 21st century skills and take far more direct responsibility for their own individual learning. We call this bold student-centered, individualized, self-paced, self-help approach “deep learning.” It’s not a question of how much seat time a student spends or how many teachers you might hire. The only thing that matters is results. This means successful learning outcomes for as many students as possible and being able to measure these outcomes accurately. This means good data, real-time performance support, and continuous tracking of student achievement. Along with the new educational systems and the new focus on learning process itself, including social learning, comes a revolutionary organizational concept for reframing education itself. Schools are taking risks and reinventing themselves and moving away from being mere teaching organizations and becoming instead multi-level learning organizations. The classroom is being transformed. It is no longer a solo teaching environment. It is a student-centered, networked team environment that empowers lifelong learning and that leverages the talents of a multi-generational learning team, whose members are drawn from all over the world. The development of this next generation global education workforce is essential in order to support the new “net” generation of self-directed lifelong learners. Yes, it takes a global village to raise today’s child! And, yes, it takes an engaged global village team to educate the modern lifelong learner with the 21st century skills needed for success in a borderless world! The phrase “One World, One Classroom” is a perfect expression of the GKE global alliance concept and is a good summary of what the Village Project will create. We embrace the same education framework (21st century skills framework) long advocated by modern corporations but start the entire process much earlier, beginning in preschool as “Pre-School Skills for the 21st Century.” GKE “Global Early Learning System” (Global ELS)

The Global Early Learning System is designed to speed the development of dynamic global alliances. This is an organic, highly distributed, highly interactive, global education system, and a good demonstration of how to build a complete education ecology. The Global ELS is comprised of materials that have been field-tested extensively in Asia. This is the result of a GKE strategic alliance with Learning Bean. The Global ELS emphasizes 21st century skills for success integrated with

technology-based learning, individualization, continuous assessment and reporting, a feedback loop, and holistic (whole brain) learning approaches. The system teaches good habits of mind. Following successful deployment in Taiwan and a successful field test in China, the Global ELS products and services are now being deployed in a large scale introduction throughout preschool institutions in the Greater China Region. The Global ELS system can provide value-added products and services for just about any established preschool institution. The Global ELS approach does not encroach on traditional content and pedagogy. The Global ELS focuses on “how a learner learns well.” It nurtures in each young learner the required learning and innovation skills plus the critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity skills necessary for 21st century success. In addition, the program fosters concentration and attention skills, categorization skills, decision making, self-insight and direction, motivation and leadership, and the integration of rational and creative thinking as flexible, individualized processes. In short, this is a personalized learning system. The “Village Project” Global Early Learning System views early learners, their parents, and their teachers as part of a well coordinated total learning team. It is supported by a set of well-integrated technology components which we call the “Intelligent Paper (iPaper) Instruction Delivery and Support System.” This modern user-friendly system includes: an Intelligent Pen (iPen), an Intelligent Box (iBox), a set of Intelligent Teacher Guides (iTeacher Guide) and Intelligent Student Workbooks (iWorkbook) in various languages. The system includes the cloud-based iCARE communications system used for teacher professional development and as a communication platform btw teachers and parents.

GKE has invented a simple, reliable and highly innovative modern handheld touch device for immediate interaction and control of multimedia study materials. It looks like an ordinary consumer item but it does so much. Indeed at first glance it appears to be merely a pen or crayon of some kind – except it has a tiny built-in sensor, speaker and even an optional plug-in headset. Touch any area of the page and the system instantly brings up videos, audios, pictures, and animation. It also makes clever game-based learning and simulations an integral part of learning. The high quality pictures and easily understood spoken words are far more engaging to the child than printed words alone. And the voice component of the system has been very carefully handled – i.e. the spoken words are very clear, very well articulated, and very faithful to the best spoken language. (In fact the audio output is of such high quality that it even benefits some parents as they listen side by side with their child.) The system empowers teachers in multiple ways. For example, it frees them from standing at the front of the class so they are able to focus on observing and help the individual students. Videos of actual classrooms provide support data. Teachers are seen constantly moving around the learning center and interacting spontaneously with students one-on-one. And the students use the pen to interact with the books in an almost human-like easy back and forth interaction .In summary the iPaper Intelligent Instructional Delivery System (iPaper) increases teacher and student productivity without sacrificing the quality of the learning. It allows teachers and teaching assistants to give preschoolers direct individualized attention. The iPaper system is a highly effective student-centered and personalized system

Magic “intelligent Pen” (iPen)

”intelligent Box” (iBox)

Empower Teachers with the iCare Professional Development Support and Communication System

An Empowered Learning Team

A Mentor- and Facilitator-Supported Personalized Learning Environment

The “Village Project” is holistic. The pedagogy dovetails the physical and the mental via an integrated learning and teaching strategy, directed and flexible. Field testing has resulted in a system praised by both parents and professional educators. It had proven to be especially well-suited for young learners and their individualized needs. The importance of this holistic integration of the physical into the academic classroom is called for by the recommendations of President Barack Obama’s White House Task Force’s report and recommendations to the President as well as the “Let’s Move” initiative launched by First Lady Michelle Obama. In addition this integrated solution is especially timely given the recently released 2011 report, F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future, issued by the New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health. The “Village Project” methodology empowers the learner, the parents, and the entire teaching team in decision-making, leadership, and independence. This differentiating strategy is built into the program and creates powerful system capacities that address interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences as well as the naturalist and environmental intelligences. Empowerment emerges because of the ability to customize the system and because of its continual assessment feedback and rewards. An entire continuum of skills is supported with oversight, not only from the educator but also from the family and the empowered learner. Emphasis is placed on the distinctive nature of the feedback and assessment built into the “Village Project.” It is important, not only in its capacity to provide a powerful guided pathway for the educator but also in its meaningful feedback and support for the actual learners. The empowered learner’s feedback loop is integral to the decision-making capacity embedded into the “Village Project” Global Early Learning System. Important for all learners, but especially critical for the young learner, the reward component happens quickly through technology-assisted and mentor-facilitated feedback. Experimentation is encouraged. There are low stakes pieces integrated into the product’s process, and learner involvement, interest, choice, and collaboration are encouraged.

A Set of Home-based Programmable Intelligent Books (iBook)

As the system is fully Americanized to align with the United States common core standard as well as the various American State-adopted early learning standards, the long experience of GKE in building bridges between nations and cultures will be invaluable. Along with further enriching the early learning product itself, the refining and maturing of the concepts and theory that underlie the global village program will be strongly supported and accelerated in the project. The global village learning teams will produce replicable and, sustainable, low cost products, systems, and models. They will drive toward education’s true transformational tipping point. Then, empowered learning on a global scale can begin to shape the nature of what it means to be human in the 21st century … 21st Century Global Child

GKE Learning Bean Global Early Learning System

Product & Services Experience Center

“One World, One Classroom”