iEARN in Action, October 6, 2005

NEW PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE 2005 iEARN WORLD CONFERENCE IN SENEGAL.
http://www.iearn.org/news/senegal/. Thanks to Otgo Okhidoi, Mongolia/iEARN-USA, for sharing these!

iEARN INTERNATIONAL SURVEY. In May-July of 2005, iEARN conducted a
small survey of its international membership. 213 participants from 51 countries responded to questions about their experience in the network, offering suggestions for improvements, as well as concrete examples of how iEARN project work has impacted them. Results were written up by Otgo Okhidoi, Mongolia/iEARN-USA, and have been posted to a new Evaluation Forum within iEARN. All participants are encouraged to login and review the results, hear specific examples of how teachers are using iEARN in their classroom, and join in discussion about how these and other evaluation methods can be used to continuously refine and improve iEARN. A very big thank you to everyone who participated!

TEACHERS REGISTERING TO PARTICIPATE IN iEARN PROJECT WORK IN RECORD NUMBERS. Teachers from around the world are registering in the iEARN Teachers Database in record numbers.  In the months of August and September 2005, for example, a total of 2,279 educators have registered from the countries below.  On an annual basis, this would be an increase of about 20,000 per year, doubling the current number of participating teachers! iEARN members can find these and other teachers in the iEARN Teacher Database. If you need help, contact iearn@iearn.org.  New teachers (who register in the database) are from: Albania 1, Argentina 365, Armenia 4, Australia 21, Bangladesh 8, Belarus 6, Belgium 1, Benin 33, Bolivia 2, Bosnia 1, Brazil 25, Burundi 1, Cameroon 22, Canada 17, Chile 3, China 5, Colombia 6, Denmark 7, Dominican Republic 60, Ecuador 2, Egypt 57, El Salvador 4, France 1, Gambia 1, Georgia 1, Germany 4, Ghana 8, Greece 2, Guinea 1, Hungary 1, India 32, Indonesia 99, Iran 17, Iraq 1, Ireland 1, Israel 27, Italy 2, Japan 5, Jordan 114, Kazakhstan 1, Kenya 3, Korea-South 1, Kyrgyzstan 1, Lebanon 4, Lithuania 1, Malaysia 167, Mali 8, Mexico 4, Moldova 1, Morocco 17, Nepal 13, Netherlands 5, New Zealand 4, Nigeria 31, Oman 2, Pakistan 104, Palestine 4, Peru 8, Philippines 13, Poland 4, Puerto Rico 4, Romania 1, Russia 10, Saudi Arabia 1, Senegal 7, Sierra Leone 2, Singapore 2, Slovak Republic 2, Slovenia 3, South Africa 4, Sri Lanka 8, Sudan 2, Suriname 1, Swaziland 1, Sweden 3, Syria 1, Taiwan 12, Tanzania 16, Thailand 130, Togo 4, Trinidad & Tobago 1, Turkey 5, Uganda 11, Ukraine 2, United Arab Emirates 4, United Kingdom 15, United States 402, Uruguay 3, Uzbekistan 3, Venezuela 1, Vietnam 3, Yemen 229, Zimbabwe 18.

Join Us! iEARN Projects, Seeking Contacts, Contributions and Collaborators

**Download the 2005-2006 iEARN Project Book:
http://www.iearn.org/projects/projectbook.html, or for a full listing of iEARN
projects, see: http://www.iearn.org/projects/

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2005-2006 iEARN PROJECT BOOK IS READY TO DOWNLOAD! Download the latest 80-page iEARN Project Book from here.

GET TO KNOW OTHERS PROJECT.  Ahmed Abd Elsattar of Egypt writes, "Dear friends, I invite you and your students to participate in the Get to Know Others project. It is high time we learn about others and let friendships grow and flourish." See here for more information and to join.

TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE PROJECT. Wendy Nelson-Kauffman of the USA writes, "My 9th grade US History students are looking at the Transatlantic Slave Trade and are doing a virtual tour of Goree Island at the following website: http://webworld.unesco.org/goree/ We would like to discuss with other students the significance of preserving this site. We would also like to have an ongoing discussion regarding the impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade on our country." To join in the project, see here.

LAND USAGE AND DISTRIBUTION PROJECT. In this project, students find out the size of their country, how much land has been spared for urban settlement, agricultural activities, parks, etc. They also find out about the policies that are being employed by their governments to manage land. The project is underway again this year, and is seeking participants in other parts of the world to join as co-facilitators of the project. See here or contact Paul Mpofu in Zimbabwe.

ENO GLOBAL TREE PLANTING PROJECT. Mika Vanhanen in Finland, coordinator of the ENO Programme, writes, " We thank your very much for all the iEARN people who joined our global tree planting day 21st of September. Note that you can still register for the database if you missed the date or plan to plant trees later! In the database you will find many species and information about the event." See a report of the event here; For ENO Tree Database click here; Photos from each school (104 schools, to be updated) you can see here; Want to plant trees and register your event? Do it here.

For a complete listing of iEARN projects, see http://www.iearn.org/projects/.

Check it out! Resources, Contests, Web Sites and Announcements (This includes resources that are not part of iEARN)

CONGRATULATIONS TO iEARN-TAIWAN ALLIED SCHOOLS HONORED IN EXCELLENT TEACHER AWARDS HOSTED BY MINISTRY OF EDUCATION! On September 28, Teacher's Day in Taiwan, three iEARN Taiwan Allied Schools were recognized with the highest honor professional award-Excellent Teacher Award hosted by MOE of Taiwan. For more about iEARN in Taiwan, see here.

LEBANON - USA EXCHANGE FEATURED IN LOCAL WISCONSIN, USA NEWSPAPER. The trip is part of the BRIDGE program, made possible through the support of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. For more about BRIDGE, see here.

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL. With the support of the U.S. Department of Education, iEARN-USA has developed an International Education Teacher Professional Development Demonstration Model in the State of Washington. See here for results of the project to date. 

Coming Soon! Upcoming Events and Projects!

ANNUAL EUN EMINENT 2005 CONFERENCE, PARIS, FRANCE, DECEMBER 8-9, 2005. Hosted by the French Ministry of Education, European Schoolnet's annual Expert Meeting of International and National Educational Networks (EMINENT) conference will feature four concurrent workshop strands: New Schooling Environments Theme, ICT in schools policy, Digital Resources, and Portals. For more information, see http://eminent.eun.org.

2006 iEARN NATURAL DISASTERS YOUTH SUMMIT MEETING IN TAIWAN, JANUARY 6-8, 2006. For more about the project, see http://ndys.jearn.jp/.

2006 iEARN WORLD CONFERENCE AND YOUTH SUMMIT IN ENSCHEDE, NETHERLANDS, JULY 3-7, 2006. http://www.iearn2006.nl/

Recent Events!

8TH ANNUAL IRANIAN SCHOOLNET CONFERENCE, HELD IN NEYSHABOUR, SEPTEMBER 13-16, 2005. iEARN-Iran conducted a series of iEARN workshops and presentation in the conference. Participants were administrators, educators and students from various regions of Iran as well as foreign countries. Dr. Sunita Bhagwat, iEARN India Coordinator, participated and presented a workshop on the activities of iEARN in India during the course of the conference. The attendees were provided with an opportunity to learn what iEARN is, iEARN goals, iEARN history and the impact of iEARN in helping students promote friendship and knowledge on a national and international level. Two students from Farzanegan Zeynab School illustrated how iEARN projects are used in their classroom and showed samples of their work on " Learning Circles" and "Folk Tales" Projects. A report on Iranian delegation activities in the 12th annual iEARN Conference held in Dakar, Senegal was also presented. Then the iEARN newcomers explored the website to get information about iEARN projects and learn how to register for iEARN Interactive Forums. For more about the conference, see here or iEARN-Iran, see here.

WORKSHOP IN NEPAL, SEPTEMBER 16, 2005. 20 students and 5 teachers joined iEARN as part of a workshop facilitated by Shashi Sharma and iEARN Nepal Coordinator, Binita Nepal Parajuli, at Galaxy Public School, Kathmandu, Nepal. Meet them in the Teachers Forum. For more about iEARN-Nepal, see here.

iEARN-SIERRA LEONE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETES SUMMER SCHOOL CERTIFICATION PROGRAM. iEARN-Sierra Leone Coordinator, Andrew Benson Greene, writes, "The iEARN Sierra Leone Certification ceremony, marked the climax of a three months successful completion of training for youth. The event occurred on September 24, 2005, wherein iEARN Sierra Leone issued certificates to 60 youth and students in the Freetown Municipality." Congratulations to all youth who participated! For more about iEARN in Sierra Leone, see here.

iEARN WORKSHOPS IN PAKISTAN. iEARN-Pakistan recently conducted a series of 3 curriculum based workshops as part of the BRIDGE Curriculum Enrichment Program: The workshop on Oral History project was a day long event attended by 25 educators from 12 schools, who were introduced to oral history project methods. Read their mini Oral History projects in the iEARN Oral History forum. The Workshop on Writing: This workshop engaged 37 educators from 16 schools in integrating iEARN writing project to develop different forms of writing among students. The Workshop on Service Learning: 35 educators from 15 schools enthusiastically planned to integrate Service Learning projects in the curriculum they are teaching and planned for the Global Youth Service Day. For more about them, see here.