Chapter 11: Shaping a Global Perspective: Digital Storytelling and Intercultural Teaching and Learning

Burning rice fields in Mexico sometimes blot out the sun in Texas. Political instability in Nigeria raises the price of oil in France. Bollywood movies play in American theaters. T-shirts worn by teens in Qatar were made in Filipino factories. Travelers can breakfast in Australia and lunch in Hong Kong. Add to this the worldwide ubiquity of technology, such as the Internet, computers and cell phones, transnational migration and commerce, and we clearly are all citizens of a century largely defined by global interconnectedness (Biddle, 2002). Whether we acknowledge this connectedness or not, what happens in other countries and with other cultures affects nearly everything we do.