Home - ISTE 2014 Network Join the ISTE Ning for the 2014 conference now! tags: iste2014 education 20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network - InformED : tags: PLN connected_learning education network professionaldevelopment professionallearningcommunities The Educator's PLN - The personal learning network for educators tags: PLN connected_learning education Great place to connect with other teachers. ateachr.blogspot.com - post by Ian Snyder 5 Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) for Educators | MindShift tags: PLN connected_learning education ECIS ICT Committee eNews - In the Groove….. Great updates and resources to do with educational technology from the European Council of Independent Schools IT Committee. Authored by @jmikton and @apreis tags: ecis education PLN Starter Kit - LiveBinder tags: PLN education connected_learning 50+Ways - 50Dominoes - Alan Levine "Below are examples of the same story (over and over again!) I was able to create in the 50+ tools, with both linked versions (on the tool's web site) and embedded versions, using the code provided to embed a media player into this web site. One of the most interesting discoveries was that most of these tools provided the ability to embed the media in other web sites. More importantly, this should show that the choice of a tool is not as important as having a well developed story." tags: digitalstorytelling education multimedia Great Educational Quotes - The Learning Revolution "The important thing is not to stop questioning. - Albert Einstein" tags: education quotes Teach Meet Sydney wiki tags: teachmeet education Project Foundry - Organize. Engage. Track. Showcase. tags: projectbasedlearning education Using E-Portfolios in the Classroom | Edutopia tags: digitalportfolio education Reflections on the Global Education Conference #gec13 | On an e-Journey with Generation Y Inspiring reflection from my friend and global educator Anne Mirtschin @murcha about the Global Education Conference 2013. Watch out for GEC 2014! http://globaleducationconference.com tags: globaled13 education conference Design Thinking « Design Thinking for Educators tags: designthinking education FabLab@School | Transformative Learning Technologies Lab This looks fascinating - taking cutting edge fabrication labs and adapting them to schools. Global as well! tags: education digital technology maker Henry Sibley Presents: Managing Your Digital Footprint Excellent video showing the importance of knowing how to manage our digital footprint. tags: digitalfootprint digitalcitizenship education Innovation Design In Education - ASIDE: Rethinking Global Education - Maps As Social Media tags: global maps globaleducation education Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Schools Can No Longer Ignore the Importance of Digital Citizenship tags: digitalcitizenship Australiancurriculum education Macbeth Goes Social BIG FUN Education, a nonprofit in the US, is looking for 6-10 English teachers who work with disadvantaged students (ages 14-18) to participate in a 4-week online+offline project based on our easy adaptation of Macbeth. Ideal for English literature classes and advanced ESL, ELL. Translations of our faithful adaptation will be available in Spanish, Arabic, and Simplified Chinese. We welcome students from everywhere. tags: globalproject education socialmedia Global Partnership for Education | Global Partnership for Education Former Australia Prime Minister appointed Head of the Board of Directors for this new global organisation tags: global globaleducation education Generation Like | FRONTLINE | PBS "Thanks to social media, today's teens are able to directly interact with their culture — artists, celebrities, movies, brands, and even one another — in ways never before possible. But is that real empowerment? Or do marketers still hold the upper hand?" tags: digitalcitizenship education ClassBadges tags: badges education Instilling Global Citizenship within the International School Network tags: education digitalcitizenship globalcitizen Innovative Ideas for Using Google Forms - followmolly.com tags: Google education Learning Theories tags: learningtheory education infographic Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Announcing #TeacherTuesday Prepare to learn about the world through nn innovative online project connecting teachers with bloggers around the world.I am proud to have been invited to be one of the education bloggers who will write 10 blog posts over the next 10 weeks. The first post from me will go up on this blog on Tuesday February 25.The UNESCO Education For All Global Monitoring Report monitors progress towards the EFA goals. This year the focus of the report is on teachers. The stories of 10 teachers will be shared through my blog and many other education blogs as we share perspectives on the featured teacher that week and their challenges to children's learning around the world.The aim is to not only raise awareness of inadequate and struggling education systems and educators, but to give teachers a voice. There are powerful stories that must be told - and choosing experienced bloggers to do this is an enlightened approach.Read more about #TeacherTuesday, and follow #TeacherTuesday on Twitter to be part of the learning and the conversation and to find the other bloggers who will share their thoughts and ideas around each different educator each week.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Open Textbook - An Open Resource on Digital Literacy for Educators, Teachers and Schools tags: digitalliteracy digitalcitizenship education BBC News - Social media transforms the textbook lesson Ann Michaelsen from Norway shares her ideas about connected learning tags: socialmedia education connected_learning Generation YES GenYes and TechYes - new website looks great! Student leaders providing solution for technology use within schools to support project-based learning, tech integration. tags: education genyes student Write My Research Paper | Research Paper Town Interesting.....am I reading this correctly - that this service will do the research and write your paper? tags: education research A Wonderful Visual on How to Use SAMR Model On Different Classroom Tasks ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning tags: samr education Media Studies 101 | A Creative Commons Textbook tags: media opencontent education Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

This is my first blog post for what will be a 10-week series - each week focusing on a different country and a different teacher who will share with us first hand conditions and stories. My educational focus normally is on educational technology - digital citizenship, global collaboration, mobile and ubiquitous learning, therefore my posts will refer to this in relation to each country and situation, but not with the intention of diverting the story, but wanting to broaden the picture.This is an initiative by UNESCO, see my previous post, and many bloggers across the global are writing madly and posting each Tuesday. Follow the action on Twitter - #TeacherTuesday.Week 1 - Focus on Malawi Oh Africa....dear to my heart....In Malawi the pace of progress is too slow, especially for the disadvantaged. This relates to universal primary education, lower secondary education and youth literacy. From 2000-2010 literacy rates among those aged 15-24 increased from 72-77% only.Malawi has one of the worst teacher shortages in the world. What are conditions like in schools in Malawi?The World Inequality Database on Education helps inform policy design and public debate. Recent surveys highlighted that not all children reach a grade 6 level, particularly the poor, therefore on average only 40% of primary school age children achieve this minimum learning standard. Of interest also is the interaction between gender, geography and poverty. It appears that 75% of rich boys living in urban areas achieved the minimum standard compared to 24% of poor girls living in rural areas.What can the government do?Recruit good teachersThe current shortage of teachers means less qualified have been recruitedNeed to recruit from ethnic minorities to work in their own communities Improve teacher educationDevelopment of a distance education program doubled the government's capacity to supply teachers Distance education for teacher training has reduced costs significantlyPut teachers where they are most needed - particularly in rural areas Rural hardship allowance offered to try and get better educated teachers out of urban areas where there is a surplus of teachersProvide incentives to retain good teachers Pay salaries that elevate teacher families out of povertyOffer a career path for teachersUse of ICTMalawi is at the very early adoption of computers stage in a few schools.  Teacher training and understanding of the relevance of computers beyond being a replacement for pen and paper is needed. Using ICT as a real educational resource means having carefully constructed digital curriculum artifacts as well as providing some or ongoing connectivity to the Internet and therefore the world. In schools where classes are up to 200 in size, the ability to integrate technology using devices provided by the government is many years away, or in fact impossible. Or is it? My question is, how can we mobilze the developed world to support digital implementation in the less-developed world?Through the eyes of Esnart ChapombaEsnart is an experienced primary, secondary teacher and is now a teacher trainer.She shares with us some facts about the current education situation in Malawi.The physical structure of schools is inadequate - lack of desks, broken buildingsClass sizes are too large - up to 200 students in the one classTextbook shortage means students share - not satisfactory In a personal interview Esnart talks about the struggle to provide basic literacy to students when teachers are overwhelmed by so many in a class coupled with a lack of resources.More incentives are being given to encourage female teachers (she has 60% male students in the teacher training course right now). Females teachers are role models for girl students, particularly in rural areas.Education for girls generally is not always supported by parents. Pregnancy after puberty has an impact, but now better education around AIDS and protection is helping to change this.Some new teachers are electing the profession because of a lack of other opportunities and Esnart comments unfavourably about this - if they do not like their job how can they be productive?Rural areas lack adequate health care and facilities, therefore not attracting urban teachers and their families. Large class sizes mean a compromised teaching approach - singing, some reading. Esnart reports that student behaviour is not always good in these very large classes, putting even more stress on the teacher. The school day finishes before lunch so students can go home and eat. Afternoons are for teacher planning, and at times the more studious are encouraged to come back for extra help.My commentsI lived in Zambia for nearly 3 years, 1998-2000, when that country was at one of it's lowest socioeconomic levels. I have seen schools and situations where students are not supported, and teachers are not supported, and literacy is very low.  The impact of AIDS in countries like Zambia and of course Malawi can not be underestimated - thousands of children with no real parents. Schools requiring a uniform to participate, although a simple entry point is usually beyond the means of rural and less financial families.For many years now my focus has been on developing digital literacy, and I also have full appreciation and understanding of the need to develop basic literacy and uphold minimum standards across the world - these two objectives MUST go hand-in-hand. I am really thinking however that through digital means education can be improved at a far greater rate in a country like Malawi. The cost of technology is decreasing. Developing countries have the opportunity to leap-frog over what other countries have been through in the past 10 years.Meanwhile, my thoughts are with Esnart and her colleagues in Malawi as they struggle to improve conditions in a profession they love. What can we do to help in a more meaningful way?Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need tags: curation education searchengine search ETL523 Langwitches Blog | Search Results A methodical approach to blogging for learning from Silvia Tolisano. tags: blogging education CLU01 blogs ETL523 Google Announces An Online Data Interpretation Class For The General Public | TechCrunch tags: Google MOOC education Global Education Resources listed by Shambles (Chris Smith)tags: globaleducation education global globalcompetence Facilitating Intercultural Digital Exchanges » NMC ACADEMY "Facilitating Intercultural Digital Exchanges"tags: interculturalunderstanding education globalPosted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Natalee, HondurasMeet Natalee from the Bay Islands, Honduras. She is a passionate teacher and proponent for better approaches to teaching and learning.Natalee shares some of her stories of teaching in Honduras, with special emphasis on language. Decisions about the use of language affect the well being of a nation - causing some languages to become extinct, alienating and isolating some communities. I am reproducing Natalee's words here from a recent interview as part of the UNESCO #TeacherTuesday series, and blending in some facts about Honduras in an effort to raise awareness across the world.Honduras has a Primary school net enrollment of 97%, however it is the completion rate that needs to be considered. In Honduras in 2011, only 75% of children were surviving to the last grade of primary education, with 25% dropping out. Also in 2011 85% of adults were literate. The 2015 target of universal adult literacy by 2015 is unlikely to be met. Speaking a minority language can be a source of disadvantage The discrimination some indigenous or ethnic groups face is reinforced by the fact that the language used in the classroom may not be one that they speak. In Honduras in 2011, 94% of those who spoke the language of instruction at home learned the basics in reading in primary school compared to only 62% of those who did not. From the EFA (Education For All) Global Monitoring Report Honduras Fact Sheet: Curriculum and assessment strategies that improve learning When curriculum is standardized to state policies and does not consider the native language, traditions and customs of the people, this creates a barrier that most indigenous people are unable to overcome. - Natalee, teacher, Bay Islands, Honduras A recent interview with Natalee In Honduras there are 9 indigenous groups (Miskitu, Tawakha, Lenca, Tolupan, Maya-Chorti, Garifuna, Nahao, Pech, Negro de Habla Ingles) and 7 languages. Two groups have lost their language and became fragmented. One of those languages (lenca) is almost extinct, there is now a process of revitalization to try and keep that language alive. As a result of the historic and cultural background in the Bay Islands, English is the main language of instruction. On mainland Honduras, Spanish is the main language of instruction. The English speakers on the Bay islands are descended from Grand Cayman and Jamaica and we speak English. The others speak Spanish or Garifuna language. The Garifuna people have lived in Honduras for the past 216 years and have become very important for the cultural framework.  They live in the North eastern sector of the island and we are trying to revitalize their language. When people don’t know how to read or write, that’s how a language becomes extinct.Natalee and her students, HondurasLanguage definitely has an impact on how children learn and how they perceive themselves as being part of the teaching-learning process. As a young child growing up in the Bay Islands, there were many times in school when we were not allowed to speak English. (Bay Islanders are English speakers living in a Spanish country). To not be taught in your mother tongue, leaves a gap, and makes you feel that your language is not important. Over the years you tend to develop certain humps. The first thing teachers need to do if teaching in a multilingual classroom is to keep an open mind. They need to be stay focused and motivated and not to let the system itself get the best of them. They need to build a strong relationship, integrating parents, the community, teachers in the school community and the students. They must strive to use a learner-centered approach, which places the child at the centre of the process. If we find ourselves in a multilingual classroom, it is vital that we bear in mind that our approach must be multicultural, multilingual and needs multi models to reach all students. We must teach the majority language speakers to speak the minority language and the minority language to speak the majority language, which builds on the principles of inclusion.  In classes with children who speak different languages, I tend to use a lot of visual cues. I divide the class into groups, those who don’t speak the majority language, those who are beginners, and those who are advanced. Children need their early education to be in their mother tongue but then should be exposed to other languages at grade 3,4,5. When they’re taught in their mother tongue, they can better understand the context and the world, in turn developing a better understanding of the culture around them, and of what’s happening in their surroundings. I also think that they should be exposed to other languages, which aids in developing global learners. Our educational system must strive to enable us not disable us. It should help ground students in an ever-changing and globalized world.  So by teaching students other languages, we open the gateway for them to interact with others, to become global leaders and to embrace diversity. Just because you speak a different language, doesn’t mean you’re less important than others etc… It also promotes a cultural sensitivity. Over the years there have been a number of dropouts in our system, this in part is due to fact that students feel lost in the classrooms. Sometimes it’s because their learning style is not catered to, and others it’s because the language at school is not their first language. The General Direction for Intercultural Multilingual Education (DIGEIM) is to ensure that indigenous and afrodescendent people are a part of the agenda. In Honduras, regular training courses prepare teachers to teach only in Spanish. If you want to specialize in other subjects, you go to university level. In the govt. programme there are sub-programmes catering to the development of minority languages. But not every teacher learns that. The majority do not have training or skills to teach in multilingual classrooms. The Ministry of Education has declared that 2014 is the ‘Year of inclusion’ ‘el Año de la inclusion’. In our country they’ve realized the need to prepare every teacher to create an inclusive classroom, embracing learning styles and cultural baggage of the children they will come in contact with. Whether it’s due to economy or a result of the internal migratory movement- people move around. There’s not just one particular group of students in one school, they’re all interacting and you have to be sensitive to their needs. Finally, it’s essential that to teach students in the language of their thoughts. Some children won’t be able to read or write because they’ve been taught in a language they don’t understand. They’ve been pushed beyond the limit, and they simply don’t understand. However if we teach from the heart with sensitivity and a focus on diversity, we will serve as change agents whose sole goal is that their students become lifetime learners, proud of their cultural identity and respectful of others. From the EFA Language Fact Sheet: RECOMMENDATIONS: Policy-makers need to focus their attention on hiring and training teachers from under- represented groups, such as ethnic minorities, to serve in their own communities. Such teachers, familiar with the cultural context and local language, can improve learning opportunities for disadvantaged children. Pre-service and ongoing teacher education should train teachers in ethnically diverse societies to teach in more than one language. Curricula need to address issues of inclusion to enhance the chances of students from marginalized backgrounds to learn effectively. Classroom-based assessment tools can help teachers identify, monitor and support learners at risk of low achievement. This blog post is a contribution to Week 2 of #TeacherTuesday, a UNESCO and EFA initiative.I invite you to also read:Week 1 - Malawi: The Struggle for Literacy#TeacherTuesday - background information  Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Introducing digital Open Educational Resources into Zambian schools - YouTube tags: education global ICT digital zambia BBC News - Getty makes 35 million photos free to use tags: presentations pics education free English is so fun!: British vs American English tags: globalcollaboration english education 21st Century Teaching & Learning by Steve Smith on Prezi An excellent slide show covering many facets of what it means to teach and learn using technology. tags: digitalcitizenship education prezi Web 2.0 Tools that Promote Higher Order Thinking Skills | Digital Learning Environments tags: dle Web2.0 education NMC Horizon Report > 2014 Higher Education Edition | The New Media Consortium tags: nmc education highered Don't stalk your kids online "An interview with danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens." tags: digitalcitizenship education interview cybersafety Chaos to School in the Cloud tags: sugatamitra education virtualclassroom The Awkward 'Privacy Talk' Parents Should Have With Their Kids | Wired Opinion | Wired.com Data permanence and responsible use of technology - great themes in this article and the new book available called The New Digital Age. tags: privacy digitalcitizenship education 10 Major Technology Trends in Education -- THE Journal According to the latest data, video for homework is on the rise; mobile computing is "beyond the tipping point"; and most kids don't use traditional computers to connect to the Internet at home. Those are just three of the major trends revealed in the 2013 Speak Up Survey from Project Tomorrow, which CEO Julie Evans revealed at the FETC 2014 conference last week. The 2013 results represent more than 400,000 surveys from 9,000 schools and 2,700 districts across the country. Respondents included 325,279 students, 32,151 teachers and librarians, 39,986 parents, 4,530 district administrators and, new to this year’s survey, 1,346 community members. Read more at http://thejournal.com/Articles/2014/02/03/10-Major-Technology-Trends-in-Education.aspx?Page=1#xdDhiZ2SqcbqTopz.99 tags: education technology trends elearn Magazine: Augmented Reality: A new way of augmented learning tags: augmentedreality education Personal Learning Environments in Smart Cities: Current Approaches and Future Scenarios | Open Education Europa tags: PLE education digitalcitizenship What The Data Says About Students' 21st Century Readiness tags: research data education 21centurylearning 2015-2020: The Rise Of The Teacherpreneur tags: teacherpreneur education An Interview Series with Today’s Leading Thinkers and Innovators in Education | Skoll World Forum tags: wise social_entrepreneurship education A Quick Guide to Using Diigo with Your Students From Educational Technology and Mobile Learning tags: diigo prezi education socialbookmarking Announcing Our Free iBooks Textbooks! | Common Sense Media tags: ibook textbooks education commonsensemedia digitalcitizenship free 2015-2020: The Rise Of The Teacherpreneur tags: teacherpreneur education leadership Teaching in the Connected Learning Classroom eBook Now Available : Educator Innovator Network tags: connected_learning education Core Knowledge® Foundation tags: education curriculum Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

#TeacherTuesday is an initiative of UNESCO to raise awareness of different education systems and challenges across the world.The updated map below shows the teachers and countries we will be blogging about.This week we focus on Afghanistan and a teacher named Nahida.In a recent EFA (Education For All) global monitoring report an attempt was made to identify which countries lacking data are likely to have more than 1 million children out of school, using estimates of the primary net attendance rate from household surveys carried out between 2008 and 2011. These calculations add six countries to the eight known to have more than 1 million children out of school. Afghanistan is among these. Despite improvements over the decade, Afghanistan has the highest level of gender disparity in primary education in the world with only 71 girls in primary school for every 100 boys. It is likely to remain very far from the target of gender parity in primary education by 2015. No girls were in secondary school in 1999 in the country. By 2011, the female gross enrolment ratio rose to 34%, which meant there were only 55 girls in secondary school for every 100 boys.  Details in the Gender Summary provided by the UNESCO EFA initiative show that over 100 million young women in low and lower middle income countries are unable to read a single sentence. And 31 million girls are out of school, with half of them unlikely ever to set foot inside a classroom. It provides FOUR main recommendations for supporting education for girls.Equity must be the focus of new education goals after 2015.The best teachers must reach the learners who need them most.Teachers need gender-sensitive teacher education.Curricula must be inclusive. "The Gender Summary also demonstrates the importance of investing in girls’ and women’s education, not just for individuals but for the whole of society. Education reduces women’s poverty and boosts their chances of getting jobs that pay as well as men's. It has enormous benefits for women’s health, as well as their children’s, saving millions of lives through better knowledge of disease prevention and treatment. Education also empowers women to make better life choices, helping to avert early marriage and childbirth."  Source: Gender summary turns spotlight on girls' education.Nahida graduated from Kabul university and became a teacher in 1989. She eventually became Principal of an all girl high school in Kabul - where there are more female teachers than in most areas. The school is supported by the French government, has 35-50 students in each class, and runs in 2 shifts each day. Nahida was supported by her government for a unique opportunity to travel to Japan, UK, Germany, South Korea, India and later to Pakistan for training.Nahida has an important message contained in her story, so I am copying her exact words here: "In the last period of time when Mujahidin came to power, different portions of Mujahidin started fighting in Kabul and other provinces. Schools closed because of security, especially girls schools. Schools become a target for Mujahidin.  Slowly when stability came to Afghanistan and Kabul for me it was priority to encourage girls and their families to come back to school.   I gave the message to their families and asked them to send their daughters to school again. Also I made a council of elder people and religious people, and gave a message to them to help my school. Also I gave a message to the mosque because you know in Afghanistan, mosques help with all these things to encourage families and parents to send and to attend the female students to schools. Also I asked different NGOs to support us especially getting uniforms for the girls and school books, and to support orphans and poor students. All of it was to encourage the families of the female students to send them to school. When the Taliban came to power, it was their policy to close all the schools for females. For me, it was difficult to go to school to teach. When I went to my school, the principal of the school was a Mullah and he didn’t allow me to enter the school and asked me after that not to come to school.  But for the boys, school was open.  I was a teacher every day and I was sad for the girls. When I understood the policy of Taliban was not to allow girls and female teachers to go to school, I started a home school for girls because families and their parents asked me to teach their daughters. Families trust me because I was a well-known teacher in my school. I decided to continue my job and my responsibility for my people and my female students especially to help them. It was a very strict time. Very difficult. I was afraid. The home school was very secret, not official. In one day there were three shifts, two classes of 25 girls. It was a very difficult situation because the Taliban was very strict in their rules. The Taliban thought I ran a class for the holy Koran - a religious class but I taught not only the holy Koran, but also all the subjects that were in school - the complete school curriculum. I did not receive any salary for this.Today it has changed. When the Taliban fell and under Karzai, everything changed. Schools opened for the girls and boys. I was the first female teacher who went back to my school and organized my school. When I went to my school I can explain you how, what the condition was. The school was completely destroyed. The buildings had no windows, no doors. The surrounding wall of the building of our school was destroyed. Schools didn’t have any chairs, tables, blackboard, chalk, totally no school materials because the school was a Taliban location. When I went to my school first I cleaned the classes with the help of my female teachers and my labour. I made the surrounding wall in mud and stones. Fortunately I had taken all of the documents of the school and they were saved with me in my home. Once again I gave messages to their families, parents, mosque and asked families to send their daughters for attend school. The girls came back slowly, slowly. I encouraged families, asked their parents to school, encouraged them, talked with them.  Also I sent my female teachers to their homes. I announced it in different mosques. Female teachers started coming back to school and I started my teaching, and female teachers started teaching again. The government and thanks to the support of the international community, thousands more schools were built not only in Kabul but in different provinces, and destroyed schools were rebuilt, equipped schools with chairs, tables, good chairs, good tables. Also more than 47, 48 different countries which are involved now in Afghanistan to support different schools in the country, in many provinces. Now in Afghanistan, war continues every day. Here there are suicide attacks, bombs. The insecurity, and instability, is a big challenge for families, for our people, especially for girls attending the schools. You know, Afghanistan is a special country with special rules that must be followed by girls and women. When they want to go to school their parents are afraid about the lack of security, because suicide attacks happens, there are bombs and bad events in the city, many female students don’t come to school. For me as a director of this school, I have organized special transportation for my students. It’s a good solution to prevent absenteeism of girls from school. It’s a big problem. You know when a bomb explosion happens in a city, how will the morale be of the students, especially female students? After each bad event that happens in our country, it has a very bad impact on their morale. When a suicide attack happens, families don’t allow their girls to go to school for one or two days. Also for boys, but especially for girls.  In girls school it’s the rule the teacher has to be female. In my school, which I direct, of the 105 teachers, only 2% are male. I only need three more female teachers for next year in my school, but in all Afghanistan it’s the big challenge for education, especially in the provinces for the girls’ schools. You’re faced with difficulties and challenges because of the lack of female teachers. Day by day the number of girls decreases especially in the high grades classes like 10, 11 and 12. In the provinces especially in the unstable provinces like the south of Afghanistan the lack of the female teachers causes schools difficulties. Only in the big cities - the capital - we have in school a high number of female teachers. The Government and also the Ministry of Education are planning to do more to educate and hire female teachers, but it is hard to send teachers to the provinces because of lack of security. It’s Afghan tradition and our religion doesn’t allow female teachers to go without their husbands anywhere. In provinces it is possible to recruit female teachers locally but in unstable provinces, the government is faced with difficulties recruiting. But in a stable province and in Kabul, we don’t have any problem about the job of female teachers. It’s also a big problem especially for all of Afghan students who have graduated from schools and university to get a job as there is a lack of jobs. This decreased the number of students. I am a realistic person and optimistic about our future of education and learning programmes in Afghanistan. Now our people, after three decades of war, completely know about the importance of education. People and families work hard and get money and spend more for their children to learn English, computers, to go to school. In fact they spend more investing in their children to go to school - like stationary, uniform. In Afghanistan now there is big competition between Afghan families of knowledge and learning.  The families are lucky if their children go to school, if they learn more, graduate from high school and university, because now they know when a boy or a girl graduates from university he will be able to work not only in government, but with foreign NGOs and get a good salary. Good salaries can bring big change, fundamental change in their life. Because of that I am optimistic about the future of education in our country. One thing that is more important is that the international community support the future of education through our Government. Educated people don’t take guns and don’t destroy their country and their schools."   This blog post is a contribution to Week 3 of #TeacherTuesday, a UNESCO and EFA initiative.I invite you to also read from my blog:Week 2 - Honduras: Teach Students in the Language of their thoughtsWeek 1 - Malawi: The Struggle for Literacy#TeacherTuesday - background information  Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Just over two weeks ago I was in Mumbai at ASB Unplugged 2014 co-running the Global Social Entrepreneurship Summit with Sharon Peters and Karishma Galani. The design and development for this summit came from two main influences: the successful Flat Classroom Workshops in 2010 and 2012 at ASB Unplugged, and the service learning work Sharon had been doing in Africa and India in conjunction with the goals and objectives the American School of Bombay to take this to the next level. In this case, after initial joint discussion, the next level was to run a summit where students and teachers could come together to explore social entrepreneurship and, in the context of a city such as Mumbai, work in a challenge-based capacity for 3 days to create and share new ideas for global implementation. The ProcessIntegral to the success of this summit was the design cycle and design thinking based on the Henry Ford Learning Institute. Suzie Boss opened the summit for us - and was an inspiration - encouraging everyone to consider problems that adults still have yet to solve, and delivered three challenges:1. Prepare to CARE2. Prepare to DARE3. Prepare to SHAREIn mixed classroom teams (6 classrooms from China and India - local and international schools), as well as one teacher team, participants were introduced to the design thinking process through a simple 'wallet' making activity. This was very hands on and utilized the 'maker space' recently set up at ASB.  After a Reality tour of Dharavi Slum in Mumbai and further input from Rikin Gandhi at Digital Green teams started the brainstorming and 'defining' process where they had to come up with a problem and start to formulate a solution.Ideas were shared around the room and teams honed in on how to present these through verbal pitching using simple images and key words (after some explanation of where to find creative Commons images).After pitching on a rotation basis and receiving feedback from other educators and students teams then worked on their 'Media Marketing Plan' that included creating a digital story around their idea and focusing on social media as a tool to promote and market.Final presentations included their multimedia material as well as a verbal clarification of their business plan and intentions to gain support in the future. Esteemed judges from organisations in Mumbai, including Suzie Boss, determined the best ideas and presentations.Use of TechnologyAlthough not as technology-infused as past Flat Classroom workshops at ASB sharing of resources was done through a closed Facebook group - in conjunction with a Facebook Page. Students were at liberty to use any tool they needed to communicate and create their multimedia presentation. They had access to laptops and other digital tools.Student Leadership TeamASB, under the direction of Sharon and Karishma, prepared a capable student leadership team who prepared a lot of the material to lead the summit teams through the design thinking process. They capably supported all teams and kept the summit upbeat and moving towards a conclusion. They are to be commended and congratulated on taking on this role.Examples of summit team proposals This summit was a valuable experience for both teachers and students:It showed the power of developing empathy for social entrepreneurship thorugh direct experience and contact with NGO's and non-profit organisations, and learning from their experience and enthusiasm.It showed the value of joining both teacher teams and student teams in the one summit - to work alongside each other in a collaborative learning environmentIt reinforced the need for technology tools to connect participants and to provide a vehicle for communication and sharingIt raised awareness and boosted confidence in the area of not only identifying global issues but being able to provide viable solutions, and design these solutions through a carefully led process This style of summit is relatively new to schools and it does have a positive place in learning and global education, including community and service and the IB CAS programmes around the world.   Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration