UNCERTAINTY surrounded the fate of another lion from Hwange National Park Saturday after a conservation group reported that Jericho, brother of the lion slain by American dentist Walter Palmer, had also been killed.

"It is with huge disgust and sadness that we have just been informed that Jericho, Cecil's brother has been killed at 4pm today," the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, which broke the news of Cecil's killing, said in a statement on its Facebook page.

"We are absolutely heart broken. We will update you all as soon as we have more details," the statement added.

The announcement was swiftly picked up by global media, causing consternation among animal lovers who were outraged by Palmer's killing of Zimbabwe's best-known lion, renowned for his black mane.

But the Friends of Hwange Trust urged the public to treat the ZCTF's announcement with caution.

"Please know that reports stating that Jericho - the other half of Cecil the lion's coalition - was shot today appear to be UNTRUE."

The charity admitted however it did not yet have "definite proof" of its counter claim.

Hwange park authorities were unavailable for confirmation Saturday evening.

Earlier Saturday, the parks authority announced restrictions on hunting around Hwange park, including an immediate suspension of the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants.

Palmer paid $55,000 to shoot Cecil outside Hwange park earlier this month with a bow and arrow. He and a guide then spent 40 hours tracking the wounded animal before finishing him off with a gun.

Palmer, who is being investigated by the US government over Cecil's death, has apologised and said he was misled by his guide.

WILDLIFE authorities have announced an immediate ban on the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants outside Hwange National Park in the wake of the widely condemned killing of iconic lion, Cecil early last month.

Police have since arrested one Headman Sibanda, a safari operator in the Gwayi Conservancy, in a push to plug all the loopholes that have given rise to poaching in the country.

“Hunting of lions, leopards and elephant in areas outside of Hwange National Parks has been suspended with immediate effect,” Parks and Wild Life authority director general Edison Chidziya said in a statement Saturday.

“All such hunts will only be conducted if confirmed and authorized in writing by the Director-General of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, and only if accompanied by parks staff whose costs will be met by the landowner.”

Cecil, a favourite with international tourists, was killed on July 1 this year by Walter James Palmer, an American trophy hunter who parted with US$50,000 to get him.

The 13 year-old wonder cat was lured outside the boundaries of the country’s largest game park by his killers where he was shot with a bow and arrow and left to bleed for 40 hours before being shot to death using a gun.

The incident drew widespread condemnation especially from conservationists who are opposed to the killing of animals for fun.

Likewise, parks authorities in Zimbabwe have obliged by banning the use of bows to hunt for wild creatures.

“Bow hunting has been suspended with immediate effect and no such hunting will be conducted unless it has been confirmed and authorized in writing by the Director-General of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority,” said Chidziya in an emailed statement, read on his behalf to Harare journalists on Saturday by Emmanuel Fundira President of the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe.

Bow hunting, it is strongly felt, only thrills to sports hunters but is inhumane as it cripples the animal unnecessarily, allowing it to die slowly and painfully.

Chidziya said the stringent rules being introduced have been spurred by Cecil’s killing.

He added: “The Authority will not hesitate to arrest, prosecute, and ban for life any persons including professional hunters, clients and land owners who are caught on the wrong side of the law”.

Meanwhile, parks authorities quashed a rumour that emerged Saturday alleging another lion in Hwange had been killed.

Assignment Four: Final Reflection Essay

Introduction:

My global perspective when I started the course EDTC 645 “Integration of Technology: Global Perspectives” was slightly different from the way I used to understand it. By then, my global perspective understanding was limited to my original country where I grew up. Now, this has changed the meaning altogether to a different world/global perspective level. I will explain how my views about global perspectives and K-12 education have changed giving the supporting details. Also, to use the knowledge, I have acquired this semester in my classroom.

Reflection on the first essay and descriptions of my views on global perspectives and technology in K-12 education:

My first reflection essay looked at global perspective limited to my society and what we learned from school. We read about other countries from Geography, Science books, story books etc. Travelling from one town to another and to neighboring countries was also a way of learning different cultures of other countries and their way of life. The class’s knowledge was only centered to books and technology did not exist in my world. There was nothing like virtual schools but distance learning which involved students to take up extra classes to catch up with rest of the class. Now, this has changed after taking this course. My knowledge scope has opened doors to this global network and virtual school. We learned a lot during the course EDTC645 but the most important project we did, which contributed much more to the global perspective was the Country Case Study (CCS). The project was done in groups and my group’s country case study was China. It was a challenging project and each one of us analyzed two scholarly articles about China’s technology integration in their education system. The two educators we interviewed helped us to understand more about the education in China. I found out that Chinese schools had better technology use than American schools. (Custer, January19, 2013) On the other finding, both countries had concerns/issues to solve in order to move forward with their education reforms.

For example, according to (Casey, August 26, 2011) China’s rural education suffers from a shortage of funds, lack of qualified teachers and some management issues. At the same time, education in the big cities like Shanghai has made tremendous achievements; rich students have access to first-rate schools, virtual schooling and private education. On the other hand, U.S. standardized tests brought so many negative concerns in the education system and so much huge financial expenditure towards the testing. (PronCon, 6/14/2012) Having said that, the course EDTC645 opened many doors to global scope and because of that I can communicate with people from anyway in the world and be part of the global community. I also had an insight to other countries such as Finland, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong whose performance has shown some great strides towards students’ international assessment results. (OECD, 2010)

Learning about global perspectives and technology in K-12 education has made me realize the importance of education as a fundamental human right. Every individual, irrespective of race, gender, family or cultural backgrounds, nationality, religion etc. is entitled to the right of education. (United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights UDHR, 1948) In developing countries, there are so many problems and rich countries should step up as a global community to ensure that all children have access to education and try to bridge the digital gap between the rich and the poor. An example is providing resources and opportunities to the neediest countries without discrimination of any sort.

Addressing how I hope to use what I have learned this semester in my own classroom:

I am looking forward to put all my global knowledge into good use in my classroom. My students are only exposed to global awareness through reading from books. We have not done much learning on global issues. They have watched so many videos from other countries during Social Studies, History, Science and Language arts. Now, that I have all the strategies and global knowledge, I am ready to take our lessons to a different level of global community. I learned about the global networks such as Global school net, ePals, NGO Networks (Non-governmental organizations associated with the United Nations), iEarn, etc. The first and foremost procedure is to persuade the school administration to join one of the global networks and select a project that fit well with my class content area. I am ready to introduce my class and school to the best practices in global collaboration such as Project-based learning (PBL) because best practices provide hands on activities, critical thinking, and team work and communication skills. Students will learn how to deal with real life situations, problems and study the environment concerns in various cultures at global level. I would like to instill values in my students such as respect of other people’s cultures through making a difference in their communities. They can involve in projects such as “recycle, reuse, and reduce” whereby they go in their community and demonstrate ways of keeping their community safe and clean.

My knowledge on global education will help me to share my expertise with other teachers at school, leading the way to global connections. My students will become computer experts when searching for web links, blogging, communicating using both print and electronic skills, analyzing, synthesizing and collaborating on line. They will continue to practice research of different problems they encounter.

Conclusion:

I enjoyed this course so much that would love to share my wiki website with other teachers and my students. The most challenging part of the course was when we had problems to get our interview responses back. Otherwise, my global perspective has changed so much for the better and would like to thank our instructor, Dr. Blesh for being there for us throughout the course. I have described my views of global perspectives and technology in K-12 education and addressed how I hope to use the knowledge I acquired in my own classroom.

References:

Custer, C. (January19, 2013) Are Chinese Schools Beating the US in Technology Integration? Tech. in Asia 35B Mosque Street: Singapore 059513. http://www.techinasia.com/chinese-schools-beating-technology-integration/

Casey, T. (August 26, 2011) seeing China in red the state of rural schools in China and the broken educational system Global times.

Edwards, O. (2008). Education as a Vital Global Marketplace Represents the Future: Explore the many ways students are taught around the world.  Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/global-education-2008

http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=402

OECD (2010), PISA 2009 Volume I, What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics and Science, OECD Publishing.

PronCon (6/14/2012) Is the Use of Standardized Tests Improving Education in America? 233 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 200, Santa Monica, CA 9040. ProCon.org http://standardizedtests.procon.org/

Jamie Grace - Beautiful Day (Official Lyric Video)

First Reflection Essay: Understanding of Global Issues.

Introduction:

Global perspective looks at the study of the larger world and our society’s place in it. It offers students and teachers an approach which takes into account the whole of human society and the environments in which people live. Global issues take into account change, interdependence, identity, diversity, rights and responsibilities, peace, poverty and wealth, sustainability and global justice. Looking at the educational technology aspect, students learn cooperative learning and action, and shared responsibility, critical thinking, communication, values and attitudes, important skills and active participation. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008) The reflection discusses global issues developed as I grew up and my considerations of global issues from my current standpoint as I begin this course, Integrating Technology: Global Perspectives. As a teacher, I will also explain teaching global perspectives in the classroom.

Global issues developed as I grew up:

I grew up and got educated in Zimbabwe and my global perspective was limited to my society that time. As a student, I learned how to respect, to value and to celebrate other cultures and to speak different dialects in Zimbabwe. As I grew older, I started travelling to neighboring countries and learning more of other cultures and my Geographical perspective started expanding and understanding other people’s way of living at an international level. Effective global education is not just a curriculum issue but it takes into account the diversity of multimedia. We learned more on global issues from reading books, listening to the radio, watching television, communicating through the telephone and letters. We were taught how to become involved in community activities and campaigns supporting global justice, human rights and sustainable futures, both within and beyond the school community. The curriculum covers both practical and theory, putting the acquired knowledge into real practice. An example could be doing Agricultural projects such as keeping and raising chickens for the school and fundraise money for our school development. Practicing active and informed citizenship has the potential to go beyond the academic, focusing on the whole person and developing life-long dispositions. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008) Unfortunately, we did not have access to computers at that time.

How I consider global issues from my current standpoint at the start of this class?

Global issues bring people together and have the respect of human rights, environmental needs, peace and justice around the world. My current standpoint about global issues would be to bring the aspects in the classroom curriculum. My current stand point about Global issues/perspectives covers cultures, languages, sporting activities such as World cup soccer, Olympics, Global business, Education, politics, United Nations organizations, health etc. Students will then learn and appreciate their natural environment and the connections among people, cultures, peace and justice, health and responsibilities around the world. As I see it, Globalization is real and so teachers/educators have responsibilities of preparing students to function and make contributions in the global world. To foster this global awareness in students, teachers should incorporate the use of technology in the content and pedagogy of the curriculum. According to Schukar (1993)  Schools must prepare teachers in processes related to global education and this include strategies and methods for teaching inquiry-based learning, resolution-building among students and for teaching controversial recent issues such as  the problems the world is facing today concerning diseases, war, hunger and natural disasters. The technology offers a vast of opportunities of fostering global awareness. Because of its network of multimedia, video conferences, social action projects, virtual network of students and numerous web-based hyperlinks, teachers are able to use in their teaching strategies. (Harris, 1997-1998)

How I currently teach global perspectives in the classroom:

As a fifth grade teacher, my students are exposed to global awareness to some extent. Global issues come in all subjects such as Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Mathematics, Reading, Geography, History, Art and Sports. An example is the Social Studies topic about the different American Indian cultures. The students read about the different food, clothing, shelter, art and hunting done by the American Indians who lived around thousands of years before the European settlers in North America. Students watched some videos and listened to documentaries and later made some art work for display in the classroom. Some of the tribes are the Chirokee, Cheyenne, Navajo, Arawak, and Sioux to mention a few. The class itself is made up of students originally from different countries. I sometimes have time to talk about my original country and give students time to discuss about their original cultures as well. Besides, students have access to educational web links or even web search on the computers. I would like to assist students to develop the skills to question and critique texts such as advertising, media images and use technology in much more ways of global perspectives. I would like to introduce my class to Web 2.0 tools, starting with the blogging account. Before doing that, I need to get permission from parents and administration to publish students’ work online. I am aware of the consequences of cyber safety for the students. Skype is one of the ways of free audio conferencing / internet phone software and would like to try Skype pen pal projects with partner classrooms across the country or across the world. Skype will be a huge global project for the school. Students also get involved in community activities such as making field trips to local companies learning about recycle, farm produce for example.

Conclusion:

By the end of the course, I hope to accomplish and articulate the value of global connections in the classroom to promote learning in the disciplines. According to our instructor, Dr. Blesh, we have a lot to learn about technology that strengthens the global perspectives in the classrooms and integrate issues related to diversity into the curriculum. Global issues developed as I grew up and my considerations of global issues from my current standpoint as well as teaching global issues in the classroom have been discussed.

References:

Browett, J. and Ashman, G. (2008) Thinking Globally: Global perspectives in the early classroom, Curriculum Corporation, Carlton South.

http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/verve/resources/globalperspectivesstatement.pdf

Commonwealth of Australia (2008) Global Perspectives: A framework for global education in Australian schools. Curriculum Corporation. Carlton South Vic 3053: Australia

Harris, J. B. (1997-1998) From Wetware: Why use activity structures. Learning and Leading with Technology, Retrieved, October 5, 2007 from, http://virtualarchitecture.wm.edu/Foundation/wetware.html

Schukar, R. (1993). Controversy in Global Education: Lessons for teacher educators. Theory into Practice, 32, 52-57. 

Both images from: https://www.google.com/search?

The Lord's Prayer Words- traditional

The Lord's Prayer Words- traditional

Jingle Bells | Super Simple Songs

Oliver Mtukudzi - Dzoka Uyamwe

Brandon Heath - No Turning Back (Official Lyric Video)