iEARN in Action, April 15, 2007

Special note: Vote for iEARN in the NetSquared Competition! - Voting ends 5pm PDT Monday, April 16th, and requires a quick registration on the NetSquared website.

Seeking Partners: iEARN Projects!
1. Malaria nets project between Texas, USA and Gabarone, Botswana.
2. Teacher in Ghana seeking French language partners.
3. Indonesian class seeking partners for My Country project.
4. Read Folk Tales from Pakistan and Japan, and share your own.
5. Music class in USA seeking partners for music projects.
6. Discuss your community service work on the Students Unlimited forum.

Resources, Contests, Websites and Announcements!
7. Join in global discussion on future planning for iEARN.
8. Newspaper in Wyoming, USA features iEARN Teddy Bear Exchange.
9. Looking for a challenging multimedia game design program?
10. Teacher input needed for a cultural guide to avoiding on-line cultural
misunderstandings.
11. Seeking greetings for workshop participants in USA.

Upcoming Events!
12. Global Youth Service Day (GYSD).
13. YouthCaN Conference in Alexandria, Egypt, Beirut, Lebanon, and NYC, USA.
17. iEARN-India National Conference in Pune.
18. 14th Annual iEARN International Conference and Youth Summit, Cairo, Egypt.  

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Seeking Partners: iEARN Projects
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1. MALARIA NETS PROJECT. Students in three classes at Lowery Freshman Center in Allen, Texas challenged each other to raise money for the malaria nets program in Botswana. The students earned more than $1,500. For the past year, Nancy Hodson (Allen English teacher) and Tommie Hamaluba (Gabarone, Botswana technology teacher) have worked on a classroom cultural connection through the iEARN program. Advanced level freshman English classes read one of a series (Ladies #1 Detective Agency) of books set in Botswana and continue the cultural study of the area by corresponding with students in Gabarone, Botswana. Both teachers (and students) look forward to expanding this cultural exchange in the future. For information on this project see here.

2. TEACHER IN GHANA SEEKING FRENCH LANGUAGE PARTNERS. I am a teacher of French in a girls secondary school in Ghana. I need other students studying French to communicate with my students. they are between ages 15 - 17.

3. INDONESIAN CLASS SEEKING PARTNERS FOR MY COUNTRY PROJECT. I am Dedeh Suatini. I am an English teacher at SMAN 24 Bandung-Indonesia. Indonesia has more than 17 thousands islands with different cultures, languages, etnic and interesting history. I teach at second grade of Secondary school. They are 15-18 years old. My students will tell about Indonesia such as Politic, History, Sport, Culture, Economy, Education, Tourist object in "My Country" project. You can find us in project steps coordinated by Salimata Sene from Senegal. I hope I can have many partners from some countries to share information about their countries. See My Country project. Login and look for them in the project's online forum!

4.READ FOLK TALES FROM PAKISTAN AND JAPAN...AND SHARE YOUR OWN! See Folk Tales from students in Japan here, read and respond to contributions from students from Pakistan posted recently to the online forum, and share your own stories! For more, visit Folktales project website.

5. MUSIC CLASS IN COLORADO, USA SEEKING PARTNERS FOR MUSIC PROJECTS. The first project involves doing a worldwide internet survey on survey monkey of the top five most influential songs in the world. Once we have completed the survey, we will record a type of podcast discussing each song. We are also encouraging students from other countries to conduct the same survey and see if their answers share anything in common with ours. The second project involves creating a musical video representation of music that idealizes life in America, and then sharing that with other classes in other countries and asking them to do the same to exchange with us. Contact Mark Middlebrooks.

6. DISCUSS YOUR COMMUNITY SERVICE WORK ON THE STUDENTS UNLIMITED PROJECT. Hundreds of iEARN classes are sharing their plans for community service projects to be undertaken as part of Global Youth Service Day April 20-22, 2007. See a list of recommended guidelines developed by iEARN-Pakistan for their participating sites here. To join
the Students Unlimited Project, see here, facilitated by the Orman secondary school for boys iEARN team in Egypt

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Check it Out! Resources, Contests, Websites, Announcements.
(This includes resources that are not part of iEARN)
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7. JOIN IN DISCUSSIONS ON THE FUTURE OF iEARN -- iEARN in the 21st Century! At the July 2006 iEARN Assembly meeting, the future of iEARN was on the agenda. In the past months we have tried to set-up a process and time path that will allow each and every iEARN-member to contribute our "Future discussions". By iEARN Centre nominations a "Future group" has been created ready to support and process all your input. In the next iEARN NEWS we will share more about the process and future group; the process will be facilitated by Eliane Metni and Bob Cater. iEARN invites all its members to on-line iEARN future discussions, which will take place between May 2 and June 18, 2007. The aim of the discussions is to hear the views and perspectives of iEARN community at large on the future of iEARN, its goals and structure, and its readiness to meet the 21st Century educational needs. The outcome of the on-line discussions will be "fermented" just before the conference and presented as "a green paper" at the 2007 iEARN Assembly, Conference and on-line. Who can join? EVERYONE is welcome! Youth, educators, ICT coordinators, principals, iEARN country coordinators, Assembly members. For more information write to Bob Carter and Eliane Metni.

8. NEWSPAPER IN WYOMING, USA FEATURES iEARN TEDDY BEAR EXCHANGE WITH ARGENTINA!

9. LOOKING FOR A CHALLENGING MULTIMEDIA GAME DESIGN PROGRAM? The Globaloria Program provides a network of educational, programmable websites and related Wikis and Blogs that teaches young people (13 and older) to become makers of interactive games and simulations while deepening their understanding of a particular curricular area. Globaloria is designed for educators who have computers with high bandwidth internet connectivity for every student and who are looking for engaging ways to take their students to the next level through a process they love, designing their own multimedia games. Globaloria will provide in-kind services and support for 1-2 iEARN educators to do the program, which follows a semester-long curriculum during. Instructors and students need to dedicate 10+ hours of work each week. Visit http://www.worldwideworkshop.org/ to learn about the program requirements.

10. TEACHER INPUT FOR A CULTURAL GUIDE TO AVOIDING ONLINE CULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. iEARN teachers and students are invited to start a conversation about cultural misunderstandings that might result from cultural assumptions applied to the written word. Because of cultural differences, words that are similar or even the same, can have very different meanings in different cultures. The goal is to create a cultural guide to assist teachers and students who use the internet to communicate across geographical borders. The results will be presented at the 14th Annual iEARN International Conference and Youth Summit, Cairo, Egypt. Interested? Contact Laura Val.

11. SEEKING GREETINGS FROM iEARN PARTICIPANTS FOR WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS IN USA! Celia Einhorn is seeking greetings for teachers at an International Conference on K-12 Global Education, April 17th and 18th, South Boston, VA, USA. Post greetings in the iEARN Teachers Forum.

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Upcoming Events
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12. GLOBAL YOUTH SERVICE DAY (GYSD), APRIL 20-22, 2007. GYSD is the largest annual celebration of young volunteers, where millions of young people in countries everywhere highlight and carry out thousands of community improvement projects. iEARN participants are encouraged to join GYSD-related activities in the Students Unlimited Project. http://www.iearn.org/projects/studentsunlimited.html. Register your project today.

13. YouthCaN 2007 EVENTS TO BE HELD IN ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT, BEIRUT, LEBANON, AND
NEW YORK CITY, USA ON APRIL 23, 2007. YouthCaN in Alexandria will take place at the American Center in Alexandria. YouthCaN in Beirut will take place at the American Community School at Beirut. YouthCaN in NYC will take place at the American Museum of Natural History. YouthCaN is a year-round network within iEARN of students using technology to collaborate on environmental work locally and around the world. See http://www.youthcanworld.org for details.

14. iEARN-INDIA NATIONAL CONFERENCE IN PUNE, MAY 3-5, 2007. The National Conference for 2007 will have the theme" We are the World" and will feature a small film festival of short documentary and animation videos created by participants in the Adobe Youth Voices Project. iEARN-India members interested in attending can contact Coordinator Sunita Bhagwat. iEARN members can see early drafts of participants' animation work here.

16. iEARN-EGYPT TO HOST 14TH ANNUAL iEARN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AND 11TH YOUTH SUMMIT, JULY 21 - 26, 2007 IN CAIRO. The theme of the conference is: Connecting Cultures and Respecting Differences: A Global Dialogue for Development and Sustainability. This theme will serve as an umbrella for iEARN projects and other sub-themes such as: professional development, new educational developments, new developments in ICT, iEARN initiatives and management, global dialogue and rural development. The conference is expected to attract 1000 participants. Parallel to the educators' conference, there will be an international youth summit with a focus on Leadership and Youth Empowerment. Check out the new conference website, designed by iEARN-Egypt students and alumni: http://www.iearn2007.net. General inquiries: <info@iearnegypt.org> & <dalia@iearnegypt.org>. Conference registration & call for paper: <iearn2007@yahoo.com> & <info@iearnegypt.org>. Deadline for workshop
submissions has been extended until April 25, 2007. Conference and Youth
Summit registration is open from July 1, 2006 - June 30 2007.

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For Reference
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TO SUBMIT AN ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE NEWSFLASH: Send your announcement (2-3 lines) to newsflash@us.iearn.org.
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iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is a global non-profit network that empowers teachers and students to undertake projects designed to make a meaningful contribution to the health and welfare of the planet and its people. Started in 1988, iEARN is currently active in over 120 countries, with 1,000,000 students participating as part of their education. iEARN-International: http://www.iearn.org

Download the 2005-2006 iEARN Project Book: http://www.iearn.org/projects/projectbook.html (available in Arabic, English, French, and Japanese) or for a full listing of iEARN projects, see: http://www.iearn.org/projects/
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