Recognizing education as a powerful tool to achieve international prosperity, 21st century learning should address the linkages between education and its contributions on the global level, an expert said at a forum in Seoul last week.

“As the world is closely connected due to technological development, it is important to develop skills to effectively communicate and collaborate with people from different cultural backgrounds,” said Jung Eun-hee, the founder and executive director of IVECA International Virtual Schooling at the recent annual meeting of IVECA-Korea, attended mainly by educators here.

IVECA is a nonprofit organization in special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and associated with the U.N. Department of Public Information.

She added that “global citizenship education” enables students to develop skills and bring creative solutions to global problems by facilitating mutual understanding of cultures and cultivating a sense of coexistence.

IVECA’s international virtual schooling program, for instance, connects classrooms around the world via technology between two partner schools from different cultures.

Its global citizenship education is twofold: asynchronous learning and a live class. Through this, students from partner schools in different countries research on same topics and share their assignments on the organization’s online platform.

After studying two or three topics through asynchronous interaction, the students get to participate in virtual face-to-face communication through a 50-minute live class at the end of the semester.

Jung said there were some difficulties in providing the virtual schooling program to some of the underdeveloped parts of other countries, and she is trying to get support from the U.N. and other relevant organizations in expanding her program and ideas.

During a student presentation at the IVECA meeting, Kim Soo-yeon shared her own experience of participating in the program’s learning opportunities.

As the best part of her experience, Kim said she was thrilled to learn about the outside world via technology while just sitting in a classroom. She participated in IVECA activities for two years at Jeon-min High School in Daejeon, before becoming a college freshman this year. 

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)