What do the following schools have in common?
- Kongresi I Manastirit School in Tirana, ALBANIA
- Peel District School Board in Missisauga, Ontario, CANADA,
- Farzanegan High School in Tehran, IRAN,
- School-Kindergarten 90 in Chisinau, MOLDOVA,
- Elworod High School in Tinghir, MOROCCO,
- Hassan Iben Thabet School and Qurtoba Basic School in Hebron, PALESTINE,
- Liceui Teoretic Emil Racovita in Techirghiol, ROMANIA,
- Gymnasia 15 in Nikopol, UKRAINE,
- Al Ameen Private School in Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES,
- Sunburst Youth Academy in Los Alamitos, California, USA,
- Lincolnton High School in Lincolnton, North Carolina, USA,
- Governor Mifflin Intermediate School in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA, and
- Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, USA!
They are all schools who have signed up to participate in the 2017-18 Dreamline Program in collaboration with the International Education and Resource Network, now in its 29th year of serving students and teachers around the world by “helping students learn with the world, not just about it!”
That means the students in these schools will make flags, some as a second language activity, others in their primary language and share them on Dreamline.
So how’s that different than just signing up on Dreamline?
I think it’s most different in that what iEARN has done over the years is to figure out the best sort of “open source” platform for teachers and students to collaborate. And those who participate in Dreamline through iEARN get to experience that. By “open source” I don’t mean the usual technical meaning, but more of one that’s adaptable to many different uses, depending on how teachers collaborate. Here are a few things it can do and how we hope to use them:
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- Utilize the Group Forum where participant teachers can have online discussions, sharing ideas and information on connecting with student dreams.
- Individual schools and teachers connect in whatever ways seem best.
- Already, we’ve had a Skype connection between students at an all girls school near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with an all female group of high school students from the in Tehran, Iran.
- Create Student Registration on the YOUTH FORUM where individual students can post their flags–or a link to them on Dreamline-–and then TALK with each other about them. This is a wonderfully promising feature of this system.
- Students will also be encouraged to # the Dreamline postings with one or more of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals to quickly connect with others who share their dreams.
And beyond that?
Well there’s quite a lot beyond that because every single one of the 100 projects listed in the 2017-18 iEARN Project Book is aligned to one or more of the UN SDGs. So in the months after posting flags, students can begin to collaborate on global projects that reach toward their dreams together. And THAT is how the world will change from the ground up!
And if this seems like the Dream Flags and Dreamline experience you’d like to have this year? What do you do?
- Adults have to join iEARN first, then sign up for The Dreamline on their site.
- Joining is free for educators outside of the USA and is about a $100 fee for USA schools.
- And it means access not just to the Dreamline iEARN project but hundreds of others that may be of use this year. It’s one of the best Professional Development deals around.
I suggest that you take a few minutes to explore iEARN this week. I think you’ll see many footprints of people from around the world who are just like you. I know I did.
info.dreamline 