You Tube

I poked around on YouTube today, but I didn't have too much time to find anything really intriguing or particularly useful for our purposes. I think we've posted a couple of videos there already (the GEM/EF video?)--do we have any feedback or tracking of hits? Also, out of curiosity, I looked at Facing History, and they seem to have a number of videos, including a commercial with Matt Damon, a clip by Bill Moyer, and a video with Don Cheadle. This seems out of our reach (unless some of you know some famous people and just aren't telling us!), but I think we can also use it to demonstrate student impact somehow. How about a video interview with students about how PS has touched their lives, or shaped their perspectives? Unfortuantley, this production would be coslty and time consuming, so I don't think it is high priority now. However, if we do decide to produce a video about PS (either for the Gala and/or the major gifts campaign), YouTube or these other sites could be another (free) way of promoting our work.

catching up

Although I haven't been blogging about 12 Things lately, I have been actively pursuing web-based tools that I think are useful. For example, I recently joined LinkedIn, a social networking site, that is specifically geared toward professionals who are looking to network with colleagues. This was recommended to me by someone I met at a professional development workshop that I attended 2 weeks ago.

The Global Education Collaborative through Ning seems like a rich resource--I just signed up and am looking forward to checking it out more thoroughly.

That's all for now...stay tuned.

Wikis

Here are my findings in the wonderful world of wikis....two of the wiki discovery exercises were very relevant to our work and I can see many applications.

The Flat classrooms project is a very cool idea--connecting classrooms around the world in this way is very powerful. For example, I clicked on one of the discussion topics posted by a 9th grade teacher in Israel who was teaching her class about WWI and WWII. She was seeking input from other classrooms around the world about their perceptions and how these historical moments are taught--this is a great way to get kids to start thinking about multiple perspectives and frameworks. I think our teachers could definitely jump into something like this is their own classrooms.

The wetpaint wikis in education have a global connections wikis that do a similar kind of thing that is very accessible for teachers and can be used by American teachers more actively to teach their students about the world and really connect students in different parts of the world.

Global Connections Wikis

How can wikis be used to connect students globally?

Group projects:	Students from around the world can create a site together
Cultural Exchanges:	Students can post pictures and stories of places where they live
Point of View:	Students engage in different points of view on a given topic
Peer Review:	Post questions for student brainstorming, or have students post papers for peer feedback
Group FAQ:	Students and/or teachers post and respond to questions on a given topic

Great resources!

Technocrati and Delicious

So I poked around both of these sights. I think Delicious could be especially useful if we could start to tag and bookmark important sites that we would commonly access. For example, I think using tags for the grants sites could be good, if we came up with a standard set of tags that we would all use.

The Monkey dance

I happen to have my camera at work today and it has my pictures from Bali on them still. Here is a video of the Kecak dance that Justin and I saw at the Ulu Watu temple on our honeymoon. :)

Web 2.0

In my exploration around the Web 2.0 tools, I found a site that really caught my eye.

It's http://www.donorschoose.org and it's a philanthropy site where teachers can post their classroom needs and donors can choose what they would like to directly support. I wonder if we can encourage our teachers and schools to use this tool for raising funds for them to participate in our programs?

RSS or TMI?

I am determined to stay on track with these 12 things here....and I have never checked out the RSS feeds before so this was a new experience for me. (BTW, I am really enjoying the introduction of all of these neat techy tools a la self-paced discovery--I think it's a great way to learn.)

The RSS feeds do seem very useful for certain things, but to be honest, I think I work better when I seek out what I want to know in a more focused way, rather than just letting it all come it me in a constant wave of information. I think the Google Reader will now intimidate me with all the constant updates! I feel almost ashamed---I'd like to consider myself a person who stays informed, but how can I even begin to process all of that information, while still maintaining a productive professional and personal life? Just seems like it will distract me from other things that are more important. Simply not enough hours in the day to keep up with it all.

However, I think if the feeds were much more specific, then it could be very useful. RSS feeds I've subscribed to: The Boston Globe, NPR, PS 12 Things, and one of my friends' blogs. I am holding out on the 5th subscription until I find one that I will find really useful and not too overwhelming--I'll let you know what I find.

Alein Kein Ad

Blue lagoon! :)
Originally uploaded by Island-Life

Yokwe Yuk! (The Marshallese greeting, which literally translates to "you are a rainbow").

Susan and I had a nice lunch today and she was asking me about my experiences in the Marshall Islands, so I thought I'd take this Flickr opportunity to post an image of the area to give you a snapshot of what it's like.

Some international education resources...

Intercultural Education and Classroom Resources

epals is a global community that teachers can join to link their classrooms and with classrooms and teachers in other countries to work on joint projects.

The Internet TESL Journal
- Articles, Research Papers, Lessons Plans, Classroom Handouts, Teaching Ideas & Links. This online journal is geared for English language teaching, but many resources are easily be adapted for teaching about culture as well as languages.

Window into Global History
Multimedia lesson plans and video clips that teachers can download. While designed for the New York State curriculum, these resources feature contemporary examples and can be useful for any geography or world history course. Channel 13, the producer of the series, won the 2006 Goldman Sachs / Asia Society prize for excellence in International Education.

Center for Intercultural Learning (CIL)
Intercultures Magazine
Homepage for CIL, “the Center for Intercultural Learning: Established in 1969 by the Canadian International Development Agency, the Centre became part of the Canadian Foreign Service Institute of Foreign Affairs Canada, in 1996. Both the Institute and the Centre are internationally recognized in the area of training and human resources. The Centre is Canada’s largest provider of cross-cultural and international training services for internationally-assigned government and private sector personnel.” Intercultures Magazine is their electronic quarterly magazine.

Minnesota International Center’s International Classroom Connection
An interesting program to teach about other cultures in the classroom.

i-studentadvisor e-magazine
This on-line journal is geared to academic advisors in international high schools. Each edition includes Global Features and Counselor Resources.

Diversity Training University International
DTUI provides the knowledge and skills needed to support diversity and cross-cultural training.

Carolina Navigators
This is a elementary/secondary school international outreach program at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Center for Global Initiatives. The program provides area teachers with cultural resources and interactive classroom presentations by Carolina students who have international expertise.

International Topics Journal
Online articles written by U.S. graduate students that highlight recent research and ideas in International Studies. Sponsored by Old Dominion University.

On Education and Teaching

Google UK Schools
Provides free resources for teachers to help use Google tools in the classroom. Of special interest: lesson plans for geography and citizenship.

Tapped In
The online workplace of an international community of education professionals.

Peer Learning Resesarch Site of Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona
Peer learning: collaboration, cooperative learning and peer tutoring is a research group ad scribed to the Education Sciences Institute at the Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona (UAB), which constitutes a meeting point for professionals coming from diverse backgrounds committed to the study, practice and spreading out of peer learning. (in English, Catalan and Spanish)

New Horizons for Learning
Interactive clearinghouse and resource locator; an expanded view of teaching, learning, and developing intelligence more fully.

The Giraffe Heroes Project
The Giraffe Heroes Project is a story-based K-12 curriculum that teaches courageous compassion and active citizenship.

The United Nations Cyberschool Bus
It is the online education component of the Global Teaching and Learning Project, whose mission is to promote education about international issues and the United Nations.

ThinkQuest 2000
ThinkQuest is an international competition where student teams engage in collaborative, project-based learning to create educational websites.

Intercultural E-mail Classroom Connections
IECC is a free teaching.com service to help teachers link with partners in other cultures and countries for email classroom pen-pal and other project exchanges

Project HappyChild
This site is here to offer free educational resources, link up children and schools across the world, and also highlight the needs of less fortunate kids.

Educational Research Service
The nonprofit foundation serving the research and information needs of educators and the public.

Global School Net Foundation
Teaching ideas with web publishing, video conferencing and other online tools that bridge geographic gaps, allowing young people around the world to learn together.

Association for Experiential Education
A community for professional outdoor and experiential educators.

Foreign Language Teaching

italki: Social Networking Site for Language Learners
Your students can sign up on this site to find native speakers with whom they can practice their language skills. Members include young people from all over the world.

TESOL-Spain home page
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. See especially newsletter and resources sections.

Spotlight on Culture and Interculture in the Classroom
One of several articles from TESOL-Spain. This one from Montse Torreblanca on techniques for teaching about English-speaking cultures in the ESL classroom.

Center for Applied Linguistics
A special collection of resources for teachers of foreign languages.

Sprogforum
Danish site featuring journal articles about teaching languages.

The Escotet International Link
Spanish and English language gateway to an extensive list of multi-language search engines.

Word Reference
A very useful source for translation and language learning for French, Italian, Spanish and English. Includes international forum to ask questions about language use.

Word2Word
Totally free language learning resources for a huge assortment of languages.

Links to References, Publications and Organizations

Nobel Prizes
Nobel prize history and resources in categories of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics.

European Federation of Intercultural Learning: EFIL
EFIL is the umbrella organization of the European AFS Organizations in Europe.

Education Week
Helping to raise the level of awareness and understanding among professionals and the public of important issues in American education.

SIETAR Global
This is the umbrella organization for SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research. However, the SIETAR-USA site provides (below) provides better links to all the SIETAR sites.

Sietar-USA
Sietar International is an organization that strives to help businesses and organizations understand the importance of intercultural training.

Sietar Europa
Various SIETAR groups hold NGO status at the United Nations or are recognized by the Council of Europe.

America’s Library of Congress
Largest library in the world, with nearly 128 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
This website is a service of The Chronicle of Higher Education, a news source for college and university faculty members and administrators.

The Smithsonian Institution
Promotes the understanding of national identity through the history and heritage as Americans and encourages innovation, research and the discovery in science.

National Multicultural Institute
NMCI works with individuals, organizations, and communities with a focus on diversity through their mutual communication, understanding and respect.

Playing catch up

After a glorious week of relaxing with my husband in our new home, I'm now back to work and playing catch up. After seeing all the wonderful posts from the past week, I'm realizing that I need to begin my "12 Things" journey. I figured I might as well start with what I did on my vacation:

1. Cooking: Justin and I cooked up a storm this week. I'd have to say that the pinnacle of our culinary acheivements was a beatiful paella, complete with chorizo, chicken, clams, mussels, shrimp, and squid. This was our first attempt and we were both very happy with the results. (Give the extraordinary size of this dish, we preceded to eat leftover paella many days after that.)

2. Parties: We hosted 2 parties--one with friends and one with family. This meant lots of hosting, laughing, cleaning and good times. Justin and I both got to see our friends and extended families which was lots of fun.

3. TV: I don't usually watch much tv, but between the Red Sox and the debates, I definitely got my share of time in front of the boob tube. Strangely similar in that you have your favorite team and root for it while vehemently booing the other...but I'm not sure which one is more anxiety producing?

4. Boston: We went out to dinner, went to the MFA, walked around the Commons, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the River. We went on the free Sam Adams Brewery tour in JP (definitely recommended) and had brunch one morning in the South End.

5. Jogging: I tried to go jogging as often as possible and I'm happy to report that I made it to the Arborteum every day. One day I switched it up and jogged around the Pond in JP. :) The weather was perfect.

That's about it...Nothing fancy, simply just good times at home.