Although we live in a global society, educators face many challenges in finding meaningful ways to connect
students to people of other cultures. This paper offers a case study of a collaboration between teachers in
the US and Turkey, where 7th grade students interacted with each other via online social media as a means
to promote cultural understanding. In a close analysis of a single learning activity, we found that children had
opportunities to share ideas informally through social media, using their digital voices to share meaning using
online writing, posting of images and hyperlinks. This study found that students valued the opportunity to
develop relationships with each other and generally engaged in sharing their common interests in Hollywood
movies, actors, celebrities, videogames and television shows. However, not all teachers valued the use of
popular culture as a means to find common ground. Indeed, teachers had widely differing perspectives of the
value of this activity. Through informal communication about popular culture in a «Getting to Know You»
activity, students themselves discovered that their common ground knowledge tended to be US-centric, as
American students lacked access to Turkish popular culture. However, the learning activity enabled students
themselves to recognize asymmetrical power dynamics that exist in global media culture.
- : http://mediaeducationlab.com/sites/default/files/English.pdf
- : Sait Tuzel , Renee Hobbs
- : Comunicar