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ABSTRACT Teacher education plays a vital role in the development of a literate, globally informed citizenry. To adequately prepare our teachers, we must ensure that they are aware of global perspectives, are proficient with the information resources and tools of the day and can adapt to the tools of the future. This paper will propose how new technologies can be used to promote global understandings and information literacy as well as the professional development of new teachers. It will conclude with a discussion of the implications for teacher-preparation institutions and with a caution that the critical element for promoting student learning is not technology access, but good teaching.
Introduction
We are living in a time of rapid progression from nationalistic, agrarian and industrialised societies to a global, information and communication-based society. Through computer, video and communication technologies we can be constantly, and often instantaneously, bombarded with information from around the world. With the amount of information increasing exponentially, the literacy skills of the last twenty centuries will take neither us nor our students successfully into the next century.
Today's definition of literacy must go beyond the ability to read and write to include thinking critically, reasoning logically, and being globally and technologically aware. A US group, the National Forum on Information Literacy, has identified literate students as those who can:
successfully complete a complex problem-solving process that requires them to define the need for information, determine a search strategy, locate the needed resources, assess and understand the information they find, interpret the information, communicate the information, and, finally, evaluate their conclusions in view of the original problem. (Cohen, 1995, p. 1)
Similarly, the dramatic political, social and economic changes we have seen in just the last decade highlight the need for a curriculum that offers a global perspective. Hanvey (cited by Wishnietsky, 1993, p. 9) has defined global education as:
...learning about those issues that cut across national boundaries and about the interconnectedness of systems, ecological, cultural, economic, political, and technological. Global education involves perspective taking, seeing things through the eyes, minds, and hearts of others; and it means the realisation that while individuals and groups may view life differently, they also have common needs and wants.
This article will propose how new...