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December 2008
 GCE School Hosts U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs
On December 4, 2008 Alina Romanowski, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, visited the Zarifa Aliyeva school in Baku to meet with educators and students who work on GCE internet-based collaborative projects. At the end of her visit Alina Romanowski introduced the video contest “Your Culture, My Culture,” inviting 2 groups of students from the school to make video clips for submission in early January 2009.
GCE Students in Baku and Orlando Explore Identity, Find Commonalities
GCE Students at the Zarifa Aliyeva School in Baku are collaborating with their peers at Cypress Creek High School in Orlando on the My Identity, Your Identity project. This project encourages participants to explore and research the elements that form their identities. Topics so far include “Landmarks of your hometown,” “Music,” and “Traditional clothes.” Katie, a GCE student from Texas, joined a discussion about traditional and modern dress in different countries saying, “in the USA, people wear t-shirts.” Lala, a GCE student at School #164 in Baku, responded saying that in Azerbaijan, “young people wear absolutely the same clothes as westerns.”
iEARN-Bahrain
 GCE Students Exchange Folk Arts, Learn about World Cultures
Fatima Haider, a GCE English Language Teacher at Isteqlal School is working with her students on the Folk Tales GCE project. For the project, students were asked to gather stories from grandparents or books, and also read stories from other cultures before writing their own stories in PowerPoint. Some of the GCE students translated stories from Arabic to English to exchange their folk tales with their peers in other countries through iEARN’s Collaboration Center. A recent folk tale posted by a 3rd grade GCE classroom from Burroughs School in Chicago, Illinois sparked a virtual exchange with contributions from GCE participants in Azerbaijan, Kenya, Turkey, and GCE alumni in Pakistan.
Momen El-Sayed Mohammed, a GCE educator at Hamad Town School and his students are collaborating with other teachers and students from around the world on the GCE project Folk Costumes Around the Globe. For the project, students collect photos of their traditional clothes, write a description of where and when they usually wear them, and then make connections with other GCE participants through iEARN’s Collaboration Center.
 Teachers and Students Attend GCE Digital Storytelling Workshop
On December 16, 2008 35 educators and students from Minsk, Slonim, Lida, Shuchin, and Smorgon attended iEARN-Belarus’ GCE Digital Storytelling Workshop in Minsk. The main goal of the workshop was to introduce the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) and GCE programs to educators interested in integrating global project work into their classrooms. The workshop also allowed educators to explore new technologies made possible by AYV and GCE, and encouraged students to use digital storytelling to catalyze social change in their communities, schools, and families.
GCE Educators Published in Belarus Education Journals
GCE Country Coordinator Lyudmila Dementyeva and three GCE educators including Ms. Belyanko, Ms. Savelova, and Mr. Sheldukov, recently published articles on the benefit of online collaborative projects to the professional development of school administrators.
GCE Classroom Interviews Minister For Education For My Hero Project
A GCE classroom from the Ronaky School For Girls is participating in the My Hero project. In the My Hero project, a classroom chooses a hero to research and then uses a provided space to share an essay, video, or website about the hero with others in the project. For their hero, the GCE students in Erbil chose the Minister for Education of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Dr. Dilshad Abdul Rahman Mohammad. The class chose Dr. Mohammad because he has helped them by improving the education system and because he has supported iEARN-Iraq and the GCE program and offered his support and encouragement to participating teachers. GCE Country Coordinator Bina Bayan and their GCE teacher Sirwa arranged a meeting with the Minister and he met with the GCE classroom for an hour and a half. The GCE students interviewed the Minister in English in the style of journalists, and Dr. Mohammad answered every question clearly and was impressed with the questions the GCE students came up with, as well as their English speaking skills. The GCE students of the Ronaky School For Girls were thrilled to be able to meet with the Minister and have him answer their questions and the visit was a great encouragement as they continue to learn English and about journalism.
GCE Classroom Featured in Newspaper
Ms. Bayan Mustafa’s GCE classroom at Waffaey Middle School in Erbil visited the offices of a Kurdish-language publisher to learn about journalism. The GCE students learned how a magazine for youths called Helana that they read is published, as well as how students can write for the magazine. The class also learned about how the Khabat newspaper, run by the same publisher, is designed and published. The classroom identified themselves as part of the GCE program, and was interviewed by a reporter and had a story printed about their visit in the next day’s edition of the paper. The story can be found online at the newspaper’s website: http://www.xebat.net/pdf/3061/x11.pdf.q.
 GCE Classrooms From Jerusalem & West Point Exchange More Than Teddy Bears
GCE 1st grade students at the Al Amal School For Special Education in East Jerusalem are taking part in the Teddy Bear project with a U.S. GCE 1st grade classroom with 17 students from West Point, New York.
The Al Amal school director and teachers are very active and supportive of the GCE program, as it is helping their students reach their full potential in acqiring both social and academic skills. They desire to help their students foster tolerance and understanding as well as develop ICT skills. The Al Amal school currently does not have computer equipment for their special education classes, so the school’s staff are using their own resources to get the students involved in the GCE program.
The 2 classrooms began the exchange knowing only that they’d been paired up with a school from New York and from Jerusalem. The classroom in East Jerusalem assumed they were partnered with a class from New York City, and the West Point classroom assumed they were partnered with a class of Jewish students. Both classes were surprised when they learned more about each other, and were excited to learn more about each other’s culture. The classroom in East Jerusalem shared some information about Jerusalem and its importance in Islam, as well as information about the holiday of Eid-al-Adha. The U.S. GCE students learned about the holiday and “decided it would be very hard to fast [from food] for a whole day.”
The teddy bear from West Point arrived in Jerusalem on December 2, 2008. In one of their most recent messages to the West Point classroom, the East Jerusalem teacher wrote that “Everyday there are problems in Jerusalem … it’s difficult, so our students are very happy to work with your bear.” The classroom in West Point has received the teddy bear named Yafa from East Jerusalem and the students will take turns taking the teddy bear home and writing journal entries to share about all the experiences that Yafa has in West Point.
GCE Participants celebrate Oman Environment Day with Community Service
The Environmental Co-Op Group (ECO-Group), made up of GCE students and educators, organized young people in Sohar to celebrate Oman Environment Day on Monday, January 8th by cleaning up their neighborhood. GCE Teacher Moza Al-Moqbali from Um Salama School says about the students, “they were very happy to help.”
 GCE students and educators in Muscat participated in Oman Environment Day with an environmental exhibition, by planting trees, promoting the Using Eco-friendly Bags campaign, and signing the longest environmental petition in the world.
Many institutions participated in this event, including the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, the Muscat Municipality, the Environment Society of Oman (ESO), the Art of Living Society, and ECO-Group.
The ECO-Group posted information about their work for Oman Environment Day in the Planetary Notions and YouthCaN project forums to share what they had done with other GCE participants working on environmental projects in the U.S. and around the world.
To view a blog of other ECO-Group GCE student and teacher activities visit:
http://omaneco.blogspot.com
 GCE Classrooms in Thailand & North Carolina Exchange Holiday Cards
GCE teacher Saksuda Thongmee’s classrooms in the south of Thailand
exchanged holiday cards with 6-7th grade classrooms at a Catholic
School in North Carolina as part of the Holiday Card Exchange project.
In the Holiday Card Exchange project, about 8 classrooms are partnered
and each makes and sends greeting cards for a holiday to the other
classrooms. The partners also interact in the forums, sharing
information about themselves, their country, and their culture and
learning about the holiday traditions in other parts of the world. A
trainee teacher at Mr. Thongmee’s school who was making cards with one
of the classrooms wrote, “This project is wonderful for me to introduce
my students around the world. They are happy to make Christmas cards
for their new friends in other countries. It makes me happy too.”
Mr. Thongmee’s GCE classrooms didn’t celebrate Christmas, so they
shared information about Loy Krathong Day, the celebration at the end
of the lunar year, and about the traditional Thai New Year that takes
place in April. The GCE classroom also was able to share information
about the culture of Christmas that exists in Thailand: “Although there
are not many Christians here in Thailand, Christmas is
popular—especially in the malls, which are decorated with Santas,
reindeer and pine trees. I guess people all around the world love
Christmas season because it’s really cute!” The GCE classroom in North
Carolina enjoyed learning about the Thai holidays, and also hearing
about what Christmas is like in a country with few Christians.
Students Share National Food, Dress, and Pastimes through GCE Identity Project
GCE participants from Turkey and the United States shared recipes and discussed how food plays a role in their identities as part of the My Identity, Your Identity project. GCE student Kelsey from Mansfield, Texas learned how to make traditional dishes including couscous and lahmacun. She also discovered that her favorite food, spaghetti, is “very popular among Turkish people as well” according to Huri Cinar, a GCE educator at Cahit Elginkan Anadolu Lisesi school in Kocaeli. Students from Turkey and the United States also used iEARN’s Collaboration Center to discuss national dress in their countries, including comparing women’s jewelry.
Rodruy, a GCE student at the George Washington High School for Law and Public Service in New York City, talked about his love of baseball. He explained that baseball is part of his identity because, “When I’m with my friends I play and I forget about my problems and my bad times.”
Disabled Students Celebrate the New Year by Sharing GCE Experiences
On December 28, 2008 iEARN-Uzbekistan, in partnership with the Culture and Art House, organized a “Happy New Year Day” event giving students of the Online School for Disabled Children the opportunity to make presentations highlighting the GCE projects that they participated in during the 2008 academic year.
Among students’ favorites of 2008 were the Side By Side project, in which students share their uniqueness by creating elongated self-portraits, and the Origami project, which encourages students to connect through a global exchange of folded paper creations. These online arts collaborations inspired students from the Online School for Disabled Students to explore their creativity, engage with other cultures, and also improve their math, writing, and communication skills. One parent expressed her gratitude for the programs saying, “it is really wonderful to feel that somewhere in the world people want to share with you.”
 GCE Educator Leads GCE Workshops
On December 20, 2008 Bekmuratova Umida and Katya Dolgopolova, alumni of iEARN-Uzbekistan’s Teachers Academy, conducted GCE trainings for more than 50 educators and students at Schools #32 and #16 in Nukus. The iEARN Teachers Academy program gave participants, many of whom had no prior experience delivering training programs or formal training in instructional techniques, the basic skills to be effective GCE trainers.
Overall, participants in iEARN-Uzbekistan’s Teachers Academy have found that incorporating concepts learned during the trainings into their curricula increases student participation, enthusiasm, and self-esteem. In short, GCE students learn and have fun.
 GCE Flower Project Grows
In September 2008 GCE students from School #34 in Karshi started the Flower Project, which helps students to learn about the many flowers of the world. In December, the GCE classroom refreshed their collection with new cactuses from Malaysia, a GCE alum. In 2009, students will post their collection online and share it with GCE partners through iEARN’s Collaboration Center.
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