|
 |
 |
“Creation draws on the roots of cultural tradition, but flourishes in contact with other cultures. For this reason, heritage in all it's forms must be perserved, enchanced and handed on to future generations as a record of human experience and aspirations, so as to foster creavity in all its diversity and to inspire genuine dialogue among cultures”
(Article 7, UNESCO Universal Declaration of cultural diversity)
Major project learning goals: Important holidays and cultural aspects of Mexico and Uzbekistan / Cultural diversity and intercultural understanding, the differences and simularities in cultural life of both countries.
Description of the collaboration results: While online discussions, chats and team forums we asked each other about our culture and traditions since we iniciated contact between teams. As we developed our team project, we learned about each others' countries and compared and contrasted our lifestyles.
We created a website that gives information about our countries, emphasizing important aspects of our history and current lifestyle that condition our national identity. This site is therefore called "Mexico and Uzbekistan: Yesterday and Today" Each team created a calendar about their own country, which notes the important holiday and historical anniversaries of Mexico and Uzbekistan, respectively. Every student of our team was in charge of a specific section the calendar, and then put it together, collaborating with pictures, design and information. For the main website, we discused with the other teams the information and topics we should add, and created the website along with our partners. Also, we kept in touch with the other team, making sure each student participated in this as well. Each country has its own traditions and folklore, and we wanted to reflect that diversity in our website, by means of a specific design for each country that showed its culture and values.
Reflection of one of the participant of the project (from Mexico): “ We as a team knew very little our ourteam partners' country and their lifestyles, so we thought this project was the best way to learn about their culture. We believe that, in an international scale, knowledge and understanding concerning a country, a religion or any other social group is fundamental to achieve peace, estability and an ethical and successful globalization. ”
Online media or technologies used: Microsoft Office, Internet to receive and upload information, to make an online research and communicate with the partner country, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 to create the web link of the project, online dictionaries to define the meaning of unknown words.