iEARN Project Facilitation Guidelines

iEARN project facilitators are expected to facilitate broad participation by iEARN schools around the world, and should provide a clear and structured format for this participation. It is also expected that each project in iEARN will have a collaborative end product that is described at the outset.

1) Before starting a new iEARN project, participate in an existing project first. The key to iEARN's success is collaboration between participants. Participating in other iEARN projects is a great way to meet other participants. Once this experience is gained, project facilitators are encouraged to continue involving their classes in other iEARN projects, just as they would like other classes to participate in their project activities.

2) Emphasize the collaborative aspect of the project. Interaction among participants in key in iEARN projects. Make sure that there is collaboration and interaction among participants, and that teachers do not simply develop the project with their classes and report back what they did, but that they actually work together and build on what the other classes do.

3) What's the project's impact? In addition to meeting specific educational goals, every project proposed by teachers and students in iEARN must answer the question, "How will this project improve the quality of life on the planet?" This vision and purpose is the glue that holds iEARN together, enabling participants to become global citizens who make a difference by collaborating with their peers around the world.

4) Use iEARN's online forums for project discussions and exchange of student work. Because iEARN forums are archived, new participants can join more easily than in exchanges happening over private email. In addition, iEARN forums are distributed via mailing lists, web-based forums, and offline newsreaders, thus keeping cost to a minimum for those with limited connectivity.

5) Login to iEARN on a regular basis and stay active in the project's online forum (at least weekly). Those listed as project facilitators are expected to monitor forum discussions, and to welcome new participants joining the project at different stages. If your class will be offline for a period of time, please post a message to the project forum to alert the team of this, and if possible, designate others to assume the role of facilitation.

6) Update project information periodically. Posting periodic updates to your project forum will help existing participants, and will ensure that new participants will not be referring to outdated project information. In addition, project facilitators are encouraged to share project news in the Teachers Forum (http://foro.iearn.org/iearnforums/teachers) and students can do the same in the Youth Forum (http://foro.iearn.org/iearnforums/youth).

7) Involve students in project facilitation and other leadership roles. Appointing international student editorial boards and facilitators increases the opportunities for all students to receive feedback from other students on their writing, so that the sole responsibility of responding to messages does not fall on project facilitators. Our goal is that every student who posts a message will receive a response from another student. This can be attained if participants commit to respond to 2 other messages for every one that they post.

8) Exhibit and share student work. Projects generally involve a final "product" or exhibition of the learning that has taken place as part of the collaboration. These have included magazines, creative writing anthologies, websites, reports to government officials, arts exhibits, performances, and many more examples of youth taking action as part of what they are learning in the classroom. In some projects, facilitators may choose to share the role of compiling project materials into a final publication, thus allowing a variety of classrooms the experience of analyzing and presenting a piece of the project's "final product."

9) Link to iEARN on project website, if one exists. See http://www.iearn.org/about/iearn_logos.html for more about linking to iEARN, and write to projects@iearn.org if you have questions about the exact link to your iEARN project page and forum.