Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Do words and pictures define time?



It's been some time since I first stumbled across 10x10, but I continue to be as fascinated with the power of the site today as I was then. Surf around a bit on the picture montage, and you'll soon be addicted. But don't let the noodling potential fool you; there is extreme power in the imagery of 10x10 and the methodology behind it.

What's going on in the world at any given time ultimately affects each one of us, and 10x10 affords us snapshots of world events that we probably won't see on our local news. How might students and teachers use this tool?

Here are two activities:
1. use 10x10 to research your birthday - what happened last year on that day in the world that might affect you in some small way?
2. take a look at one whole month or one whole year - without the headlines, can you reconstruct your own narrative to describe what's happened in the pictures? You might even use the web to find the original news stories/events.

If we want to be global learners, we must learn more about the world in which we live, work, and play.

1 comment:

Joseph Miller said...

John,

I followed your assigment to research by birthday and here is what I found for 2005. A picture with the title "Peace" (http://www.tenbyten.org/Data/2005/09/14/09/peace.jpg) I instantly knew it was Pervez Musharraf the Preseident of Pakistan on the right, but didn't recognize the face on the left. However, I reasoned the following: Pakistan and India have a long standing contentious relationship, so he is probably someone of importance in India. I did the following Google.com search: "peace in pakistan september 14, 2005:

Here is what I learned: (1) the fella on the left is Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. I am disappointed I didn't recognize the leader of the second most populous country in the world (whoa, global learner). (2) On my birthday in 2005 India and Pakistan issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to a peace process and to not allow terrorism impact the process. They are happy with the progress made and especially the recent prisoner exchange. They remain committed to solving the land dispute in Kasmir.

I was also intrigued to learn more about Manmohan Singh and researched his history on wikipedia. I learned that he is the first Sikh to become Prime Minister and is a trained economist.

Thanks for the fun activity.