A Mosaic of Global Exchange: iEARN Educator Naila from Pakistan Implements Multiple iEARN Projects

by [email protected] | Jul 10, 2020 | News, Success Story

Have you ever thought of engaging your students in more than one iEARN project at a time, but were unsure of how to put such a plan into action? iEARN educator Naila Fahim, a Technology/IT Coordinator for both primary and secondary levels at Aga Khan School Garden in Karachi, Pakistan, has implemented eight different iEARN projects at her school in the last two years. iEARN-USA recently reached out to her to learn how teachers can best engage their students in multiple iEARN projects simultaneously.

When Naila’s school, which has been a part of the iEARN community for the past 10 years, designated her as the leader of their iEARN Club two years ago, she eagerly embraced the challenge to give her students a rich and varied experience with iEARN’s global projects. The club met for one hour every Thursday; yet despite the limited time she had with each class, Naila was able to work with each head teacher to implement the following five iEARN projects for more than 700 students: Get to Know Others, My Name Around the World, The Origami Project, Holiday Card Exchange, and Don’t Waste – Create. She selected each project based on the age range of the class and level of interest in the topic. Then, with around 140 students assigned to each project, Naila broke each large group into 8 groups composed of roughly 17 students each. These groups spend 3 weeks participating in each project. Naila and her teacher colleagues started each project by introducing the students to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which she says “was really helpful for proper understanding, as all iEARN projects are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

In addition to the projects she implemented through her school’s iEARN Club, Naila engaged students in the afterschool program through three other projects: Water is Life, Drastic Plastics, and Every Day is Earth Day. The students participating in these projects all started different campaigns in their local communities to raise awareness about environmental issues.

Some of the biggest challenges Naila encountered were teacher time management, varying time zones, language barriers, and response time from partner classrooms. With only one hour per week to conduct iEARN project activities through the iEARN Club, Naila found that she needed to work hard to successfully integrate iEARN projects into the relevant subject’s existing curriculum. “The language was another barrier,” says Naila. However, while students from certain parts of the world were less familiar with English, she observed that “still, the students tried very hard.” And while at times it took a significant amount of time to receive responses from partner classrooms, she says the projects were ultimately successful.

Indeed, despite these challenges, Naila says that “the end products overcame everything…the excitement in the eyes of my students and the smiles on the faces of the teachers brightened the day…Knowing about the new countries like Belarus and Slovenia…and exploring their maps and flags was real learning.”

She noted the following as highlights from some of the projects in which her school participated:

• Holiday Card Exchange Project: “In this digital world, when sending and receiving greeting cards is a long-lost tradition, students along with their families got active in preparing handmade New Year cards. The cards were mailed to partner schools in Japan, Taiwan, Russia, Slovenia, Australia, Belarus and Spain. It was fascinating to see how excited the children were when they received cards and letters from partner schools in different countries. The cards were displayed in large school assemblies and in an exhibition to show the school community. It was unique for students to learn about holiday traditions of other countries.”
• Origami Project: “Students and teachers partnered with a school in Japan, the country where origami originated. During the first module the students enjoyed the making of fish and butterflies…The Students sent origami products, pictures and videos to the partner schools in Japan…and received origami products and material from these partner schools.”
• My Name Around the World Project: “Students researched their names and prepared visual presentations and calligraphic posters. They shared them with a partner school in Taiwan…and students learned about the origin of different names around the world.”
• Get to Know Others Project: “The students researched about different local and international festivals, prepared visual presentations and calligraphic posters. They also celebrated our local festivals at school, such as Milad, Children’s Day, Mother’s Day, New Year’s, Eid, Ramadan and Earth Day.”
• Don’t Waste – Create Project: “The students enjoyed the making of products from recycled materials. We started an urban gardening Don’t Waste – Create project. During the second module the students enjoyed working at a botanical garden, where they sowed seeds and harvested eggplant, chilies, papaya, sweet neem (curry leaves) and different flowers.”
• Everyday is Earth Day Project and Earth Day Project 2020: “In collaboration with the IEARN project Every Day is Earth Day, the students organized a cleanup drive. They also celebrated Earth Day online, promising ‘24 hours of action’ to ‘fill the digital landscape with global conversations, calls to action, performances, video teach-ins and more.’”

Although Naila’s school has been physically closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the students, with the help of their teachers, have continued to participate in iEARN’s Don’t Waste – Create, Drastic Plastics, and Water Is Life projects in the iEARN Collaboration Centre and through social media and Whatsapp groups. Some of their final products can be seen on this electronic canvas with drawings commemorating Earth Day from iEARN classrooms around the world.

For Naila, the benefits of engaging her students in iEARN projects have been overwhelmingly positive. “The biggest advantage my students and I gained was acquiring information about the other countries. We exchange our flags and maps. My students got really excited about other cultures’ pictures and information. Students were then able to identify other countries in the world.” We look forward to seeing more amazing project work from Naila’s students and hope her example will serve to inspire other iEARN educators to embrace the challenge of engaging their students in multiple iEARN projects.

An interview with iEARN-USA Educators Laura Nietzer and Renee Day

by [email protected] | Jan 8, 2019 | News, Success Story

This is Yerim Kim from iEARN-USA. I am participating in the Korea West Government program. While on this program, I have been working at iEARN-USA as an intern. I would like to introduce Laura and Renee and share their experiences. They are global educators with iEARN who have been champions for global education and for iEARN projects. They shared some stories at the November monthly webinar for educators! Let’s hear their stories.

Below is an extract from the iEARN-USA Educator Webinar on November 2018. If you want to view the full webinar featuring Renee and Laura, go to https://youtu.be/5XFnz-9aC4Y.

Renee Day has been involved with iEARN since 2007. She has worked on several projects with iEARN. This is what she says about her experience with iEARN.

Why do you Engage your Students in iEARN Projects?

“We’re pioneering how to use some of the projects as a way to teach our students about different cultures around the world, because that’s part of 21st century learning, and our students are 21st century citizens. Even if they can’t get on a plane and leave Riverside, CA, they can at least go online, and they can meet with people face to face through video conferencing and understand that they have more common with people who live around world than they realize.”

What has been the Impact of iEARN Projects in your Classroom?

“These kinds of projects really can inspire kids to develop ideas and skills they never knew they had. So with that, I have to say that iEARN and all its training just helps me become a better teacher and then helps the students develop skills really kind of into the person I feel they were meant to be. They discover things about themselves they never knew before. Honestly you can’t get that out of a textbook.

What we’re doing is we’re taking the textbook, we’re taking our information, and then we’re taking a project, and we’re using that project based learning activity or model, and we’re not extending the learning but applying the learning, and so now the learning becomes more meaningful.”

What has been your Most Inspiring Moment with iEARN?

“As you can tell, I love this program and I think every student should have the opportunity participate along with educators. I think for me there was a moment, and it wasn’t necessary a project, it happened in the Teachers Forum. It was the day after Christmas, and there had been a conflict between Israel and Palestine, and unfortunately a community was hit, and it was a school that had been damaged, and obviously there were some people who did not survive, and the teacher from Israel posted: ‘How can this be?’ And she’s living there, so she posted it, and the teacher from Palestine agreed. And from there, I know this isn’t particularly a student moment, but for me it was an educator ‘aha’ moment, like this is a program that will benefit me, enrich my life, and teach me more about how to be a good teacher and frankly a good human being. Because from there, there is the support between the Palestinian teachers and the Israeli teachers. We all came together as a whole community on that day in the Teachers Forum, and I believe we created a project. It was something to do with peace. I think, also the project Talking Kites began to have more of a meaning that way, because we had to find a neutral project, a neutral way, that was apolitical, but that addressed this very dire circumstance in which those children were living, and we had to think as teachers and educators — ‘How do we create a more stable environment out of chaos? How do we empower our children to feel like they have a voice and they have some control over their own environment?’ And to me, that was the greatest lesson I received as a teacher. And I’m in awe of my students, and frankly, all students on these platforms. Everytime I go to a conference, when I’m lucky enough to go to one of the international conferences, l learn more and more from the teachers and the students there from the work that they’re doing. So that’s the impact that this program has had on me as a teacher.”

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Renee also gave some tips for people who want to become new iEARN members or are interested in global education. This is the advice she shared.

How do you Select New iEARN Projects for your Students?

“I normally do an informal survey of my students’ interests by show of hands, and then I let them explore the project Collaboration Centre and write down in a discussion form for me like a posted comment: ‘Which project seems like you would be interested in if we weren’t tying it to the curriculum?’

You do need to take a look and see how active the project has been and then to see if the students will have some support and some instant responses. The first step for me as a classroom teacher is to always contact the project facilitator.”

How do you Find Partners Before Starting Projects and How do you Connect with Them?

“I went into the Teachers Forum and sent out my proposal idea for this video conference on renewable energy and sustainable fuel. So I had someone from India who wanted to do that and it took us about two months to kind of flesh out what we wanted the students to talk about. And so by month three, we had a live video conference and we talked about not just renewable energies but also sanitation, and even democracy. The whole conversation amongst the students just kind of evolved and developed. It was really wonderful to see, and that all happened in the span of an hour.

Typically, when I’ve done a course I would connect with someone hoping to connect with someone in the course, and usually when I do that, that’s where you have to email, or you can Facetime, or however it is that you want to connect with them.

And so you just kind of have to keep going until you find someone you feel comfortable with and you connect with, which really isn’t very hard. There’s a lot of people who want to work together and connect with another classroom.”

What Are Some Challenges and How do you Overcome Them?

“Sometimes your own colleagues can feel overwhelmed by what you are doing they don’t quite see how to fit it in. So I find that producing a project and being able to have results and a final product helps not only my colleagues, but also my administration, my school board representatives, even my city officials understand the work that the students are really doing in terms of collaborating with their peers around the world and how is this really this benefiting not just the district, but even the city of Riverside, because you’re going to have informed global citizens who may one day be business leaders or elected officials. And so you want people who are able, they’re fluid in what’s happening in the world, they have a fluid working knowledge of other cultures and they are able to create a dialog that is ongoing. It isn’t just superficial knowledge. And there’s also a kind of acceptance and a kind of community they come out with once they’re done with this program, which is why I remain committed to it to this day.”

Next is Laura Nietzer. She has been involved in iEARN since 2010. She is active in several iEARN projects including My Hero. This is what she says about her experience with iEARN.

What has been your Most Inspiring Moment with iEARN?

“I knew it would be good for my students to have a better understanding of the world through peers, through interactions with other students and finding out the similarities, not just the differences, but you may take the same kinds of classes, or you may play soccer, or you do dance, or you get answers to questions. But it was a totally life changing moment for me meeting these educators from different countries who believe in the same thing that we do. Seeing people who, when you’re watching the news, you may think that they would be on polar opposite sides and wouldn’t want to interact; and together they’re planning for a better future for students. And personally working with a facilitator from Algeria on the Bridge program for two years, being able to meet with staff in Virginia was amazing. To be able to have the opportunity to work with the people and communicate for a few years with them, you get to know them; but you’ve never met them in person, but you know them. That’s been amazing.”

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On the other hand, this is Laura’s advice for people who want to become new iEARN members or are interested in global education.

How do you Select New iEARN Projects for your Students?

“I always look for something that would connect to my classroom curriculum, to a concept or skill I was already going to teach, and then look at the projects. Another thing I always do is go on the forum just to see how active a project has been, because although a project may have been active for three years, it may have lost little bit of the oomph of people being involved; and you don’t want to start your global collaboration unless there are going to be people collaborating.

I often will contact the facilitator and ask what the schedule is for the project because I want to make sure that the begin and finish date can work with my classroom. I don’t want to drop the project.”

How do you Find Partners Before Starting Projects and How do you Connect with Them?

“Once I have started projects, I have contacted the other teachers involved with the project directly, asking who can have their students on the forum, because that’s something my students really like to do is that communication in the forum, where they’re asking questions and getting answers authentically from people around the world.”

What Are Some Challenges and How Do you Overcome Them?

“I think a few of the main challenges have been the time zone. There are times that you want to connect directly at the same time, say a video conference with someone, and you can’t do that; but there are a lot of other ways to get around that and be on the forum and share information other ways.

School schedules are also a challenge. Sometimes a school will go on vacation, or have some exams for a week or two, or in some countries I’ve learned even longer it seems between the preparation and exams. So you want to know that ahead of time so that you can plan accordingly. You don’t want to think that you’re doing your work in the month that there won’t be any kind of communication.

The time in the classroom can be a challenge as well. Is there time to be able to use? And you have to convince your administrators that what you’re doing is the right thing to do and show them the benefit of that. And I know that Renee talked a little bit about a club she had, and I’ve done that too. There are some projects I haven’t been able to fit in my curriculum, but I’ve been able to do it in some club time. So maybe being slightly creative is something I’d recommend trying.”

Ready to join an iEARN project? Visit https://iearn.org/cc to search current projects.

iEARN-USA Leads Workshop Virtually to Prepare Educators for Global Collaboration

by [email protected] | Nov 7, 2018 | News, Success Story

iEARN-USA professional development services play a key role in supporting educators to become global education leaders. They create a professional learning community, provide support, and guide educators in integrating global projects into their curriculum. iEARN-USA has offered in-person workshops to provide teachers with hands-on tools and resources to empower them to build long-lasting global connections.

The Education Team at iEARN-USA leads global project-based learning workshops at schools and events across the United States. Typically, workshops include presentations and hands-on sessions to explore the core elements of virtual exchange for collaborating with other classrooms around the world and incorporating global projects across different curriculum areas.

This October, iEARN-USA staff piloted a new workshop model by hosting a virtual workshop for teachers with the Orange County Department of Education in California.

While in-person workshops are an engaging and effective means to introduce educators to the tenets of global collaboration and virtual exchange, it is sometimes not possible nor cost-effective for the iEARN-USA team to facilitate a workshop in-person. iEARN-USA’s Professional Development Manager Rachel Manley shares her experience and two guiding principles on conducting introductory workshops in global education:

I was approached by Allen Witten, one of our iEARN Educators and iEARN-USA Global Education Ambassadors. He has worked hard over the last year to gain momentum for global education in his district and bring more teachers on board. That finally happened for him at the start of this school year. He had 10 new teachers across the district that were ready to start their journey in global collaboration. Allen and I worked together to develop a one-day workshop, in which I facilitated virtually and he facilitated in-person.

From this experience, I learned that a successful virtual workshop requires three components: an in-person facilitator or moderator, diversity of presenters and opportunities to engage, and the proper technology tools.

Having an in-person facilitator aides in running a smooth workshop and allows you to do hands-on activities. It also allows us to involve veteran iEARN educators to share their expertise and knowledge. It is a challenge to engage participants when they are listening to a talking head on a screen all day; therefore it is crucial in virtual workshops to bring in a diversity of presenters, a range of activities, and innovative ways to engage. Technology equipment and setup is key to a successful virtual workshop. This includes having high quality web cameras, speakers, individual computers and a large presentation screen for those in the workshop.

Regardless of whether a workshop is in-person or virtual, I have found that educators need to walk away from the workshop with two things: an inspirational vision for global collaboration and practical strategies for getting started tomorrow.

Creating an Inspirational Vision for Global Collaboration

As a component of every workshop that I conduct, I invite an international iEARN educator as a virtual guest speaker. The main purpose of this is to inspire and motivate the new educators, and help them begin their journey in global virtual collaboration. In the virtual workshop in California, educators met Maha Alawdat, an educator from Israel; Tamar Lolishvili, an educator and project facilitator from Georgia; and Ana Robakidze, one of Tamar’s students from Georgia.

“I would like to say something to the teachers that are considering taking part in iEARN, and that are in iEARN. I would like to thank you all because you are doing such a great thing for your students. You are helping them to express their own thoughts, meet people that they never thought they would meet in their lives, and after meeting them they don’t think their lives would be that good without them. You are influencing them with a great great thing. Your experience is really important to them. I really appreciate that my teacher gave me the experience of taking part in iEARN. When they see that we have actually made change in the world and the world has evolved, I think the first person that will come to their mind will be you.” – Ana, Georgia

The workshop attendees unanimously agreed that the special guests were their favorite part of the day. Experiencing a virtual exchange themselves, connecting with two teachers and a student from different parts of the world, ignited their passion and inspiration for engaging in this work. The need for building cross-cultural understanding and global collaboration was amplified.

Allen inspired the group by sharing, “I’ve never been happier in my professional career, and it is all thanks to the great people of iEARN in the U.S. and around the world.” In addition to inspiration, these virtual guest speakers provide practical advice and insight into their project experience and model what a synchronous video conference may look like in the classroom.

“I would like to thank you all because you are doing such a great thing for your students. You are helping them to express their own thoughts, meet people that they never thought they would meet in their lives, and after meeting them they don’t think their lives would be that good without them. You are influencing them with a great great thing. Your experience is really important to them. I really appreciate that my teacher gave me the experience of taking part in iEARN. When they see that we have actually made change in the world and the world has evolved, I think the first person that will come to their mind will be you.”
-Ana, iEARN Student, Georgia

Practical Strategies for Getting Started

Once educators are inspired, they need the practical tools and strategies to get started with global projects in the classroom. During our workshops, we spend ample time on curriculum integration, project selection, technology tools and student preparation. One of the workshop sessions is dedicated to exploring global themes and iEARN projects, then making a plan for how they will align and fit into each teacher’s curriculum and subject area. In another session, participants explore various technology tools for global projects and virtual exchange. This includes exploration of iEARN’s Collaboration Centre, communication tools, and video conferencing. The last session of the day is dedicated to student preparation. Educators discuss what background knowledge, skills, and preparation their students will need to engage in virtual exchange. Best practices and resources are shared to start this work with their students the next day!

“Over all it was outstanding! We all enjoyed it and the team is so dedicated to the project. Thank you so much!!!” – Workshop Participant

To learn more about iEARN-USA’s professional development services and to book a workshop or register for an upcoming online course, view our Professional Development Information Packet or contact [email protected].

An interview with iEARN-USA Educator Rebecca Hodges

by [email protected] | Jul 20, 2018 | News, Success Story

This is Minji Oh from iEARN-USA. I am an intern for communication and development position as part of the Korea West exchange program. As part of a special project to share stories about the iEARN community, I was fortunate to interview Rebecca Hodges, an active iEARN-USA member, and learn about her experience in iEARN and the impact of collaboration on her and her students. I am happy to share Rebecca’s story!

Rebecca Hodges is an anthropologist, international educator, and big fan of iEARN. She has a Bachelors of International Relations, Masters in Islamic & Near Eastern Studies, and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology based on fieldwork on the Education Reform for a Knowledge Economy in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Rebecca is an International Baccalaureate Anthropology and Theory of Knowledge teacher and serves as Social Studies department chair at Lausanne Collegiate School, an international school in Memphis, Tennessee USA.

Rebecca is committed to world class education and has been involved with iEARN since 2005. She co-presented on social media integration with iEARN Jordan’s director Khitam al-Utaibi at the 2013 iEARN Conference and Youth Summit in Doha, Qatar. She loves iEARN’s slogan to “learn ‘with’ the world, not just ‘about’ it” and believes iEARN projects are some of the best opportunities to connect with other people around the world in a systematic way.

Rebecca shared her reflection about what the students thought about their iEARN project experience:

“When you learn with other people, your viewpoint broadens. You get to see other perspectives. The students care so much more about iEARN projects than normal assignments because they get to work with other people and get to talk to them. It makes them feel more real.”

Check out a video example of Rebecca’s students project work in the Finding Solutions to Hunger Project.

How did participating in a global exchange project impact her students? Rebecca shared that the projects “help people think outside of their own perspective – my students normally do not think about the world outside of their state but now they’ve looked at things through the eyes of other countries. It got them to think about outside of their perspective and to see into different cultures.”

At the 2018 iEARN Conference, Rebecca hopes to connect with more teachers around the world to build long-lasting relationships needed to facilitate excellent global, collaborative, fun, challenging, and empowering projects.