iEARN-US Newsletter, Issue 8
May 13, 2005

iEARN-USA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

1.      Come to Senegal
2.      Join iEARN Teacher Professional Development Online courses
3.      Join the US-Center Forum
4.      Come NECC with us
5.      April BRIDGE Reception a Great Success
6.      Art Miles goes to Colorado
7.      PEARL Project Launches Online Course for Student Reporters
8.      Florida and Washington State Comfort Quilts and Delaware postcards                                       
         travel to India
9.      Friends Circle Project Seeks US Partners
10.     Interested in Partnering with Students and Teachers in Uzbekistan?

RESOURCES, AWARDS & OPPORTUNITIES

1.      New Hosting Opportunity: Open Your Home to a YES Scholar
2.      DisneyHand Minnie Grant for Service Projects Outside of the United States
3.      Course Competition on Unselfish Love
4.      U.S. in the World: A Global Citizenship Initiative
5.      Mountain Voices: Education Website
6.      Sign Up for Peace Match!
7.      Win up to $1,000 by becoming a YSA Youth Venturer
8.      Teaching American History Grants
9.      Free Books for your Classroom
10.     Rwanda: Human Rights Delegation for Young Leaders

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iEARN-US NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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1. Come to Senegal!

The 12th Annual iEARN World Conference & Youth Summit will be held July 17th - 24th in Dakar, Senegal. Join 1,000 teachers and students at the conference in a truly international conversation about education. For more information, go to http://www.iearn.org/news/news_meetings.html, or email iearnsenegal@yahoo.fr.

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2. Join iEARN Teacher Professional Development Online courses!

Need to learn how to open your classroom to the rest of the world? Want to see your students collaborating on projects with students an ocean away? Interested in sharing the joy, challenge and excitement of teaching with your peers around the world? Eager to figure out what your next professional development endeavor will be?

Join us in our 9-week online professional development courses! You'll learn how to globalize your classroom using technology, integrate Standards-based International collaborative projects into your curriculum without the pressure of adding more into the curriculum, chat on a daily basis with teachers around the world and share experiences.

You may earn professional development credentials from your state as well!

The next session of iEARN's eight different online courses will start in September 12, 2005. Visit: http://www.iearn.org/professional/index.html and make a choice of the course you'd like to take before you take off for the summer!

For more information, contact Otgo at: ookhidoi@us.iearn.org  or Losira at: lokelo@us.iearn.org

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3. Join the US-Center Forum!

We continue to encourage you to visit the US Center Forum. http://foro.iearn.org/iearnforums/uscenter/

Click "Most recent" from the menu at the bottom of the page to read the most recent articles. To be subscribed to it by e-mail send a message to write to subscribe@us.iearn.org and include your name and the forum name in your message.

Here is what you have missed since the last US newsletter:

Additional discussions on No Child Left Behind and Time!

May - June 05 Online Forums an invitation to participate in pre-conference forums for the National Education Computing Conference (NECC)

Opportunity for NYC area High School students - deadline is May 26, 2005.

An invitation to chat with Barbara Chow, the vice president of the National Geographic Society's Education Foundation

Post National (Global) Youth Service Day Grant Opportunity-June 1 deadline

Information on the World Affairs Summer Institute in Washington, DC this summer

NetAid Global Action Awards honor high school students with $5,000 for college and a trip to the Awards celebration in New York City.

Nominations are open for the 2005 All-USA Teacher Team, USA TODAY's recognition program for outstanding K-12 teachers. Deadline April 29.

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4. Come NECC with us!

Please join us for some or all these workshops at NECC (National Education Computer Conference) in Philadelphia, June 26th - 30th.

 Visit http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2005/ to register.

1. Best Practices: International Collaborative Online Projects
  Three hr. Workshop
Mon. 8:30-11:30, 06/27/05
Videoconferencing with Taiwan and Japan

2. Socioeconomic Issues + iEARN Solar Solutions
Student Showcase
Tues. 10 -12, 06/28/05
     
  3. Daniel Pearl Project: Connecting Youth: Making a Difference in the World
Concurrent Session
Tues. 12:30-1:30, 06/28/05

4. Moving Voices     
  Student Showcase
Tues. 1:30 -3:30, 06/28/05
Videoconferencing with Botswana and New Hampshire

5.  Learning with Democracy  
  Student Showcase
Wed. 10-12, 06/29/05
     
  6. Global Audiences for Writing
Global Gallery
Wed. 1:30-3:30, 06/29/05
Videoconferencing with Pakistan
     
  7. Art Showcase:  Side by Side
  Student Showcase
Wed. 1:30 - 3:30, 06/29/05
     
  8. Assessment for PBL
Concurrent Session
Wed. 2-3
             
  9. Authentic Learning Experiences for Elementary Schools     
  Global Gallery
Thurs. 10-12, 06/30/05
     
  10.  Introductory Telecommunication Activities
  Global Gallery
Thurs. 10-12, 06/30/05
Videoconferencing with Egypt and NYC
     
  11. Youth Can
  Student Showcase
Thurs. 10-12, 06/30/05
Videoconferencing with NYC Natural History Museum and Lebanon

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5. April BRIDGE Reception a Great Success!

The BRIDGE project sponsored a reception for New York Area Teachers during the recent Master Trainer Exchange.  Teachers in the area were able to meet teachers from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Tunisia, and United Arab Emirates as well as Delaware and Illinois.  It was a fun evening of collecting passport stickers with contact information for further correspondence.  The Master Trainer participants eagerly recruited New York Area teachers to participate in iEARN projects with them.

 Pictures from the reception can be seen at http://www.iearn.org/MT2005/nycteacherrecp/Desktop.html

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6. Art Miles goes to Colorado!

>From Karen Eberle Smith:

I recently had a chance to be a part of a huge project here in Denver, World record breaking in fact. I just wanted to share a bit of it with you all. In Denver we worked with more than 75 organizations to create 150 12'x5' murals with an environmental theme. The Art Miles Mural Project then brought in close to 600 more murals created in many different countries. With the record broken only 2 weeks ago we did a last ditch effort in downtown Denver and created 2500 feet of mural in one day! That put us back on top in the record department. We painted with hundreds of people that day. Talk about exhausting!
 
The neat thing about this project was it used art to get people talking. By my calculations we had 75 groups in Denver (many of them kids) with an average of 20 people per group working on the murals. Some groups had 2 people; one group had 150 kids painting on one mural Yikes that could get messy. SO that's at least 1500 kids and adults here in Denver talking about the environment and creating artwork together about it. Add to that the international works that makes an artistic conversation about the environment including close to 13500 international voices...That's really cool.
 
Karen Eberle-Smith
Artist in Residence
http://www.denverenvironmentalmural.org
For more about the Art Miles Project, see http://www.iearn.org/projects/artmiles.html

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7. PEARL Project Launches Online Course for Student Reporters!

Many of you have heard about the PEARL World Youth News Service, a collaboration between iEARN and The Daniel Pearl Foundation. The youth-run international news service was founded to promote cross-cultural understanding through balanced, objective journalism with a global youth perspective. In the spirit of the high journalistic standards of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, teenage students will select the issues to be reported, and collaboratively write, edit and publish their articles on the new web-based news service. These articles will be made available to schools all over the world for publication in student newspapers.

Working with the New York Times and Columbia University School of Journalism, an online course has been developed to certify students as PEARL reporters anywhere in the world to submit articles to editorial schools for publication in the PEARL web-based News Service.

We welcome students to sign up to take this course.

http://www.iearn.org/pearlproject/

Using online forums, PEARL student reporters and editors will work together to decide the issues to report on, conduct collaborative research and interviews, and edit articles. Seven schools have volunteered to act as editors for the news service: Habib Girls' School and Aga Khan Secondary School Gilgit in Pakistan (News Editors), Valley International School in Lebanon (Features Editor), Gymnasium Parvoz in Uzbekistan (Music & Performing Arts Editor), Dr. Beheshti Boys High School and Ardeshiri Girls' High School in Iran (Entertainment Editors), and the Spokane Valley High School in Washington, US (Managing Editor).

 "The online PEARL Reporter Certification Program takes students from writing "leads" to finding sources and conducting interviews and teaches reporting techniques and the ethics of journalism," explained Ed Gragert, executive director of iEARN-USA. "Tapping into iEARN's vibrant network of students and educators in 110 countries, the PEARL project enables students to do their own reporting on issues facing them as members of the global community and gain valuable skills in the field of journalism."

The PEARL Reporter Certification Program has been developed with the assistance of the New York Times and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. High school students worldwide who are proficient in English and have access to the Internet will be able to participate in the program at no cost. Graduate students at Columbia's Journalism School will serve as evaluators for the certification program.

Interested schools and students can contact Anindita Dutta Roy at anindita@us.iearn.org for more information.

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8. Miami, FL and Seattle, WA Comfort Quilts, and Camden, DE postcards, travel to India!

As part of the Comfort Quilts Project, the students of Hiromi Pingry of John Stanford International School in Seattle, Washington made two beautiful comfort quilts that were taken to India in support of those affected by the Tsunami. In addition, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders at Fisher Island Day School in Miami, Florida sent a beautiful pink and green comfort quilt for the children of India.  These were all taken by iEARN-USA Executive Director Ed Gragert, along with $1300 in relief money that Fisher Island Day School in Miami raised, to India this month. An excerpt from the narrative the Fisher Island Day School included with their quilt:

"We made a quilt to give to the people in the tsunami. We're going to try to make them smile!"  "We made a quilt for the people because they got hit by a tsunami. We cared about the people. I sewed a lot and cut a lot and had a lot of fun."

Thank You also to Holly Briel's classes at Caesar Rodney High School for their hand-made postcards, which were also delivered to India this week!

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9. Friends Circle Project Seeks US Partners

Hello Everyone,

I am Nuria from NYC, USA. I would like to request U.S. student participation in the iEARN project "Friends Circle". This project is mainly facilitated by two students from Egypt, Marwan Mustafa and Ahmed Mosaad. It would be so great if some youth and schools from the U.S. take part in the project. They would like to expand the project further, to go beyond borders. Below are the words in the project proposal. I hope that you have your wonderful students take part in the project.

Friends Circle

Friends Circle is a project that helps youth everywhere to share their ideas and ask about. The Project is very interesting and good idea to make it a mean of a communication between youth all over the world. Friends Circle is a project that help youth to know who are they, what's the real mean of the life, what's the main role they're playing? And many other questions that all youth need its answer. The project aims at connecting youth all around the world in a true and effective way. The project addresses different aspects of youth life as to get a wide variety of knowledge about other people all over the world. The project is dealing with 10 activities to have a wide variety of options to allow all the members of a team to participate also we do not want the team members to be bored if they stayed a long time doing the same thing. We are after different things as social problems, historical information and fun. Friends Circle is for youth between 12 - 18 years old. The project aims to give youth the needed experience to live and to communicate with others from different countries.

The word "Friends" proves that every one in the world is just a human and we are all humans, so it's our world. We should defend it from bad ideas. We are all friends, it doesn't matter what is our nationality or our religion. The important matter is how to respect each other. If we became friends, sure we'll respect each other and be a one big family. By that, we'll forget our differences and spread peace everywhere and live like brothers in our world.

The word "Circle" mean that all friends will be in a big circle that is found everywhere all over the world. We will put the start and the circle will round and everyone can join us and be a Friend in the Circle. The Circle depends on your information and ideas that will be discussed. The Circle is a mean to exchange cultures among all countries because, Discussion and Respecting the thoughts of others are the best way to understand them well and help them to form a good opinion of different countries and the cultural and intellectual currents in them. Also it's believed that being fanatic and not willing to exchange ideas surly lead to hatred.

We hope to start it with the beginning of the 2005-2006 school year from the month of October till the month of May. We will discuss unemployment, Human rights, literacy, history and historical places, culture, technology, sports, songs, and hobbies, and will culminate in a community service activity.

 More Information:
If you want more information, just e-mail any one of the facilitators and he will help you and answer your question.

Facilitators:
Ahmed Mosaad Hassan Zaf_ag3000@yahoo.com
Khaled Abd El- Latif Saleh Lovelytiger_89@yahoo.com
Marwan Mustafa Abd El-Aziz Marojoker@yahoo.com
Mr. Yasser Hussein Omar Yh_omar@yahoo.com

Special thanks to:
Nuria Peguero from New York City, America.

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10. Interested in Partnering with Students and Teachers in Uzbekistan?

They are open to project ideas, but have expressed interest in the Folk Costumes Around the Globe Project http://www.iearn.org/projects/folkcostumes.html.  Contact Nurgul Dauletyarova at <arstan22@rambler.ru>.

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RESOURCES, AWARDS & OPPORTUNITIES
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1. New Hosting Opportunity: Open Your Home to a YES Scholar

For the past two years, iEARN has been a partner on the pioneering Yes (Youth Exchange and Study) Program funded by the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program was established following the events of September 11th, 2001, to build bridges of understanding between the United States and the countries and cultures of the Arab world.  YES students come from countries of the Middle East and North Africa and are selected for their commitment to community service, public diplomacy and academic achievement.  The YES program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and is a key measure in renewed public diplomacy efforts worldwide

AYUSA International, a non-profit youth exchange organization and iEARN partner, is seeking families and individuals who are interested in hosting one of these outstanding scholars for an academic year.  YES students will arrive in the United States in mid- August, equipped with medical insurance, spending money, a firm command of English and a strong commitment to becoming a member of your community.  We are looking for host families who are able to provide a warm, loving home, meals and sleeping quarters, either shared or private.  Students pay for all other personal expenses while on program through stipends disbursed by the U.S. Department of State.

Individuals and families interested in hosting will have the opportunity to broaden their horizons, provide a unique contribution to their community and make a positive impact on global youth.

For more information on hosting a YES student, please contact an AYUSA Program Advisor at 1-800-727-4540 ex 646. More details about the YES program can be found at http://www.ayusa.org/about/grants?grant=yes.

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2. DisneyHand Minnie Grant for Service Projects Outside of the United States
 
DisneyHand and Youth Service America are offering a grant to organize a community service project outside of the United States!  Children and youth ages of 5-14, teachers, and organizations that engage youth 5-14 are eligible for this grant.  Groups and organizations that have participated in Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) 2005 who engage children within that age group are especially encouraged to apply to continue their service throughout the year. To access a copy of the grant application, please visit http://www.ysa.org/awards/award_grant.cfm and download the International Grant.  Grant applications are due by June 1, 2005.

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3. Course Competition on Unselfish Love
Deadline: July 15, 2005

The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love - Altruism, Compassion, Service (http://www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org), which was established through a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (http://www.templeton.org), has announced "Unto Others: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on the Love of Neighbor," a course competition for secondary school faculty.

The competition encourages academically rigorous secondary school courses that focus on unselfish love of neighbor as a spiritual and practical ideal. The winning courses must combine the study of unselfish love as understood within (a) spiritual traditions and (b) scientific frameworks, such as physics, cosmology, evolution, biology, political science, the social sciences, and health.

Faculty in religious studies and/or theology, the humanities, and the sciences are encouraged to apply. Courses co-taught by two faculty members representing religion and science might be especially compelling in some cases, but team teaching is by no means imperative. In addition to new individual course development, it is possible to apply on the basis of refocusing an already existing course on the theme of unselfish love with significant attention to religion and science. In some cases, several faculty teaching in an integrative core humanities course might work together to include the topic as a major and sustained theme.

Ten awards of $5,000 will be made.

Applicants can review the full course competition description at the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love Web site.

RFP Link: http://fconline.fdncenter.org/pnd/1633/ulove

For additional RFPs in Education, visit: http://fdncenter.org/pnd/rfp/cat_education.jhtml

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4. U.S. in the World: A Global Citizenship Initiative

Global Kids is pleased to announce U.S. in the World: A Global Citizenship Initiative for Young People, a new initiative for young leaders that we are launching this summer. This exciting year-long program will begin with a three-week Summer Institute at the Council on Foreign Relations for twenty-five to thirty high school and college students. The program will culminate in a student project designed to engage hundreds of other young people in informed and respectful dialogue about the role of the U.S. in the world. Students will receive stipends for their participation.

As part of the summer program, students will interact with leading experts on global issues at the Council on Foreign Relations, engage in leadership-development activities, and make use of the vast array of global resources that New York City has to offer. The summer program will take place from July 11 until July 29, 2005.

We urge you to identify upcoming high school juniors and seniors and college freshman and sophomores who exhibit leadership potential, motivation and initiative, and a commitment to examining critical world issues. Please encourage these students to apply to the program. The deadline is May 26, 2005.  The application can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.globalkids.org/updates/042805/USinWorld/application.doc

For more information on U.S. in the World: A Global Citizenship Initiative for Young People, please contact Shana Jalbert at Global Kids at (212) 226-0130 or shana@globalkids.org.

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5. Mountain Voices: Education Website

>From  http://www.mountainvoices.org:

This website presents interviews with over 300 people who live in mountain and highland regions round the world. Their testimonies offer a personal perspective on change and development. The interviews on this site have been gathered by the Oral Testimony Programme of the Panos Institute in partnership with local organisations. To date, over 300 interviews have been conducted by local people in local languages, recorded, transcribed, translated, and summarised.

This project is part of Panos' Oral Testimony Programme, which aims to amplify the voices of those at the heart of development: people who are disadvantaged by poverty, gender, lack of education and other inequalities. Collecting and disseminating oral testimonies allows the least vocal and least powerful members of society to speak for themselves, rather than through outsiders or "experts". Panos works not with professional researchers, but trains local people in the methodology, sothat interviewing is done in local languages, in relaxed settings, between people who share some, but not necessarily all aspects of the each other's backgrounds.

Visitors to the website can choose from a list of countries, includingMexico, Peru, Lesotho, Kenya, Ethiopia, Poland, Pakistan, India, Nepal and  China. You may also search interviews by theme. Summaries are available for all visitors, but to access the full transcripts you must apply for a password through the site.

http://www.mountainvoices.org/

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6. Sign Up for Peace Match!

Peace Match, an online speakers bureau, connects Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) with educators to bring a firsthand perspective on life in a developing country to your classroom or youth group! As you plan activities for the remaining weeks of the school year, you can contact RPCVs in your area using the Peace Match web site and make arrangements for a classroom presentation.

Here are some ways RPCVs can serve as a resource in your classroom:

Educators teaching world civilization courses can call upon returned Volunteers who have served in non-Western cultures.

Many returned Volunteer speakers have videotapes, photographic slides or prints, and artifacts that will provide your students with an eyewitness account of the cultural, social, and political conditions in many parts of the world.

Language teachers can find returned Volunteers who will make presentations in the languages that they teach, such as Spanish, French, Russian, and Chinese.

Visit the Peace Match website at http://www.peacematch.org and register as
a host to find a speaker for your class!

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7. Win up to $1,000 in start-up funds for sustainable NYSD projects by becoming a YSA Youth Venturer!

Want to help your community or change the world? Need some funds and support to help get things going? Youth Service America (YSA) and Youth Venture can help! YSA and Youth Venture are teaming up again to make everyday National Youth Service Day (NYSD).

In conjunction with NYSD, YSA is offering funding to enable young people to engage in community service and make a difference in their world. Turn your NYSD 2005 project into a sustainable community service venture or create new sustainable projects for NYSD 2006, April 21st-23rd. Twenty awards of up to $1,000 in start-up funds are available to young people (ages 12-20) who want to create sustainable new, civic-minded organizations, clubs or businesses ("Ventures"). These Ventures must be created by youth, youth-led and designed to be a lasting asset to the community. YSA Youth Venturers are required to host a NYSD event.

Applications are available at http://www.youthventure.org/ysa. Applications must be received by 12:00 noon on June 13, 2005. Email myoung@youthventure.org or call 202.296.2992 ext 17 with questions.

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8. Teaching American History Grants

The United States Department of Education has announced the availability of $117 million to promote the teaching of American history through federal grants. The deadline for the full application is June 14th, 2005. For more information, visit www.ed.gov/programs/teachinghistory/applicant.html

Note: History Day & the Teaching American History Grants - National History Day, Inc. (NHD) has formally offered to provide professional development programs to those who are applying for a Teaching American History grant.  For a sample Teaching American History grant proposal or information on working with NHD contact Dr. Ann Claunch at Ann@nhd.org or 301-314-9739.
 
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9. Free Books for your Classroom

The Giraffe Project has 2,000 books to give away free to schools that are interested. The books tell the stories of those who have stuck their necks out for the common good. For more information, visit http://www.giraffe.org, or contact Patty Toombs (toombs@giraffe.org), Education Director at the Giraffe Foundation
 
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10. Rwanda: Human Rights Delegation for Young Leaders
December 29, 2005 - January 14, 2006 (tentative dates)

Global Youth Connect, an international human rights organization for youth, is pleased to announce that we are currently recruiting young leaders (ages 18-25) to participate in a human rights delegation to Rwanda from December 29, 2005 - January 14, 2006 (tentative dates).

This experiential education and service program will take participants to the capital city of Kigali, to Butare (the site of the National University of Rwanda and an area heavily affected during the genocide) and other sites in Rwanda to explore the range of human rights issues that are currently impacting Rwanda's development.

We invite interested young leaders to apply.  We are looking for participants who are between the ages of 18-25, possess U.S. citizenship or residency, or are studying full-time at a U.S. college or university.  Most importantly, applicants should wish to expand
their knowledge and understanding of human rights and social justice. The deadline to receive applications is July 5, 2005.

For more information on the program details, costs, and how to apply, please visit our website: http://www.globalyouthconnect.org/countries/rwanda/delegation.html





Mariam Habib
iEARN-US Membership Coordinator
Connecting Youth, Making a Difference in the World!

t: (212) 870-2693
f: (212) 870-2672