Resource #14: iEARN- international education and resource network
Site Name: iEARN- international education and resource network
URL: http://www.iearn.org/
Owner: iEARN International is registered as an NGO in Spain and has an international office in Callus, Spain.
Type of Resource: collaborative
Description: iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is the world's largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the worldIt is made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 130 countries. Over 2,000,000 students each day are engaged in collaborative project work worldwide. Have been around since 1988.
Uses: Be a part of the network and join the global community! Through International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) and an Internet connection, students and teachers from over 130 countries can transcend linguistic, national, political, religious, and social borders to collaborate on meaningful educational projects in hopes of making a difference in the health and welfare of people and our planet.There are over 150 projects in iEARN, all designed and facilitated by teachers and students to fit their curriculum and classroom needs and schedules. Projects take place in the iEARN Collaboration Centre. To join, participants select an online project and look at how they can integrate it into their classroom.
With the project selected teachers and students enter online forum spaces to meet one another and get involved in ongoing projects with classrooms around the world who are working on the same project.
In addition to connecting students' learning with local issues and meeting specific curriculum needs, every project proposed by teachers and students in iEARN has to answer the question, "How will this project improve the quality of life on the planet?" This vision and purpose is the glue that holds iEARN together, enabling participants to become global citizens who make a difference by collaborating with their peers around the world.
Usefulness: Not sure yet. I have signed up, saying I would like my students to be involved in a project where they can use their German language knowledge or learn about Germany.How it works: Based on 23 years of experience, iEARN has created an interactive Collaborative Centre in which teachers and students engage in collaborative projects to learn with the world, instead of just studying about the world. Because the interaction is peer-to-peer, students work with "authentic" audiences in real dialogues on projects that address both a curriculum need and issues of concern locally and globally. Students become more motivated to study the subject of the project because they are working with real (not hypothetical) issues. Global education will only be integrated and sustained if it bolsters what a teacher is teaching, whether science, math, language, social studies. Collaborative online project-based learning meets that need and is both cost-effective and exponential in the numbers of young people who can be engaged and internationalized.Here are some comments:There are so many personal stories of how teaching and learning have been enhanced when the world is integrated into US classrooms. New York University recently did a study of the participants of the first five years of iEARN programs (1988-1993). They found that teachers radically changed how they taught—substituting student interactive work for text books—and that students went into international fields in their subsequent career fields. Other research has shown that online iEARN work has lead to substantially increased rates of travel abroad—through exchange organizations or personal travel. In the twelve doctoral dissertations and master theses that have been done on iEARN, researchers have found that students study more languages, show more respect and empathy for other cultures and engage in careers that involve an international focus after working on iEARN online collaborative project work. For some of the personal impact stories, see: http://www.iearn.org/impact For videos on the benefits of online project work, see: http://us.iearn.org/collaborate/projects/project_videos.php
Quality: The quality of this website is good.
Authorship: iEARN international
Point of View or Bias: none. Making children into citizens of the world!
Referral to Other Sources:
Verifiability: "U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy" website"Connect all schools" websitePBS: January 18, 2011 New York---The International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) today announced the launch of its MDGs Reporting Labs in partnership with PBS NewsHour Extra and UNICEF.
Currency: 2011.
Accessibility: WAVE (http://wave.webaim.org/) reports 4 accessibility errors.
URL: http://www.iearn.org/
Owner: iEARN International is registered as an NGO in Spain and has an international office in Callus, Spain.
Type of Resource: collaborative
Description: iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is the world's largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the worldIt is made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 130 countries. Over 2,000,000 students each day are engaged in collaborative project work worldwide. Have been around since 1988.
Uses: Be a part of the network and join the global community! Through International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) and an Internet connection, students and teachers from over 130 countries can transcend linguistic, national, political, religious, and social borders to collaborate on meaningful educational projects in hopes of making a difference in the health and welfare of people and our planet.There are over 150 projects in iEARN, all designed and facilitated by teachers and students to fit their curriculum and classroom needs and schedules. Projects take place in the iEARN Collaboration Centre. To join, participants select an online project and look at how they can integrate it into their classroom.
With the project selected teachers and students enter online forum spaces to meet one another and get involved in ongoing projects with classrooms around the world who are working on the same project.
In addition to connecting students' learning with local issues and meeting specific curriculum needs, every project proposed by teachers and students in iEARN has to answer the question, "How will this project improve the quality of life on the planet?" This vision and purpose is the glue that holds iEARN together, enabling participants to become global citizens who make a difference by collaborating with their peers around the world.
Usefulness: Not sure yet. I have signed up, saying I would like my students to be involved in a project where they can use their German language knowledge or learn about Germany.How it works: Based on 23 years of experience, iEARN has created an interactive Collaborative Centre in which teachers and students engage in collaborative projects to learn with the world, instead of just studying about the world. Because the interaction is peer-to-peer, students work with "authentic" audiences in real dialogues on projects that address both a curriculum need and issues of concern locally and globally. Students become more motivated to study the subject of the project because they are working with real (not hypothetical) issues. Global education will only be integrated and sustained if it bolsters what a teacher is teaching, whether science, math, language, social studies. Collaborative online project-based learning meets that need and is both cost-effective and exponential in the numbers of young people who can be engaged and internationalized.Here are some comments:There are so many personal stories of how teaching and learning have been enhanced when the world is integrated into US classrooms. New York University recently did a study of the participants of the first five years of iEARN programs (1988-1993). They found that teachers radically changed how they taught—substituting student interactive work for text books—and that students went into international fields in their subsequent career fields. Other research has shown that online iEARN work has lead to substantially increased rates of travel abroad—through exchange organizations or personal travel. In the twelve doctoral dissertations and master theses that have been done on iEARN, researchers have found that students study more languages, show more respect and empathy for other cultures and engage in careers that involve an international focus after working on iEARN online collaborative project work. For some of the personal impact stories, see: http://www.iearn.org/impact For videos on the benefits of online project work, see: http://us.iearn.org/collaborate/projects/project_videos.php
Quality: The quality of this website is good.
Authorship: iEARN international
Point of View or Bias: none. Making children into citizens of the world!
Referral to Other Sources:
Verifiability: "U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy" website"Connect all schools" websitePBS: January 18, 2011 New York---The International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) today announced the launch of its MDGs Reporting Labs in partnership with PBS NewsHour Extra and UNICEF.
Currency: 2011.
Accessibility: WAVE (http://wave.webaim.org/) reports 4 accessibility errors.