I will be participating in Kyoto JALT’s monthly Member Spotlight on March 13, 2021 from 13:00 JST. The focus of this topic will be on how the Kansai High School Model United Nations managed an online version of its annual event, what was learned (both the good and the not so good), and how we plan to move forward in 2021 with social distancing measures still in place. If you are a fan of Project Based Learning, Model United Nations, ICT, or TESOL, I highly recommend you join us in March.
mar-21-spotlight
MUN
Model UN research, the core of our iPad program
Every iPad we own has been purchased for the purpose of my school Model United Nations. We began with 4 iPads purchased through a grant awarded to the school from UNESCO ASPnet, and 5 years later we are now at 22 iPads.
From today, we began the research process for preparation. Students are assigned countries to represent at the Model UN, so therefore need to know as much about their country as possible. We use the CIA World Facebook as the starting point, not only researching facts about their assigned country, but also comparing information to their own home, Japan.
Aside from the CIA website, there are also a large number of iPad and iPhone apps available that take advantage of the CIA World Facebook database, allowing students research offline as well.
Preparing EFL students for an EFL Model United Nations
Last June, my school completed its 26th Model United Nations project with our 3rd year (Senior) students. Though our curriculum shows our students beginning the preparation process in January (third term of second year), the preparation spreads farther, at least 2 years, from when the students first entered the high school. The first 21 months can be seen as a pre-MUN curriculum, with the next 6 months as the MUN curriculum.
An oldie but a goodie: iWebKit
A web app framework allows anyone with little to no programing knowledge to create a website that is designed specifically for smartphone and tablet devices. There are a few out on the internet to choose from, depending a lot on your own taste and what you want to achieve with the web app.
In 2016, the Kansai High School Model United Nations is looking to implement a web app that can be used by participants to receive announcements and other information pertaining to the day-to-day activities.
To prepare this web app, I chose an oldie but a goldie. iWebKit was introduced to me by a fellow Apple Distinguished Educator while we were working together in an iOS integrated school a few years ago. iWebKit has not been updated in the last 5 years or so, but its simple UI and ease of use makes it a choice for me. There is also the nostalgia of the original iOS interface.
For this web app, we will be integrating Twitter for live announcements, Google Drive to access needed documents, Google Calendar to display the days’ events, and Google Sites to allow group editing of MUN draft resolutions.
I am a big Apple fanatic, but being able for a project like this to work on other mobile devices is crucial. iWebkit has been doing just fine with that.
Lost in Tech 