iEARN in Action, November 3, 2004

SEND MESSAGES OF SUPPORT TO VICTIMS OF RECENT EARTHQUAKE IN NIIGATA, JAPAN - NATURAL DISASTER YOUTH SUMMIT 2005 PROJECT PAGES. http://ndys.jearn.jp/message/Needaction.htm and http://ndys.jearn.jp/eq/joyful.cgi. Yoko Takagi, JEARN (iEARN-Japan)  Coordinator, writes, "Niigata children and their families who have suffered from continuous threatening earthquakes, need your messages to warm them. Like a miracle, a 2 year old boy was saved after 92 hours among sliding mountain rocks. Although mother and sister found dead in the car, this little boy's survival news gives a hope to all. Smiling Children always encourage young and old who are often tired and feel helpless to the damages. Let children smile with your messages. "

Join Us! Seeking Contacts, Contributions and Collaborators

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

NEW CITY TO CITY PROJECT FORUM. Cities and local authorities have been fostering international cooperation since the foundation of the first international association of local authorities in 1913. Town Twinning, Partners of the Americas and Sister Cities are just some of the earliest examples of City-City partnership. You are invited to share "lessons learned" through your relationships, and what your city has done, or is doing, to improve the management capacity for sustainable urbanization. New City to City Forum. For more information, see http://www.iearn.org/projects/citytocity.html or contact Gia Gaspard Taylor, National Coordinator iEARN Trinidad and Tobago.

JOIN BULLYING.ORG CANADA IN ITS LAUNCH OF THE SECOND ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL BULLYING AWARENESS WEEK ON NOVEMBER 15, 2004. Running until November 21, the week-long campaign is intended to build awareness of the part that bystanders play in diffusing and preventing social/relational bullying situations. Join the Bullying Forum. For more information, see: http://www.bullying.org/

WE ARE TEENAGERS! Join partners from Egypt, Iran, the US, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine who are currently sharing stories about teen life in their countries in the "We are Teenagers" Forum. They're awaiting your responses, and contributions! For more information, see here. Facilitated by Valentyna Sakhatska and in Ukraine.

CLASS IN THE NETHERLANDS SEEKS PARTNERS.  A group of 31 pupils in the Netherlands called  "Vliegende Hollanders"  [Flying  Dutchmen] is looking for another group -somewhere in the world- to start up an email-project. Their ages are between 9 and 12 years old. Their native language is Dutch, but they speak and can read a little English. If your group would like to learn more about their lives and interests  please contact Mrs. Trudi Woestenburg. For a first impression about their school and their group [Kinderen] you can look at the website: http://www.depontonnier.nl

EYE TO EYE "POSTCARD" ART PROJECT UNDERWAY!  A project that sponsors the creation of postcard size images to an online gallery which is dedicated the ideals of friendship and understanding through visual communication. Interested? Connect directly to the Eye to Eye Forum. Facilitated by Larry Frates in the USA.

JOIN THE VIRTUES PROJECT - NEW PROJECT WEBSITE! See the new project website here. Farah Kamal, iEARN-Pakistan Coordinator and Virtues Project Co-coordinator writes, "I also take this opportunity to invite teachers and students to participate in the project. Full participation details, resources and guidelines can be accessed from the Virtues website.

"THANK YOU, MY COMPUTER" PROJECT. For more information, see the Teachers Forum discussion thread. Contact Mokhtar Ounis in Tunisia.

NEW MOVINGVOICES DIGITAL VIDEO PROJECT WEBSITE. Check out the first collection of student videos from Argentina, Botswana,  Canada, Egypt, India, Japan, Morocco, Slovakia, South Africa, the USA, and Zimbabwe. http://movingvoices.iearn.org/. The vision for MovingVoices is simple. Students around the world can use the power of digital films to move and educate others around the world. For more information, contact Mercedes del Rosario in the USA at.

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

DALIA KHALIL, iEARN-EGYPT COORDINATOR, NOMINATED TO JOIN THE EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN EGYPT. Dalia shares that "this committee has been very active in the past few years working on a real reform aiming at quality education in Egypt...I believe that this nomination is a strong recognition of iEARN and how valuable it is for educational reform."  Congratulations to Dalia and the entire iEARN-Egypt Team!  For more information about iEARN in Egypt, see http://www.iearnegypt.org/.

iEARN-USA IS 2004 TECH MUSEUM LAUREATE IN THE EDUCATION CATEGORY. UN Secretary General Kofi A. Annan notes "The true winners of these Awards are the many people who stand to benefit from the innovations the Awards are intended to recognize." The Award ceremony will be held on November 10, 2004. See here for more information.

CALL FOR ARTICLES - SPECIAL ISSUE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND DISABILITIES: PROMISING PRACTICES: ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION. A special issue of the Information Technology and Disabilities (ITD) journal for Spring, 2005, will feature promising practices in promoting, developing, procuring and using accessible information technology in education. Consider submitting an article if you have a practice to share in this arena. Send abstracts of proposed articles to Sheryl Burgtahler at by November 15, 2004. ITD general publication guidelines are available h ere.

CALL FOR ARTICLES FOR NEW ONLINE JOURNAL - ACE ONLINE.  More information about this peer reviewed journal of the Assembly on Computers in English, an assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English, can be found at http://faculty.gvsu.edu/patterna/aceonline.

Coming Soon! Upcoming Events and Projects!

SHARE EXAMPLES OF HOW YOU ARE CONNECTING GLOBALLY DURING INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION WEEK (NOVEMBER 15-19)!  SUBMIT TO THE EVENTS DATABASE!  To submit events, click here.  To view events, click here.

JOIN A GLOBAL WEBCAST WITH iEARN COUNTRY COORDINATORS DISCUSSING INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND HOW TECHNOLOGY POWERS IT - 9:30 - 10:30 AM (EST-US) Friday, November 19, 2004. Join in an interactive dialogue with iEARN Coordinators from Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt,  Morocco, India, Nepal,  Bangladesh, Oman, Indonesia  and Pakistan, and Joseph Esposito, Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs at the US Department of Education. This event, which is a part of International Education Week, is held in partnership with the World Affairs Council of Washington, DC and Nortel Networks Kidz Online.  For more details, and to participate, see http://www.kidzonline.org/iew and click on "view webcast." To test your technology capabilities prior to the event, click here. If you are unable to log on during the webcast, please send me your questions by November 10th and I will be sure they are addressed.  If you plan to participate in anyway, please RSVP to Tina Habib.

12TH ANNUAL iEARN CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN JULY, 2005 IN DAKAR, SENEGAL. Watch http://www.iearn.org for more information, or login to the 2005 Senegal Conference Discussion Forum.

3RD WORLD YOUTH CONGRESS IN SCOTLAND, JULY 30 - AUGUST 8, 2005. The event is open to young people aged between 18 -25 (you must be at least 18 on 30th July 2005) and the congress theme is "Young People working together for a sustainable world community".  All applicants must be 18-25 years old on July 30, 2005 and will fall under four categories: Activists, Performers/Artists, and Young Journalists. For further details and an application form visit www.scotland2005.org and register for our newsletter.

Recent Events!

3RD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH IN MULTI LANGUAGE ENVIRONMENTS HELD OCT 8-10, ORGANIZED BY THE BRITISH COUNCIL IN SRI LANKA. The topic of integrating Information technology into the classrooms through the iEARN model was introduced to the teachers of India, Pakistan, Nepal and UK by Lakshmi and IEARN-SL. Watch http://www.slearn.org/ for updates.

2ND ENVIRONMENTAL ONLINE (ENO) 2004 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE HOSTED AT TREVERTON, SOUTH AFRICA, OCTOBER 17-23, 2004. Students and teachers gathered to showcase their environmental projects, with participants from Botswana, Canada,Finland, India, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Turkey and the USA. The theme was "Cultural and natural heritage in the Rainbow nation" with a sub-theme entitled,"Sustainable utilization and impacts of the various cultures (Past and present) on the environment. ENO-Environmental Online" is a global iEARN web school for Environmental  Awareness. (http://eno.joensuu.fi). Among the iEARN teachers who attended were Tommie Hamaluba from Botswana and Mika Vanhanen the programme coordinator from Finland.