Although Ohio University's Office for Education Abroad and the newly created Office for International Education have similar names, their purposes are quite different.

The College of Education's Office for International Education, previously part of the Center for Higher Education and International Programs, will help students and working teachers find teaching opportunities in international settings, said office director Stephen Howard, associate professor of comparative and international education.

The college already has partnerships with institutions in South Africa, Swaziland and Mexico, and might form a partnership with a college in Ghana, he said.

Howard said experience gained from teaching abroad is important, because it benefits both the OU student and his or her future pupils.

"The trick is to try to help young Americans, particularly undergraduates, see that having an experience abroad of some type is going to enhance their teaching career and improve the lives of American children, because their teachers will be more globally aware,"

he said.

Senior secondary education major Anne Gilliland, who spent a month in Swaziland teaching fifth grade science and math, said she thinks teaching her students about other cultures is increasingly important as technology links nations.

"Our society is very ethnocentric," she said. "Educators can really do a lot about changing that."

Gilliland said she will use the teaching techniques and the international views of Americans she learned in Swaziland to make her students more globally aware.

Adah Ward Randolph, assistant professor of educational studies, said education students could benefit from learning techniques used in other countries. Randolph, who recently researched England's teacher certification standards for the American Educational Research Association, said more sharing of ideas should occur as countries become more interrelated.

"We don't live in a fishbowl," she said. "What happens outside this country affects what happens inside this country."

To collect ideas for the office, the college of education will hold a forum later this quarter during which international students can share their experiences and their impressions of the United States, Howard said.