Virtual Teacher Institute
GlobalEd Opportunities & Resources Newsletter -- March 2015
ARE YOU READY TO PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE FOR CLEAN WATER?
The UNICEF Tap Project is back! This year’s initiative asks Americans to unlock 14 million days of clean, safe water for children around the world by encouraging you to stop texting, calling, emailing, tweeting and posting -- and challenge your friends to do the same. Millions of children around the globe do not have safe, clean water to drink, and the lack of this basic necessity isn’t just inconvenient — it’s lethal. Take the challenge on your cell phone at UNICEFTapProject.org throughout the month of March. The longer you go without touching your smartphone, the more clean water will be unlocked for children in need.
Exploring Global Education Practices
A research group led by Dr. Curtis Bonk from the School of Education at Indiana University is interested in learning how primary and secondary teachers are using collaborative technologies in their instruction to address global and multicultural education. This research team is currently reaching out to educators involved in global education projects, resources, and initiatives like TakingITGlobal (TIG), iEARN, ePals, Flat Connections, and the Asia Society as well as those who have individually designed global curriculum projects to partake in this research study. They are interested in how teachers foster learner collaboration, multicultural awareness, and the appreciation of different cultures using various learning technologies as well as teacher professional development in these areas.
The survey can be found at: http://www.surveyshare.com/s/AYA9T6D. All surveys should be completed by April 14th. Those completing the survey will be given a link to download Dr. Bonk’s latest book, “Adding Some TEC-VARIETY: 100+ Activities for Motivating and Retaining Learners Online” for free.
Global Education and Project Based Learning Resources
Bring Google Maps into the Classroom
Google Maps for Education provides resources to help teachers and students explore, create, and collaborate with mapping tools. Students who are taught geography are better equipped to understand how human and physical systems interact and to make informed decisions based on that knowledge.
Culture for Kids
100 People: A World Portrait
Initiate Conversations Between Students Around the World!
Join an exciting new platform called WorldVuze, a safe and free site K-12 classrooms can use for inquiry based learning, building 21st century competencies, and for developing a deeper global understanding of curriculum topics through first hand global student perspectives.
Teachers can start by creating a free account (free now and always) on www.worldvuze.com and join over 100 classrooms in 10 countries and growing in posting your own class questions for students locally and around the world to answer, bringing life to any subject!
Join the Earth Day Challenge
Post environmental questions and tag them as "EarthDay2015" for students around the world to answer. Find out how your class can join here.
Global Oneness Project: Story of the Month
Rivers and Stories:
In this essay, Pulitzer prize-winning poet Robert Hass brings our attention to the cultural history and health of rivers around the world.
The Choices Program: The Struggle to Define Free Speech: From Skokie to Paris
Brown University's Choices Program offers a free online Teaching The News Curriculum. Bring the news into your classroom with this new and engaging curriculum.
Students will:
Consider how different societies define freedom of expression.
Explore the current free speech controversy in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
Analyze historical sources that reveal contrasting views on freedom of expression in the case of Skokie, Illinois, where a Nazi group attempted to demonstrate in the 1970s.
The Centre for Global Education: Upcoming Video Conferences
The Centre for Global Education (CGE) is offering the following video conferences in October. Each conference is limited to six schools, and is filled on a first come, first served basis. If you are interested in any of the conferences requiring preparation beforehand, please contact info@tcge.ca or visit the CGE website at http://tcge.tiged.org/.
Middle East in Transition: Peace and Conflict - Part II
(Mar 24, 9:00-10:30 MT/11:00-12:30 ET)** Gr 9-12
This session will explore how we think about the choice between violence and non-violence, both in terms of how we remember the history of these movements, and in the current context of transition in the Middle East. Students will explore their personal and moral response to violence, and how they view the difference between terrorism and self defense, or between inappropriate and appropriate violence. Students will explore the balance of violence and nonviolence involved in key historical transitions in order to better understand current resistance movements across the Middle East. This is a two-
part video conference with a separate conference for middle and high school students.
(April 10, 10:30-11:30MT/12:30-1:30ET) - Gr 8-12
The connection between textiles and mathematics is intimate but not often explored, possibly because textiles and fiber arts have traditionally been the domain of women while mathematics was viewed as a male endeavour. How times have changed! Today, textiles and mathematics, like art and science, are recognized for their interwoven, complimentary attributes.
In this presentation, Professor de Vries will examine the connection between textiles and mathematics, in the context of both traditional and contemporary quilts. In a sense, every quilt is a mathematical object, by virtue of the fact that it has shape and dimension. But some quilts are more mathematical than others, and in very different ways. She will show how mathematical concepts such as symmetry, fractals, and algorithmic design show up in the world of quilting through serendipitous and intentional design.
Resistance Art: Art – LIVE from the Middle East
(April 14, 9:00-10:30)** - Gr 9-12
This one-part video conference will explore Resistance Art, looking at historical and current examples of work which bears witness to conflict and oppression or which actively confronts oppression. Guests will include several young visual artists from a variety of conflict settings in the Middle East, as well as several well-known artists, all of whom will share their work, discuss the intent and answer questions from students. World Leadership School's, Jennifer D. Klein, built the curriculum and will be monitoring the session, while students will be asked to share their artwork as well, explaining their intent, taking questions, and receiving feedback from guest artists.
The cost for non-member schools to participate in this video conference is $150 per classroom connection.
To see the entire year's schedule organized by date or subject, please go to CGE's event page.
The Learning Revolution!
The Learning Revolution Project holds online and physical learning events, and highlights professional development opportunities from a network of 200 partners in the learning professions. The majority of these events are free to attend.
Upcoming events:
- Saturday, March 21st at 12pm CR20 LIVE Weekly Show - Kori Street on iWitness, Classroom 2.0 LIVE is an opportunity to gather with other member of the community in regular "live" web meetings. Details to join the webinar at http://live.classroom20.com. You can follow us on Twitter at #liveclass20.
- Sunday, March 22nd at 7pm TechEducator Podcast: Microsoft OneNote featuring Ari Schorr and Mike Tholfsen, More information here.
All events are listed in US-Eastern Time. To become an event partner and have your events listed here, please email amy@learningrevolution.com. For a full calendar of all upcoming events and conferences, click here.
World Leadership School
Email: jennifer@worldleadershipschool.com
Website: www.worldleadershipschool.com
Location: 5595 Sunshine Canyon Drive, Boulder, CO
Phone: 303-679-3412
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/World-Leadership-School/157725137594517
Twitter: @wrldleadership