GreenLearning Canada Announces COOL 2.0!

GreenLearning Canada has just launched COOL 2.0, a powerful new online community for teaching and learning about climate change. COOL 2.0 gives you access to hundreds of teaching resources on energy, the environment, and sustainability. Look for resources created by teachers, GreenLearning Canada, and many of its partner ENGOs — among them, UNICEF Canada, Sustainability Frontiers,Biosphere, Wild BC, and Earth Day Canada. COOL 2.0 also provides you with a robust web 2.0 platform, powered by TiGed, for customizing resources, creating assignments, and connecting with colleagues.

What can you do at cool.greenlearning.ca?

• Access lesson plans and activities, videos, research and data, and collaborative projects in the Education Database.
• Search for teaching resources by keyword, grade level, subject, province, language, and more.
• Use Teacher Space to tailor COOL 2.0 resources for your students.
• Create assignments that integrate blogs, mapping, online discussions, and media galleries.
• Exchange ideas in the Teacher Forum, meet colleagues, and team up to collaborate on class projects.

Anyone can access the resources in the COOL 2.0 Education Database. To access the COOL 2.0 Teacher Space, log in with your GreenLearning or TIGed ID and password, or register on the COOL 2.0 homepage. Like all GreenLearning programs, COOL 2.0 is free to teachers. Discover the best in climate change education at cool.greenlearning.ca!

Thanks to our Program Assistant, Michelle Smith, for writing this blog!

Given the increasingly interconnected global community that we live in, the chances are quite high that you know and interact with migrants on a daily basis. Perhaps you or your family has migrated from another country. A migrant is essentially anyone who is working outside of their home country. In 2000, The United Nations declared December 18^th as International Migrants Day. Observing this day brings to light many issues surrounding migration - including securing formal and substantive fundamental rights for migrant workers and their families. Debates regarding immigrant policy, and combating racism are also prevalent themes.

While these issues are important, the circumstances that led to migration in various countries are often left unaddressed. Often underlying the reality of a mass movement of migrant workers is a lack of opportunity in underdeveloped nations or countries faced with crisis. Even more ignored are questions of power and privilege implicit within migration. Who gets to decide the value of contributions made by migrants and how they are compensated? What are the social implications of families broken apart by migration in labor-exporting countries? These are questions that never crossed my mind until pursuing higher education, but I strongly believe that they should be addressed when studying migration in the classroom at the secondary level.

Despite these issues, migration in countries rich with multicultural identities, presents people with a rare opportunity to interact with various cultures, world views and experiences first hand. This is no doubt one of the benefits of migration – it is a valuable contribution to the multicultural identity of a nation by helping to create a more informed and inclusive society. Growing up in Canada, I’ve always tried to develop a more adequate understanding of the world through connecting with a diverse group of people. However in my experience, the lessons that I’ve learned have often been taught outside of the classroom, rather than being included in school curricula. For example, it was in my afterschool multicultural club, that I first started to question why history is dominantly taught from the perspective of Anglo Saxons. It seems more appropriate for the multinational Canadian identity to be adequately reflected in the nation’s history.

So what does International Migrate Day mean for education? It should cause us to reflect on the changing nature of our society, and how we should incorporate new perspectives, debates, voices and information into the classroom. I would encourage all educators and students to reflect on these themes, not just on International migration day, but whenever possible.

Photo credit: fdecomite

 

 

TakingITGlobal and the Centre for Global Education are proud sponsors of the MindShare Learning 21st Century Classroom Video Challenge, which celebrates new thinking and new possibilities through the power of education technology. 

 

TIGed was thrilled to be hosted by Pearson Education at the National Council for Social Studies Annual Conference in Washington, DC to engage with social studies educators about our programs and offerings. TIGed is a proud partner of Pearson Education on myWorld TIGed, which combines the resources of TIGed with a focus on the Essential Questions and 21st Century Learning Activities found in Pearson’s myWorld Geography and myWorld History programs. Social studies teachers use myWorld TIGed to help students connect to different cultures and peoples, experience the world in new ways, and understand the key concepts in world geography and world history. Teachers using Pearson's myWorld textbooks can visit http://myworld.tigweb.org/ to learn more about how your class can benefit from this program.

Thanks Pearson, for helping us to reach for our vision of classrooms everywhere actively engaged in shaping a more inclusive, peaceful, and sustainable world!

The TIGed Team 

 

 

What a fantastic week! The Global Education Conference, hosted by the Global Education Collaborative, has come to a close. The conference was a great success, with online sessions happening around the clock from an extremely diverse group of presenters that included: leading educational theorists, consultants, teachers, and students. Check out this amazing map of where participants logged onto the conference from. The inspiration, wisdom and ideas were flying all week! TIGed hosted sessions with engaged participants from all around the world. Thanks to all those who attend our sessions! If you missed out, don’t worry – recordings are available from all of our sessions! Below, you will find a link to each session that TIGed hosted that you can watch at your leisure. We have also included links to the sessions hosted by our friend and colleague, Jennifer Klein. A special thanks is due to conference co-chairs, Steve Hargadon and Lucy Gray for all their hard work organizing this wonderful conference. We can’t wait for next year!

Take Your Classroom Global!:

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/dropin.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.6A2E66498EB9B2205A23B9C065E66C

DeforestACTION!: Global Education for Environmental Stewardship!:  

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/dropin.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.C7869F08B195D1EE2225470B05DD2F

Las Mejores Practicas en la Education Global Basada en Proyectos:

 https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/dropin.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.A44B0DACAD842FA08637D85CBE03D7

Best Practices in Global Project-Based Learning:

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/dropin.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.0B3187EFFC07A47EF1440A96F7B85F

Arab Spring: Using Social Media to Teach in Real Time:

 https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/dropin.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.2ECF221115BB1D84CE99D670E5E95F

Building a High Stakes Educational Partnership between Brooklyn, NR and Bumpe, Sierra Leone:

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/dropin.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.4226408803BA7DA00599AD1A2BFB9C

Live Video Conferencing: Strategies for Humanizing Global Education:

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/dropin.jnlp?sid=2008350&suid=D.D0C1C22C5BF929AE5CEA92995ADB85

 

 

 

The Global Education Collaborative is hosting a free virtual conference with a spectacular line-up! Join us for the Global Education Conference from November 14-18, and choose from a variety of over 60 free sessions offered at convenient times for people around the world! This event is scheduled to fall during International Education Week – what better way to celebrate than to explore new ideas, learn from a variety of perspectives, and learn from each other? Ideas, projects and programs will be presented from students, educators and organizations at all levels.

We hope that you will join us for the following sessions:

Take Your Classroom Global!  (Spotlight Session)

Tuesday November 15, 10-11am ET

Learn to use online social networking and digital media tools to facilitate global education and inspire student leadership in local and global communities.

Best Practices in Global Project-Based Learning  (Spotlight Session)

Wednesday November 16, 3-4pm ET (English) and 9-10pm ET (Spanish)

Explore the importance of global education, and how technology can help bring the world into our classrooms. Note: this session will also be offered in Spanish on the same day from 9-10pm ET (Las Mejores Prácticas en la Educación Global Basada en Proyectos).

DeforestACTION: Global Education for Environmental Stewardship

Thursday November 17, 11-12pm ET

Learn about DeforestACTION, a global learning project connecting students around the world to learn and take action on deforestation by using innovative social media and technology tools that make engaging with global issues fun and exciting!

We also encourage you to join our Professional Development Instructor, Jennifer Klein for the following sessions:

Building a High Stakes Educational Partnership between Brooklyn, NY and Bumpe Sierra Leone

Tuesday November 15,^,4-5pm ET

This session will explore the high-stakes school partnership in development between The Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn, New York and the war-torn Bumpe region in Sierra Leone.

Live Video Conferencing: Strategies for Humanizing Global Education

Wednesday, November 16, 12-1pm ET

This session will provide strategies for integrating effective, humanizing video conference experiences into the classroom, allowing students to make authentic, transformative connections with young people in other parts of the world.

Arab Spring: Using Social Media to Teach in Real Time

Thursday November 17, 12-1pm ET

Social media ignited revolution across the Arab World in 2011. Experience how educators use live video conferencing, connecting students to those experiencing political turmoil.  

Keynote speakers at this year’s conference include: Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education Harvard University; Alan November, Senior Partner with November Learning; Esther Wojcicki, Teacher at Palo Alto High and Ed Gragert, Executive Director for iEARN-USA, among several other renowned contributors to the field of global education.

We hope that you are all as excited as we are to participate in the Global Education Conference this year. We look forward to learning from all of the fabulous speakers as well as the participants in our own sessions. See you online!

 

Tread Lightly at ISTE

In preparation for another exciting year of Tread Lightly, the team at TakingITGlobal was proud to represent Tread Lightly at the recent conference of the the International Society for Technology in Education. There were plenty of opportunities at the conference to engage with educators (and even some students!) about Tread Lightly and all its exciting components. TakingITGlobal hosted a partner booth for people to learn about Tread Lightly and other TakingITGlobal initiatives, and a poster session that highlighted Tread Lightly. Check out some of our photos below that show what a great week we had!

Tread Lightly is a climate change education initiative, developed by TakingITGlobal, that provides free online tools and resources to inspire educators and youth to reduce their ecological footprints.  These include a teacher toolkit with lesson plans for the secondary school level, a virtual classroom platform, video conferences, an eco-art contest, and an ecological footprint challenge. Teachers can access climate change lesson plans and create their own Tread Lightly virtual classroom preloaded with resources, to connect their classroom with other classrooms around the world.  Youth can submit to the Imprints eco-art contest and compete with their peers in the ecological footprint challenge.  Tread Lightly is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. Visit www.treadlightly.me to access the free tools and resources, and for more information.

 

 

 

 

Tread Lightly at ISTE

In preparation for another exciting year of Tread Lightly, the team at TakingITGlobal was proud to represent Tread Lightly at the recent conference of the the International Society for Technology in Education. There were plenty of opportunities at the conference to engage with educators (and even some students!) about Tread Lightly and all its exciting components. TakingITGlobal hosted a partner booth for people to learn about Tread Lightly and other TakingITGlobal initiatives, and a poster session that highlighted Tread Lightly. Check out some of our photos below that show what a great week we had!

Tread Lightly is a climate change education initiative, developed by TakingITGlobal, that provides free online tools and resources to inspire educators and youth to reduce their ecological footprints.  These include a teacher toolkit with lesson plans for the secondary school level, a virtual classroom platform, video conferences, an eco-art contest, and an ecological footprint challenge. Teachers can access climate change lesson plans and create their own Tread Lightly virtual classroom preloaded with resources, to connect their classroom with other classrooms around the world.  Youth can submit to the Imprints eco-art contest and compete with their peers in the ecological footprint challenge.  Tread Lightly is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. Visit www.treadlightly.me to access the free tools and resources, and for more information.

 

 

 

What a whirlwind of a week! From June 25^th-29^th, members of the TakingITGlobal for Educators (TIGed) all-star team attended the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) annual conference in Philadelphia. Kate, Sara, Kat, and Mike represented TIG and TIGed at this event that attracted nearly 20, 000 educators, administrators, and leaders in the field of technology and education. Keep reading for some of the team’s highlights.

Partner Booth

The team engaged with many ISTE-goers at their booth, where they provided people with information and material on various projects and initiatives in which TIG and TIGed is involved. Among other projects, TIGed’s professional development e-courses were highlighted, and the team was pleased to have professional development instructor and global education expert, Jennifer Klein, with them to engage educators in speaking about her work. It is always gives our team a boost of energy and a feeling of affirmation to witness the excitement that our work elicits among those who are new to TIG. TIG is grateful to ISTE for sponsoring this booth as a partner and supporter of the work that we do in the field of technology in education. Thanks also to all who stopped by to make our experience at the booth such a positive one.

Poster Sessions

TIG was lucky to have the opportunity to showcase our work in four poster sessions at ISTE. These 90-120 minute sessions were centred on Shout, DeforestACTION, Tread Lightly, and TIG’s educational games. Special thanks to Josh Falk from the Smithsonian Institution who spoke to people about tree banding, a citizen science project that is part of the Shout project TIG supports.

 

 

Adobe Youth Voices

One of our TIGed team members, Kate, is fortunate to be involved in Adobe Youth Voices as a course facilitator. Along with representing Adobe Youth Voices at the TIG partner booth, Kate sat on a panel at the Adobe Youth Voices corporate spotlight session, in which she shared her experiences with the program that connects educators from around the world in an online course for training in Adobe Youth Voices youth-generated media programming.

Events

The “I” in ISTE stands for international! As members of the international community at ISTE, the TIG team attended the international reception on the third evening of the conference. A diverse group of ISTE members were present with many interesting cultural exchanges taking place, and many international connections being made.

As proud members of the Canadian ISTE community, the TIG team attended the Canadian reception at ISTE, put on by MindShare Learning. It was great to connect with fellow Canadians and to discuss exciting future projects. Special thanks to Robert Martellacci and Aislinn Malszecki for organizing this event.

 

Hi Everyone!

My name is Kate, and I am so excited to be one of the newest members of the TIGed team, as the TIGed Program Assistant. For the next few months, I am responsible for member support (TIGeducators: have questions? I've got answers! E-mail me at education@takingitglobal.org, or visit me during my virtual office hours), community engagement (you may see me poking about at a conference near you!), sharing research and information with TIGeducators on our Twitter account (@TIGed), and providing other administrative support for our amazing team.

I am also managing a project in collaboration with a great organization called Youth Voices Research Group (http://www.youthvoices.ca/) to launch Youth 4 Health's Navigate This!, a toolkit website designed to empower newcomer youth to become "health navigators" for their families and local communities. Read more about Youth 4 Health here: http://www.youthvoices.ca/node/126. 

To learn more about me, visit my TIG profile: http://profiles.tigweb.org/kathrynlang9

I am so excited to be part of this amazing online community, and look forward to seeing you online!

Kate :)

Hi Everyone!

My name is Kate, and I am so excited to be one of the newest members of the TIGed team, as the TIGed Program Assistant. For the next few months, I am responsible for member support (TIGeducators: have questions? I've got answers! E-mail me at education@takingitglobal.org, or visit me during my virtual office hours), community engagement (you may see me poking about at a conference near you!), sharing research and information with TIGeducators on our Twitter account (@TIGed), and providing other administrative support for our amazing team.

I am also managing a project in collaboration with a great organization called Youth Voices Research Group (http://www.youthvoices.ca/) to launch Youth 4 Health's Navigate This!, a toolkit website designed to empower newcomer youth to become "health navigators" for their families and local communities. Read more about Youth 4 Health here: http://www.youthvoices.ca/node/126. 

To learn more about me, visit my TIG profile: http://profiles.tigweb.org/kathrynlang9

I am so excited to be part of this amazing online community, and look forward to seeing you online!

Kate :)

Africa needs more support in other to acheave the MDG's to me a lot need to be done on the part of children development.This years STAND UP EVENT was a joyest one i have ever taking part, in the North/Tamale at Dakpemah primary school children age at 10-14years come out in their numbers to stand up against the poverty in the Northern Region of Ghana/Tamale and it was imprissing if much care is given the children would do more on the part of the acheavement of the MDG's.
Tamale been one of the poorist cities in Ghana and for that matter my group is taking the MDG's campang serious and needs more support to run activities so if any body is intrested in taking part can contact me @ kaabarah@gmail.com/+233-20-8283186.We are planning more projects towards 2008 and we need schools in the developed countries to partner with my here.

The African Regional Preparatory meeting will be holding in Accra in February
2005 and would be a great opportunity for young people from different African
countries to showcase what they have been able to build within the WSIS
framework; share best practices/ Challenges; and discuss proactive steps towards
the inclusion of their respective Nations in their information society.



WSIS Youth Consultation will give the opportunity of creating awareness of the
WSIS process among Nigerian Youths in Imo state; update them on the present
developments; inform them of the process progress ; empower them with the
possibility of active participation and taking action in their local communities
in line with WSIS plan of Action .



WSIS Youth Consultation is coordinated by youth-led Organisations in Different
States of the Federation while Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) will host the
final consultative session that will present the summary of individual Policy
Train sessions to the Nigerian Communities



The dynamic duo of Ugochukwu Nwosu and Chinyere Mbachu will host this one-day programme with support from OWERRI DIGITAL VILLAGE on January 25 2005 at Owerri Digital village,Owerri Imo State. The workshop will seek to consult a guided discussion to find out ways of making ICT4D a reality in the state in line with the WSIS action plan.