iEARN in Action, January 24, 2003

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, JIMMY CARTER ACKNOWLEDGES iEARN! He writes "I would like to wish you success in your commitment to a better world through the education of youth globally -- a mission shared by The Carter Center."

OFFICIAL REGISTRATION HAS STARTED FOR THE 10th ANNUAL iEARN CONFERENCE TO TAKE PLACE IN JAPAN, JULY 20-26 2003. Please visit the site http://2003japan.jp/

FRENCH, RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS OF PROJECTS AND PROJECT DESCRIPTION BOOK NOW COMPLETE.

French

Ukrainian

Russian

Thank you to Eliane Metni, iEARN-Lebanon Country Coordinator, for the French, and Nina Dementievska, iEARN-Ukraine Country Coordinator for sharing the Russian and Ukrainian! For additional language resources, see http://www.iearn.org/globe/globe_language_gateway.html.

iEARN TEACHER WENDY LINK IN KENTUCKY, USA WINS HIGHEST AWARD FROM BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR HER WORK WITH iEARN PROJECT-BASED LEARNING. Congratulations Wendy on the Tom Maddox Award!

Join Us! Seeking Contacts, Contributions and Collaborators

ESL CHAT HOSTED BY CIVICS/BRIDGE TEACHERS. N. A. Siddiqui of Pakistan writes, "I am glad to invite you for an ESL/EFL chat on 31 January 2003 at +4 GMT (NYC 11:00 am) PST 2100 hrs. Please join us in the chat in the CIVICS Teachers forum. Just go to CIVICS Teachers and that chat is right on the top of the list."

WE ARE THE CHILDREN. A project that explores the Rights of Children in our world and in our student's immediate environment. Students will be preparing a report of their findings to be presented at United Nations Meeting on the Rights of Children that will take place in New York City, May, 2002 (this was a real-life situation, their presentation is hypothetical). http://www.masters.ab.ca/bdyck/Rights . Contact Brenda Dyck in Canada.

TEACHERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Dear colleagues! We must unite and solve our problems together and reasonably. For more informations please contact Rustam Badalov.

EPICURISM IS A REAL ENJOYMENT PROJECT. If you are a real epicure and you want to taste more national Uzbek dishes and share your epicurism, please contact Sanobar Umarova in Uzbekistan.

NEW PROJECT ON GLOBAL PEACE. Interested? Contact Shivraj A Donkari in India.

WOMEN IN MY COUNTRY. This project can be dealt with in three dimensions: 1- Women's Social Status in one's country. 2- Political Women in one's country. 3- Introducing outstanding women. Interested? Contact Leila Mohammadhossein in Iran.

THANK YOU DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Students ages 6-11 will pretend that a historical figure is still alive and write a letter to this person. Children will use different media available to them to accomplish this task. Contact Juan Acosta in the USA.

COSMIC CALL FOR MESSAGES TO BE SENT INTO SPACE! Share your e-mail messages for our upcoming "Cosmic Call" interstellar radio transmission. The transmission is scheduled for February 14, 2003. For our Cosmic Calls, we use a huge (70-meter diameter) radio astronomy dish in the Ukraine to transmit scientific and personal messages to stars that scientists believe may harbor extraterrestrial life. Each student or educator could submit a personal message of 210 characters, or less. The 210 character limit includes spaces and punctuation. Messages should be submitted to via e-mail, with the Subject Heading: "iEARN Cosmic Call" by February 6, 2003 to Richard@TeamEncounter.com. To learn more about iEARN's partnership with Team Encounter, and the Global Friendship Star Launch, see http://www.iearn.org/projects/globalfriendshipstarlaunch.html.

INTERESTED IN TELECONFERENCING WITH A SCHOOL IN NEW YORK CITY, USA? We are currently working on the Dinosaur project. The students we are working with are in special education. They range from 7-21 years of age doing this project. Emotionally disturbed, mentally retarded, physically handicapped, and autistic are their disabilities. If there is anyone interested in setting up a conference to talk about our project with our students please email Stella Porto, New York City Department of Education.

iEARN PROJECT NARNIA NOW HAS A WEBSITE! We'd like to welcome all iEARN teachers and students to join the project! It starts with an educational book written by CS Lewis called "The Chronicles of Narnia". See http://www.narnia.it. For more information, contact Giuseppe Fortunati . PS- Narnia is a magic and fantastic land like " The Paradise Lost "

Check it out! Resources, Web Sites and Postings (including resources that are not part of iEARN)

WOULD YOU LIKE TO STUDY ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN A GLOBAL WEB SCHOOL? ENO-Environment Online© is a global web school for environmental awareness where students study on a weekly basis throughout the schoolyear. For next schoolyear (August 2003 - May 2004) we will choose about 150 ENO schools. The deadline for applications is 15th of April 2003. Language: English. To apply, see http://www.kolumbus.fi/jturtiai/application03.htm. Questions? Contact Mr Mika Vanhanen mika.vanhanen@joensuu.fi.

SHARE YOUR STORIES WITH TECHKNOWLOGIA, a forum for dialogue and sharing of knowledge and experiences, and an instrument to encourage thinking "outside the box."

MAKING A DIFFERENCE COLLEGE AND GRADUATE GUIDE, EDUCATION TO HELP YOU SHAPE THE WORLD ANEW. Great resource for students who want their education to make a difference: The eighth edition is now in print. The Guide focuses on colleges and graduate programs with a strong ethic of service, strong service learning programs, and central concerns for peace, social justice and the environment. See: http://making-a-difference.com

Coming Soon! Upcoming Events and Projects!

FIRST iEARN CIVICS-BRIDGE 3 DAY TEACHERS' TRAINING WORKSHOP, JANUARY 27-29 2003, PAKISTAN. Thanks to the Al Murtaza School network for hosting the workshop. More then 25 educators of 9 schools from different towns of Karachi will be participating in this workshop. See the complete school list:
http://www.iearnpk.org/CIVICS-BRIDGE%20Sch%20list-1st.htm. Facilitators will be Farah S. Kamal of iEARN-Pakistan co-facilitated by Saadia Kazmi and Parveeen Mehboob of Al Murtaza Boys Branch, and Sarah Alam. Please post welcome messages to this group to either the Interactive Forums CIVICS (offline newsreader: apc.iearn.civics) or to Teachers Lounge (offline newsreader: apc.iearn.teachers).

FRIENDSHIP THROUGH EDUCATION TRAINING WORKSHOPS IN MALI. February 1 -2 and 6-7th iEARN-Mali and the Mokoya Juru Association will be holding a four day workshop for teachers in Bamako, Mali. The trainings will introduce participants to Friendship Through Education and help them plan an online collaborative project to integrate into their classrooms. Please send messages to welcome these new teachers to the Teachers Lounge (offline newsreader: apc.iearn.teachers). and iEARN-Francais (offline newsreader: apc.iearn.francais).

iEARN CENTRAL ASIA CONFERENCE WILL BE HELD IN BUKHARA, UZBEKISTAN, FEBRUARY 21-24, 2003. This conference is sponsored by IREX, iEARN Uzbekistan and Friendship through Education. Participants will come from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The conference will lead to promotion and development of collaboration on iEARN projects in Central Asia. Watch the iEARN online Teachers Forum for details, and a chance to meet and welcome the participants online!"

TESOL ARABIA. A team of iEARN trainers will present a workshop at the TESOL Arabia Conference (http://tesolarabia.org/RedandBlack/index.php) that will be held in Dubai from March 7 - 10. The workshop will demonstrate iEARN's approach to collaborative online learning for ESL. Please contact Rory Phimister rphimister@us.iearn.org if you know of any iEARN affiliates attending this event.

YouthCaN 2003. May 5, 2003, New York City at the American Museum of Natural History. For more information, contact youthcan@us.iearn.org or see http://www.youthcanworld.org. Online YouthCaN Forum: http://foro.iearn.org/WebX?14@@.ee81c19 or via offline newsreader: apc.iearn.youthcan.

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING CONFERENCE (NECC), SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA. June 30th-July 2nd. There will be at least one iEARN workshop at the conference. See http://iearn.org/professional/conferences.html for more detail.

10th iEARN ANNUAL CONFERENCE TO TAKE PLACE IN JAPAN, JULY 20-26 2003. For details, see http://www.jearn.jp/eng/. Pre-registration is available for those who need early approval for presentations. (This is only for those who really need it for approval. You will have to register again for official registration in January). We also opened the BBS for people who are interested in the conference. See http://www.jearn.jp/2003/en/bbs1/customboard.cgi. And, spread the word! Download an English version of 2003 iEARN Conference Poster at http://2003japan.jp/eng/news/2003poster.html. We are also preparing the poster in other languages too.

PREVIOUS EVENTS

DISTANCE CIVIC EDUCATION COURSES IN RUSSIAN FOR iEARN MEMBERS. Took place 14 10 02 - 14 12 02. The coordinators of this project were the English teacher Helen Rekicinskaja and a teacher Nina Dementjevska. The coordinator of Lithuanian I*EARN centre for primary schools Vida Povilaitiene took part in them. She had the
possibility to share her work experience on civic education with the teachers of different countries.