iEARN Global Projects

October 23, 2009 — Lynne M Bailey

iEARN – International Education & Resource Network – is one network that actively works to provide frameworks for global communication.

Melinda Galbraith at NECC 2009

Melinda Galbraith at NECC 2009

I met Melinda Galbraith at 2009 NECC presenting information about iEARN and their global initiatives for student interaction and professional development. There are wonderful opportunities for international collaboration and building multicultural understandings through various disciplines. They have several active projects.This is from their most recent email update.

Download the 2009-2010 iEARN Project Book: http://www.iearn.org/projects/projectbook.html
For a full listing of iEARN projects, see: http://media.iearn.org/projects
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1. JOIN THE GET TO KNOW OTHERS PROJECT.  “Dear friends,  I am writing to invite you and your students to join the Get to Know Others project for the 2009 / 2010 academic year. This year our focus is Swine Flu and Clothes with Religious Meanings.”   From Ahmed Abd-Elsattar in Egypt.  Get to Know Others is a project in which students study their own culture, traditions, and ways of life. Students make comparisons of their culture and other cultures to find similarities and differences.  See http://media.iearn.org/projects/gettoknowothers
2. A VISION CREATIVE WRITING ANTHOLOGY. Join students from Belarus, Oman, and Suriname who are currently sharing their creative works in the project forum.  A Vision is an anthology of students’ writings on various literary genres- essays, stories, poems, and poetical sketches, which aims to showcase young people’s thoughts, viewpoints and insights of the things around them and even across borders, regardless of cultural and racial diversity. Its purpose is to use art and the medium of creative writing to demonstrate that, despite differences, teenagers around the world share the same hopes, fears, interests and concerns. This magazine is dedicated to a vision of cooperation and friendship among the people and governments of the world, and to the myriad of personal visions that make us all human.  To join, visit the forum linked on http://media.iearn.org/projects/avision

3. WOULD YOUR STUDENTS LIKE TO BE PART OF A PEN FRIENDS CLUB? The Pen Friend Clubs of Japan are organizations of young boys and girls exchanging letters with friends within and outside the country and thus enjoying various activities through friendly correspondence. The members are mainly elementary, junior or senior high school students. For over 50 years, the Pen Friend Clubs of Japan has matched wonderful pen friends for Japanese and non-Japanese boys and girls from all over the world.  Would you like to con nect with them?  Post your message in the new Pen Friends forum, linked from http://media.iearn.org/projects/penfriends.  For more information, Contact Emiko Asada <emiko.asada.yw@jp-post.jp> in Japan.
4. INTERNATIONAL INTERCULTURAL MURAL EXCHANGE (IIME) 2009. Already, 72 classes of 61 elementary/high schools from 15 countries have joined us this year.   15 countries – Canada, Cyprus, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, USA and Zambia.  This year’s registration is already over but as we are preparing for IIME 2010, please let me know if you are interested in joining us in 2010.  I know many schools are looking forward to participating next year.  Please submit your entry sheet for IIME 2010 to Atsuko Shiwaku in Japan at <jam@artmile.jp>.  See JAM’s website.  http://www.artmile.jp and to connect to the iEARN forum, see http://media.iearn.org/projects/iime

5. HARMONY 4 HUMANITY PROJECT SEEKS SUPPORT FOR PROJECT PARTNERS IMPACTED BY RECENT EARTHQUAKE IN INDONESIA. From Becky Ivory at Riverview Jr. High in Utah, USA.  ”Hello friends! As you know, Padang, Indonesia was recently severely damaged by an extremely large earthquake.  Unfortunately, one of our classrooms that we exchange videos with is located in that very city.  Fortunately, they all survived, but their school is destroyed and many are left homeless.”  See their fundraising video and help us them raise awareness and funds.
6. NEW PROJECT PROPOSAL – HANDMADE GREETING CARDS. Interested in a new project exchange among students creating greeting cards and then trading them globally to learn about arts and culture?   Contact Cassie Raynel in the USA <wildart@wildblue.net>.

iEARN – International Education and Resource Network.

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Engineering School has 40% Female Students!

September 30, 2007 — Lynne M Bailey

Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. The school opened in 2002 and it teaches Engineering in a non-traditional way: they used Project Based Learning and an interdisciplinary approach to learning. The small, tuition-free college is attracting a lot of buzz and making a mark as a new “Ivy” league school. Under the direction of Lawrence W. Milas, the president of the foundation, college President Richard K. Miller created a school that seeks to educate a different breed of engineer – entreprenuerial, ethically minded and collaboratively trained in he humanities as well as technology- to think critically, and boldly. Miller, on his President’s Message web page puts it this way, : “Olin will always be bold, innovative, flexible, and creative — just like the students we have attracted. Our curriculum emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, teamwork, hands-on design, business, creativity and communication.”

The article also noted that 40% of its student are GIRLS, a high percentage for an engineering school. The Class of 2011 consists of 79 new students (34 women and 45 men). So yes, this is a very small school, but it has some very BIG ideas. Perhaps if more universities adopted such an approach, they would attract increasing numbers of engineering students, and a greater number of women to a male-dominated profession.
Re-engineering Engineering

The Hands-On Approach: Building a different breed of engineer at Olin College. ‘In an era when software matters more than steel, Olin College wants to produce technologists with soul.’
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 30, 2007 NY Times Magazine Section
“WHEN NONENGINEERS THINK ABOUT ENGINEERING, it’s usually because something has gone wrong: collapsing levees in New Orleans, the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. In the follow-up investigations, it comes out that some of the engineers involved knew something was wrong. But too few spoke up or pushed back – and those who did were ignored. This professional deficiency is something the new, tuition-free Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering wants to fix. At its tiny campus in Needham, Mass., outside Boston, Olin is trying to design a new kind of engineer.”

Read the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30OLIN-t.html?ex=1348891200&en=6c28466b3eb78d2f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

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