95 classrooms, 25 countries, 5 continents: the January-May iEARN Learning Circles have started
Currently there are 95 classrooms in 12 different Circles. Participating classrooms are from 25 different countries spread through 5 different continents (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia). Congratulations to the two new countries that are making their Learning Circles debut: Nepal and Greece.
Learning Circles promote theme-based global project work integrated with the classroom curriculum. In addition to a Circle at each school level (Elementary, Middle School, High School) for Computer Chronicles, Places and Perspectives, and My Hero, the Learning Circles feature two new projects this session:
My Hero: A Call To Action is facilitated by Wendy Jewell from My Hero, Laura Nietzer from Saddle River Day School in Saddle River, New Jersey, USA, and Mali Bickley from Barrie, Ontario, Canada. This is our first time to run a Circle that will make an extensive use of real time interaction and conferencing. The goal is for students to take their hero themes and stories and convert them into real life service/action oriented projects.
Our second new project is based on iEARN's My City and Me project. We have both a Middle School and High School section of this project. Both groups are facilitated by Olga Prokhorenko from Moscow, Russia, the facilitator of iEARN's My City and Me project. The goal for this project is for students to discuss and learn about each other’s government, social, environmental, and cultural aspects of their home cities. The project will conclude with students creating projects that share the cultural part of their life in the city.
The next round of iEARN Learning Circles will start September 2011. Stay tuned to www.iearn.org/circles for details. Check out student work from the Sept-Jan 2011 Learning Circles.
Sample student work -- featured below from the Sept-Jan session, a Learning Circle slideshow about the theme of Compassion, from Lynnwood Elementary Students with contributions from: GreenAcres School, Scarsdale, NY, St Stephen School, Omaha Nebraska, and Deema’s school, Amman, Jordan.
