Designing and implementing intercultural distance education environments, as well as planning cross-cultural workplaces in organizations, in today’s diverse societies, might be frustrating. The amazing technological leap forward has not been matched by a cognitive development and necessary competences.

Outcomes in both intercultural distance education projects and in cross – cultural organizational team work, depend on interpersonal and intergroup empathic and collaborative dialogues. Such dialogues emerge in a lab-like process, nurturing the 21^st century competences in a specially designed social environment.

“SnowblogCT netcity” provides such a model.

It has been developed by Language Connections Organization based on several proof of concept pilot projects and many implementations among youth and K-12 - university students from four different geographic regions, across a wide array of individual and group divides, gaps and differences.

The model, which was presented at MIT LINC international conference ( Cambridge USA, May 2010) can be integrated in any existing system.

Gal Springman, Language Connections Chairperson, presented “Snowblog CT net city” project, based on Snowblog project series developed by Language Connections Organization, at the MIT LINC conference.

In the current Snowblog CTnetcity project, Urban environments were chosen as the common shared theme. An authentic topic for every participant, allowing diverse, but mutually enriching approaches: documentary research-based and fictional literary expression, using blended verbal and visual multi-media.

Chinese Science students enjoyed visual and verbal narratives and artistic assignments, students of Humanistic discipline from the US and Ukraine practiced scientific action research and photography as social inquiry, Palestinian and Israeli students exchanged topics of common interest, all learned from the technology savvy Americans and their teacher, Associate Professor Ludmila Smirnova, how to integrate web 2.0 tools to their learning and content production.

Individual and collaborative e- portfolios were created. Tutors helped develop critical higher order thinking and creativity.

Buds of group identity have been developed, despite the limited time.

We would like to take this opportunity and thank the local tutors who co led the project with Gal Springman, to its successful outcomes:

Ms. Ying Qu from the Chinese academy of Sciences, Shanghai.

Associate professor Nina Lyulkun, Associate Professor at Khmel’nyts’ky National University, Ukraine

Tatiana Zubenko, Associate Professor at Mykolayiv State University named after Sukhomlynskyi

And Associate Professor Ludmila Smirnova, Associate Professor at Mount Saint Mary College.

2. Matilda’s Support Group from Mykolayiv

A successful presentation of SnowblogCTnetcity intercultural project by Language Connections. at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, April 15 , 2010–04–21

Language Connections Organization and the Tel Aviv Cinematheque presented the methodology and model of Snowblog CT net city – Digital Urban Narratives project.

Current participants in the project  are university students from USA, Ukraine, China and The Middle East.

At the event, Language Connections’ team exposed to the general public “Matilda the Rebellious Urban Rat”, a Dark Narrative hypertext, planned to launch an experimental web 2.0 story-telling platform, to complement the documentation of urban life with its “dark” legends and myths.

Dark Urban Narratives are part of Snowblog CT net city project, focusing on urban evironment as its main theme. The idea behind the Dark Urban Narratives is to provide a literary imaginative ”  mirror picture” to the urban narratives that are cultural/social reporting oriented.

Chapter1

There was once a rat living in New York, whose name was Matilda. Like all rats, Matilda’s morning routine consisted of running through a man made  maze. “How boring and pointless.” Matilda thought to herself one day. “To think I spend day after day stuck in this maze, when I could enjoy the richness of the world outside.” But Matilda’s routine went on, until one day, Matilda’s owner left her cage open   and she ran away. “At last! So long, Maze. I hope I’ll never see you again! New York, Here I come!”

But Matilda soon realized that New York City isn’t the right place for a rat.

Everywhere she went, people kicked her away. “Filthy rat! Get out of here!”, but Matilda wasn’t quick to give up. She gathered food, and hid in the places no one would expect her to. Her favorite hiding place was the Cinema’s screening room. “This might not be the most comfortable place, but at least I can eat some popcorn, and enjoy the classics.” Matilda thought as she watched “Casablanca”, and ate popcorn from a cup she had stolen. “A rat could get used to living here.”

But Matilda’s luck had ran out again, and The Cinema was closed down. “No more popcorn, And no more Bogart. Where can I go to next?” she thought, quite bitter after the Cinema was closed down. She was alone in the streets, without anyone that could take care of her. “Living in The Big Apple is overrated. I miss my owner.”, “Hey, you.” A voice called out, and it seemed as if Matilda’s luck had returned when she spotted a large, over-fed rat, wearing a miniature trench coat and fedora. “Fancy some work?” he asked her, and walked over to her. “What kind of work?” she asked, while shaking uncontrollably from the cold. Matilda noticed that a group of rats started to encircle her and the large rat.  They were all wearing miniature trench coats, and looked very menacing. “Well, see.  My name is Freddie, and these are my boys. We rule the streets here. We get young rats like you to take what’s ours from people.” “You mean steal.” “Well, yes. In a manner of speaking. We find them a nice place in the big city, get them food.  We take care of them. So what do you think, Kiddo? Are you in?” Matilda thought long and hard. She really didn’t like Freddie, and she started to miss her old life. “Well, I know you’re fancying yourself as Fagen, but I’m not going to be your Oliver Twist. No thanks, Freddie.”

The rats all looked at Freddie, excepting him to get angry at Matilda.  Instead, he started to laugh. “Listen, Kiddo, no rat in this town says no to Freddie. Let’s see how you make it on your own.” He started to walk away, but Matilda wasn’t finished.  ”I think you should let the others go, too.” Freddie turned around, and looked at her.  He was clearly angry now. Young rats were climbing out of their hiding places to watch the confrontation.  “No one bosses Freddie around, you get that?   I rule these streets.” Matilda looked at her crowd, and then back at Freddie. “That’s funny. I don’t see a crown. Do you know what I think, Freddie? I think you’re a fat, pathetic rat who uses other rats to steal for him to make himself look big. But guess what? You’re a rat, just like all of us. You’re not bigger than any of us.” That was the last straw for Freddie. He jumped at Matilda, who defended herself.  Matilda bit Freddie, and kicked him aside. Everyone was amazed.  Freddie was lying on the floor, whimpering. “GET HER, BOYS!”  he yelled, but none of the other rats listened to him.  They all cast Matilda admiring looks. “No one ever talked to Freddie like that before.”  One of the young rats said. “Well, you all should have, long ago.” “Maybe you can lead us instead?” another rat asked, quite excited by the prospect. “Oh, no. I think I’ve had enough of the big city. I’m going back to my maze. Take care of yourselves.” “Will we ever see you again?” another young rat asked. “Sure. You can come visit me, even if my owner won’t like it much.  I’ll give you a bit of advice, though- Life in the Big City is hard enough as it is for a rat.  Don’t you let anyone boss you around.” And with those words, she left the city and went back to her maze.

Copyright © Language Connections Organization, 2010 All rights reserved

Language Connections participated in Will Smith‘s “Shine Your Light” project.

The project, fostering tolerance, was introduced by Will Smith at the Wiesenthal Center‘s National Tribute Dinner in Los Angeles 3 months ago. The international Jewish human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center has bestowed its highest honor, the 2009 Humanitarian award, on Hollywood mega-star Will Smith. The award was given for his commitment to education, cultural diversity, and social responsibility.

Will Smith had online video dialogues with children around the world . Language Connections’ young representative participated as well.

As part of the “Shine Your Light” project, Will Smith and the young international participants wrote a poem collaboratively.

Here, you can see  a picture of part of the poem with Will Smith’s  first lines followed by the other participants.

Language Connections‘ contribution is 4th in row.

More pictures will come soon

]]> http://www.languageconnections.org/?feed=rss2&p=321 0 http://www.languageconnections.org/?p=311 http://www.languageconnections.org/?p=311#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:25:55 +0000 gal http://www.languageconnections.org/?p=311 Read more »]]> President Obama’s speech, addressing the Muslim world and sending a message of empathic interfaith and intercultural dialog for all nations as well, echoes many core values residing at the heart of Language Connections‘ projects.

This speech is an encouragement for many individual “change agents”, such as the members of our team and other international educators cooperating  with us, who have been transforming that presidential message into deeds in rough times and against the odds for so many years, with limited governmental or institutional support.

We  hope that  the President’s speech will motivate more people around the globe to better understand  the importance of the individuals’  contribution to the common goals.

To read the speech copy and paste the address below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html

But, in reality, their interpersonal serious interaction is limited to only 7 friends.

(10 with female users).

In one of his recent interviews, Cameron Marlow, a research scientist at Facebook admits that active communication in Facebook is very limited. It seems that in the online “crowded” social networks, there is no networking, but mainly one way broadcasting of individual members.

These findings reaffirm what we, at Language Connections, have been claiming for several years: developing the essential skills for the 21^st century such as multicultural competence, creativity and higher-order-thinking, can happen only in functional gated social networks that facilitate authentic real dialogues and not in the open crowded networks.

Our SnowBlog program is designed specifically for that task.

You can read the article of Cameron Marlow here