iEARN in Action, October 1, 2004

Join Us! Seeking Contacts, Contributions and Collaborators

** DOWNLOAD THE NEW iEARN 2004-2005 PROJECT BOOK!  See http://www.iearn.org/projects/projectbook.html **

CHILD MINER PROJECT. A project focusing on children who have been caught up in economic exploitation as child miners in Sierra Leone's diamond-rich Kono District, and in other mine fields around the world. In Sierra Leone, children who have gone through a dismal circle of exploitation as child soldiers and child miners, will be encouraged to swap their shovels and child mining kits for education and training in on-line interactions and PC learning.  Contact Andrew Benson Greene, Coordinator of iEARN-Sierra Leone.

CONNECTING MATH TO OUR LIVES. Join in ongoing and active international project to a) explore how math is used in our communities and b) use math to investigate social and environmental concerns and then take action to promote greater equity in the world around us. The exchange, organized by iEARN-Orillas and CLMER, will begin again in October. We invite you to register now. All ages and languages welcome! To join, contact: orillas-math@igc.org, iEARN-Math Forum (English and other languages): or iEARN-Matematicas Forum (Spanish): Project web pages: http://www.orillas.org/math.

"CULTURAL BELIEFS THAT PERPETUATE THE SPREAD OF HIV/AIDS" PROJECT. Do you know of cultural beliefs which people are following that are in some way helping the spread of HIV? Students/teachers will gather information and share it with others on the planet. Maybe there are some other cultural beliefs that exist in your country/region. Please share them; we want to hear about them. Contact Kennedy Mulusa in Botswana.

US-SOUTH ASIA CULTURE EXCHANGE. High school students in New York City in the USA are collaborating with students from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh to learn about each other's different cultures and the similarities in their lives. Join them in the Culture Forum.

STUDENTS IN THE YOUTH FORUM ARE ASKING - HOW DO YOU SAY "WHAT IS YOUR NAME & MY NAME IS" IN YOUR LANGUAGE? Help them to translate these phrases into all the languages of iEARN. Post your response in the Youth Forum.

INTERESTED IN DISCUSSING ELECTIONS IN YOUR REGION OR COUNTRY? Students from Georgia, USA have been working in the Learning Democracy Project by organizing voter registration drives, creating a weekly election newsletter, nonpartisan information handouts on the candidate's positions, and holding a school wide mock election in conjunction with a national mock election. They would like to invite other schools in countries holding elections to join them in the project. Contact Freda Goodman for more information, or join them along with students from other countries including Argentina, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Taiwan in the Learning Democracy Forum.

MY COUNTRY/BREAKING STEREOTYPES PROJECT
Login now to read and respond to recent contributions from students in Jordan, the USA, and Uzbekistan. My Country/Breaking Stereotypes Forum.

NEW iTHINK PROJECT. A project to help students worldwide to know more about each other and establish new friendships.  Facilitated by Mehran Nejati, Mostafa Nejati, Azadeh Shafaei, Elham Shafaei, and Armaghan Shafaei in Iran, and Nuria Peguero in the USA. iTHINK Forum. More information visit: http://www.iearn.org/projects/iTHINK.html.

LINKING INDIVIDUALS, KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE (LINC) - US-JORDAN YOUTH TECHNOLOGY LEADERS." High School students in Jordan and the USA will be trained to be technology assistants for schools in their community in a new project launched this week by iEARN-Jordan (http://www.iearnjordan.org) and iEARN-USA. They are partnering with MOUSE (http://www.mouse.org) (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), which pioneered such a program in the New York City area. NYC students (Mouse Squads) will travel with an advisor to Jordan for three weeks in 2005, train Jordanian students and experience Jordanian culture. Similarly, Jordanian students will spend 3 weeks in New York City receiving training so that they can return to Amman to provide assistance to Jordanian teachers and others in their school communities, as well as train new Squads in the future. AYUSA (http://www.ayusa.org)  will facilitate the student exchanges. This project is funded by the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the US State Department.

WELCOME NEW TEACHERS AND PRINCIPAL FROM SIERRA LEONE. Andrew Greene, Coordinator of iEARN Sierra Leone writes, "Dear iEARNERS, please welcome a senior Teacher from Ahmadiyya Muslim Secondary School in Sierra Leone, Edward Sandy, His Principal Mr. Abdul Karim Sesay who is a Board Member of iEARN Sierra Leone, and the iEARN Students of Ahmadiyya Muslim Secondary School in Sierra Leone. This is their first time to be formally welcomed to iEARN global family, and your messages will help them to feel more closer into your projects and collaboration. Post your greetings to this discussion thread on the Teachers Forum. For more on iEARN Sierra Leone, see http://www.iearnsierraleone.org/ and http://www.childsoldiers.org/.

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

PUTUMAYO DONATES CROSS-CULTURAL MUSIC MATERIAL TO iEARN CLASSES. The Putumayo Cross-Cultural Initiative (http://www.putumayo.org/ ) uses the power of world music and the arts to inspire children to explore and connect with diverse cultures. Putumayo seeks to spark children's curiosity and inspire them to become global citizens. This month Putumayo has made a major donation of thousands of copies of its materials and CDs to iEARN-USA for no-cost distribution to elementary and middle schools throughout the iEARN network. These multilingual materials and CDs will be mailed to US schools in October 2004 and will be distributed to schools around the world at iEARN teacher and youth events during the year. These materials can be used in online projects to explore cultural diversity through music. Thank you Putumayo!!!

WORLD EDUCATION CORPS, iEARN, AND OXFORD UNIVERSITY PARTNER TO CREATE A GLOBAL EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY CORPS. Later this year, iEARN Coordinators in 10 countries will recruit the first participants in the newly created World Education Corps (WEC) -- an innovative program through which volunteers to serve for a year in one of 10 initial countries in the field of digital technologies in education. The initial 10 countries are Jordan, India, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Pakistan, China, USA, Nigeria and South Africa. All exchanges of volunteers will be two-directional in this non-governmental initiative and, therefore, may involve Ugandans serving in India and Pakistanis serving in Ghana, etc. Seed funding has been provided by Jim Martin, one of the earliest visionaries of how technology would impact the lives of people throughout the world. In 1977, Jim Martin wrote "The Wired Society," in which he predicted the widespread use of personal computers and Internet, long before either existed. His new book, "The Meaning of the 21st Century" is to be published in 2005--the year that the first WEC volunteers receive their orientation at Kellogg College at Oxford University and then arrive in their host countries to start their year of service. The WEC will cover all expenses of transportation, room, board and a stipend for each volunteer. iEARN-USA Board member Tom Benson, is the WEC Executive Director. For information:on the WEC visit: http://www.worldeducationcorps.org

iEARN-USA NAMED TECH MUSEUM LAUREATE. Recently the Tech Museum in San Jose, California, USA named 25 organizations as "laureates" who are "using technology to benefit humanity." iEARN-USA was one of five organizations named in the Education category. A ceremony will be held on November 10, 2004 to make the presentation and announce the top award in each category. See: http://techawards.thetech.org/index.cfm

SUBMIT EVENTS TO THE 2004 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION WEEK (NOVEMBER 15-19) EVENTS DATABASE. To view and submit events, go to http://exchanges.state.gov/iew/events.htm.

SUBMIT ARTICLES TO MERIDIAN MAGAZINE. Submissions for Winter 2005 issue should be sent by October 15th, 2004. See guidelines at http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/submissions.html.  Meridian's mission is to share and expand teaching and learning with computer technologies.

JOIN "HARMONY FOR HUMANITY CONCERTS" - OCTOBER 8-17.  Participate in the third annual Daniel Pearl Music Day - a worldwide network of concerts inspired by slain reporter and musician Daniel Pearl who used music to make friends around the world. Musicians and students across the globe will use the universal language of music to diminish hatred and respect differences by dedicating concerts, assemblies and classroom sessions to "Harmony for Humanity". This is an opportunity to unite with thousands of groups via music and to enrich your school's focus on building tolerance and cross-cultural understanding.  Participation is free and open to any musical event between October 8th and 17th, 2004. Registration materials, sample dedications and information for schools available at www.danielpearl.org/musicday04.

ENTER YOUR iEARN PROJECT WORK IN CHILDNET ACADEMY PROGRAMME! Children's charity Childnet International will soon launch its global Childnet Academy programme for 2005 which it runs in partnership with Cable & Wireless. The Academy competition is for young people 18 years and under who have developed online projects or have a new idea which will benefit other young people around the world. Children and young people can enter individually or as a school project. Winners of the 2005 Academy will win a trip for two to Jamaica to participate in the Academy week programme and prize money from a £30K fund. For further information please visit http://www.childnetacademy.org.

SHARE YOUR VIEWS ON ICTS. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Youth Caucus is seeking views on Internet Governance (IG) and ICT Financing. They are looking for brief (3-5 sentence) answers to the following questions: 1. As a young person, what is your view on Internet Governance and the issues revolving around it, i.e. network security, individual privacy, "spam", data and information protection, cyber-crime? 2. Why should young people be involved in IG and the UN Working Group on Internet Governance? 3. What are the barriers to access by young people on ICTs? Is it simply a question of economics? Please focus on specific examples detailing your personal experience in your own country. 4. How do you think financing of ICTs in developing countries be made available and be effective? Should a Global Fund, as envisioned by the Digital Solidarity Agenda, be established to benefit developing countries? A recent picture in JPEG format, your name, country, age, affiliations and position should also be included. Send your answers to rsagun@wsisyouth.org by October 10. Survey results will be included in newsletters distributed at the upcoming WSIS conferences.

SUBMIT STORIES OF YOUNG PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE TO HIGHLIGHTS MAGAZINE. Highlights magazine is starting a feature called Gallant Kids, which will feature a child (no older than 12) who has done a service to the community--something unique and admirable but on a scale moderate enough that other kids wouldn't be totally overwhelmed. If you have any ideas of particular children to feature--or contacts for finding them--please let me know! Joelle Dujardin. For more about Highlights, see http://www.highlights.com/.

Coming Soon! Upcoming Events and Projects!

SEND GREETINGS TO WASHINGTON STATE, USA INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SUMMIT ("BUILDING GLOBAL RELATIONSHIPS") TO BE HELD OCTOBER 27, 2004. The conference morning plenary session will open with video greetings and comments to the summit participants from iEARN Country Coordinators and includes a panel presentation by iEARN teachers in Washington State who are part of the "Connecting Classroom Communities in the World" Professional Development Project. For more information, see http://internationaledwa.org/summit.htm. We invite our global iEARN community to send greetings, introduce yourselves, & share your international education experiences with the Summit Participants by email to Kristi Rennebohm Franz, iEARN Teacher Professional Development Project Director.

CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL LEARNING TO HONOR ED GRAGERT AND iEARN ON OCTOBER 27, 2004. The Center of International Learning (CIL, http://www.cil-usa.org/) in the US "makes peace by providing an international forum for local grassroots groups to participate in dialogue across social, economic, religious and ethnic boundaries." At its Recognition Night 2004, the CIL will honor Edwin H. Gragert and his work to support iEARN's mission to help young people make a meaningful contribution to the health and welfare of people and the planet as part of the learning process.

iEARN TRAINING TEACHERS IN YEMEN. In November, iEARN will conduct the first of a number of professional development workshops in Sana'a, Yemen with teachers from 10 schools as part of a collaboration between EDC (Education Development Center), World Links, and SOUL. Funding for the project comes from USAID. iEARN training will focus on curriculum applications of connective technologies and online collaborative project work. This week-long workshop, to be conducted in Arabic, builds on earlier workshops conducted by EDC on student-centered learning and by World Links on basic computer skills. In 2005 the project will expand to an additional 10 schools in Aden. For information, contact Anindita Dutta Roy.

12TH ANNUAL iEARN CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN JULY, 2005 IN DAKAR, SENEGAL.  Watch http://www.iearn.org for more information.

Recent Events

The 7th ANNUAL SCHOOLNET CONFERENCE: The Science and Arts Foundation's 7th Annual SchoolNet Conference (http://isfahan.schoolnet.ir/conference) was held in the city of Isfahan September 1-3, 2004. Over 850 high school and middle school students, teachers and administrators participated, representing 50 schools from 31 cities and 17 provinces. In addition, there were representatives of Isfahan and Tehran educational organizations and fellows from the ICT department of the Ministry of Education taking part in the gathering; the first such participation by the Ministry in an NGO-organized conference. During the dynamic three-day event, papers were presented on a variety of topics that included ICT, biotechnology, mathematics, physics, archeology, astronomy, health, education, social and cultural issues. See here.  570 papers proposals were submitted by students and teachers across Iran. Of the 88 accepted papers, 75% were by female students or teachers and 12.5% by the visually impaired. In addition to the conference's Iranian participants, visitors from Germany, US, Canada, Australia and Japan were also in attendance. Yoko Takagi (iEARN-Japan) and Ed Gragert (iEARN-USA) participated in one of the conference's two panel discussions. Their panel discussion focused on international experiences in the development of ICT in education. To view photos of the event, please click here.

ENO TREE PLANTING EVENT, SEPTEMBER 21, 2004 A SUCCESS.  Mika Vanhanen ENO Programme Coordinator (http://www.iearn.org/projects/enoproject.html) shares: "ENO School in Ghana planted over 400 teak seedlings" Read the article here. UN's International Day of Peace 2004: An article by Inter Press Service, read it here (see Other activities). And finally see the current information from schools about the event here.