SPOTLIGHT: International Education and Resource Network (iEARN)
Using the International Education and Resource Network (www.iearn.org) students are delving into the critical concepts of their curricula in collaboration with global peers. Online with global peers, they are using email, websites, digital images, video, and videoconferencing to understand important concepts in science, math, language arts, visual arts, world languages, social studies, economics, and citizenship. (In the photo above, primary students read email and use geography books to locate countries of global peers.) Their learning is no longer only local but local and global—the experiences of their own communities are integrated continually with local communities of others around the world to develop knowledge and then use their knowledge to enhance the quality of life on the planet.
“What the teachers and students are doing is mainly interacting with the world using very simple technology but they are doing a great job and at the same time they are serving their communities in different ways,” writes Dalia Khalil, iEARN Country Coordinator in Egypt, one of the many country coordinators around the world.
“In Egypt, it’s very important for us to reach out into the world and to give a clearer picture of what Egypt is. Many students would like to show the real image of Egypt right now and the development of their country. On the same level of importance for them is to look out at other countries’ experiences, to learn from them, to share ideas, solutions, and experiences and to look for future partnership with their colleagues.
"More than any time in history and time of human life, right now getting together is vital.”
In 1988, iEARN linked 12 schools in Moscow, Russia with 12 schools in New York state. Today iEARN is an integral component of classroom teaching and learning in more than 25,000 schools and youth organizations in over 120 countries.
In the global reach of iEARN school communities, children and youth are building their understandings of today’s world in ways not previously possible. Imagine a first grader’s experience in Pullman, Washington, communicating with a first grader in Novosibirsk, Russia using email and exchange of images to discover their commonalities and diversities of family life. Or imagine an elementary student in Washington State learning to read, write, and communicate effectively using email, a website, and videoconferencing to explore science topics such a water habitat restoration with teachers and students in Argentina, Australia, and Hungary. Or picture elementary school students communicating with students in Nicaragua, Japan, and Iran to share their common experiences of natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes, and then reaching out to one another in response to needs for food, shelter, and safety.
Imagine elementary students coming to United States able to communicate in their first languages with schools in their countries of origins as a way of teaching their classmates about their home cultures and languages—replacing absence of knowledge and misconceptions with the understanding and respect that can be built through direct dialogue. And then imagine these elementary students becoming middle and high school students with the opportunity to collaborate with students in countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, South and Central America, to understand and address social, health, economic and environmental challenges within and among their countries.
Now you have a picture of some of the wonders of global collaboration and teacher and student learning that have been happening through iEARN. (This photo, above, depicts primary students global friendship artwork: Hands Together Around the World.) The year 2008 marks the 20 years of iEARN spiriting this work. A goal of the 20th anniversary is to include even more teachers and classrooms in iEARN curricular experiences.
Teachers begin participation by identifying curricular topics for dialogue with their peers around the world and align those topics with ongoing iEARN projects (http://www.iearn.org/projects/index_archive.html). They build partnerships with other schools by students contributing their work on a project theme/topic and responding to the work of their global peers. Many schools build partnerships that endure over multiple years of student and teacher collaborations.
With the Internet now in many schools throughout the United States and the world, more students and teachers can now participate in iEARN curricular projects. iEARN offers online Professional Development Courses to get teachers started (http://www.iearn.org/professional/online.html) and iEARN offers a global community of teachers and students eager to learn alongside one another.
For examples of how a Washington State classroom has integrated iEARN across the curricula for student learning success, see Teaching for Understanding with Technology by Martha Stone Wiske with Kristi Rennebohm Franz and Lisa Breit, Jossey-Bass, Publishers, 2005.To learn more visit the iEARN-USA website at http://us.iearn.org/ and visit the global iEARN website (www.iearn.org). And visit a classroom where iEARN was integrated across the curricula go to: http://www.psd267.wednet.edu/~kfranz/iearn.html and http://www.psd267.wednet.edu/~kfranz/Literacy/Literacy200001.html
For a video of student assessments in iEARN Projects go to: http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/framewk/efp/align/manip.htm.
iEARN Starter Kits
View the International Education and Resource Network (www.iearn.org)
Starter Kits funded by the Coalition’s State Innovations Grant in 2006.
These kits will help you imagine and implement an online exchange
integrating a curricular topic with one of iEARN's collaborative projects.
http://internationaledwa.org/starter_kit/default.htm.
____________________________________
Washington State Coalition for International Education
http://internationaledwa.org