iEARN in Action, March 15, 2001

CONTRIBUTE ARTICLES AND PICTURES TO I*EARN INTERACTION NEWSLETTER!!!! Seeking submissions to the 2001 issue of the "Interaction" newsletter. See last year's issue at http://www.iearn.org.au/interaction/. Send news and/or images of I*EARN activities in your country or school to Aaron at interaction@us.iearn.org. All articles and pictures must be received prior to May 1st, 2001, so that the publication can be ready for the 2001 I*EARN International Teachers Conference in Cape Town. If you are planning to submit or would be interested in helping translate the newsletter into other languages, please let him know soon so that he can begin coordinating submissions.

iEARN PROJECT DESCRIPTION BOOK AVAILABLE IN GREEK. I*EARN Project Description Booklet is now available in Greek! It is in zipped PDF format at: http://www.de.sch.gr/~sgiakmog/files/projectbook_gr00-01.zip Thanks so much to Sophia Giakmoglidou, iEARN Coordinator in Greece, for this contribution!!

CLEAN COMMUNITIES EXCHANGE: Belarus - USA. A partnership between iEARN schools in Belarus and USA will begin this month, and will include on-line collaboration among students and physical student and educator exchanges. On March 25, students and teachers from the US will be travelling to Belarus for three weeks, and at the end of April, students and teachers from Belarus will come to the US to participate in school activities and in the YouthCaN Conference on April 30th. See http://www.iearn.org/schoolexchange/ to learn more, or join them in !

Join Us! Seeking Contacts, Contributions and Collaborators

For a full listing of iEARN projects, see iEARN.ideas.

TEDDY BEAR PROJECT SEEKS PARTNERS. Teachers in the following year levels are waiting for partners: Years K (5 - 6 year olds) Australian and New Zealand, Year 1 - USA, Year 2 - USA, Year 3 - Australia, Year 4 - Australia, Year 5 - Australia, Year 7 Ireland. Register on the web site http://www.iearn.org.au/tbear or write to Muriel Wells in Australia.

WORLD BOOK DAY PROJECT FOR I*EARN. World Book Day originated in Catalonia before the Second World War and involved gifts of roses as well as books. World Book Day has now been designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading and was marked in over 30 countries around the globe last year. To join others in I*EARN in this celebration, contact Meenaz Shams and Aamir Rajan in Pakistan.

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

US-CHINA YOUTH EXCHANGE. The first exchange participants have been selected for this historic iEARN program. Teachers and students from Chengdu, China are planning to travel to Phoenix, USA, and those from Phoenix will travel to Chengdu from May 26 - June 15. The pilot schools have chosen "Citizens & Local Government - A Comparative Study of Phoenix and Chengdu" as the theme of their collaborative project. The schools will examine the ways in which citizens participate in the affairs of local government in Chengdu and Phoenix, and share their efforts in the discussion forum . The deadline for selection of 25 U.S. and 25 Chinese schools for future exchanges is June 30, 2001. Hardcopy applications are now available for U.S. and Chinese schools from both iEARN-USA in New York and iEARN-China in Beijing, or online at: http://www.iearn.org/china/exchange or http://www.iearn.online.edu.cn/

BALKAN PHRASE BOOK. See http://teachweb.wify.com/bdictionary for a phrase book created by members of the The Balkans in Our Eyes Project. (http://www.iearn.org/balkans/)

NEW LANGUAGE FORUMS IN iEARN. Over the past few months, many new language forums have opened in I*EARN due to interest and the newly available Web-crossing forum system which allows for posting of non-Latin based character sets. You are welcome to join the various language communities working iearn.arabic (Arabic), iearn.kartuli (Georgian), iearn.francais (French), iearn.nihongo (Japanese),, iearn.port (Portuguese), iearn.russian (Russian), iearn.latina and the telar forums (Spanish), iearn.ukrain (Ukrainian) . Participants interested in helping to launch and facilitate any additional language forums should write to us at iearn@us.iearn.org. See also http://www.iearn.org/globe/globe_language_gateway.html for a listing of various language resources available in I*EARN.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CREDITS. Teachers in any country can get continuing professional development graduate credits through the University of St. Thomas. The cost is $145 per credit. Teachers can choose the number of credits they want to work towards in a number of contexts, including in-service and workshops (including the IEARN conference in South Africa this summer), efforts associated with school links, international collaborative projects, curriculum design, etc.. For more information contact Dr. Freund jafreund@spacestar.netor see: http://webcampus4.stthomas.edu/~CTED914.

ICT STORIES PROJECT 2001 COMPETITION. All stories must be written about an active or completed project involving information and communication technologies as applied to social and economic development. The Story Writer should be someone who is or has worked directly on the project. Enter for the chance to win a trip to the Global Internet Summit: INET 2001 in Stockholm, Sweden. Deadline for Entry is April 15th, 2001. To enter, come to the Stories website http://www.iicd.org/stories/ . Alternatively you may email your stories to stories@iicd.org. To receive an entry form by email send a request to pstreet@worldbank.org.

Coming Soon! Upcoming Events and Projects!

YOUTHCAN ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE. April 30, 2001, New York City, USA. Students facilitate an online network of students using telecommunications technologies to undertake and/or share environmental wrk locally and around the world. See http://www.nyu.edu/projects/youthcan/.

3rd WORLD SUMMIT ON CHILDREN AND MEDIA. March 23-26 2001, Thessaloniki, Greece. http://www.3rd-ws.org. Contact Sophia Giakmoglidou to learn details about a dinner for iEARN participants and anyone else attending this summit who would like to learn more about iEARN.

ESCHOLA EVENT. Schools throughout Europe are invited to take part in ÎeSchola ö learning togetherâ ö a week for eLearning in Europe to demonstrate the potential of ICT in the classroom. ÎeScholaâ will take place 7-11 May 2001. See http://eschola.eun.org

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AFRICA CONNECTS/I*EARN CONFERENCE - REGISTER NOW! 8th Annual I*EARN Conference- Capetown, South Africa. - 8th July 2001 -14th July 2001. Contact or info@ac.wcape.school.za or see http://ac.wcape.school.za to register. The conference will be hosted by the Western Cape Schools' Network and SchoolNet SA, in conjunction with their annual educational computing conference (July 10-13) which is known as a major event on the local educational calendar. Take this opportunity to link up with teachers and students from all over Africa and other I*EARN countries. Participation is open to all educators who are share an interest in enhanced learning through on-line project-based learning. AFRICA CONNECTS is sponsored by MWeb and Microsoft SA. Call for Presentations/Workshops: Please register on the conference web site at http://ac.wcape.school.za. Once you have registered, log in to the conference web site and complete the form after clicking on the link to "Submit a presentation proposal". Contact prog@ac.wcape.school.za if there are questions about the process for submitting workshop proposals. Presentations proposals will be reviewed as they are submitted and approved by the Programme Coordinator after on-line interaction with the proposer. Selected Presenters will be notified as soon as possible, but no later than June 15.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++