I*EARN Student News

• Overview
• Keynote Speaker
• Video & Global art Project
• The lunch
• Session Three, Stop The Drop
• Video conferencing
• Water Watch
• Interview with Ed

Overview

Today was again another great day. The keynote speaker was very interesting with his stories and experiences from America. The workshops in the afternoon went really well. They all achieved something.

Keynote Speaker

By Andrew Jackson in note form. Di Flemming introduces Ernie Anderson,(Di gives great intro to him). Ernie announcements that He is not involved with Yale *Shows short list "challenges 1 Access 2 Cost 3 Learning to use technology effectively 4 Changing what it is we attempt to do in schools *Tells us about administrators, Di is a good one because she knows what she is on about. *This speech was a bit boring from a student viewpoint. (*)Tells us that there is articles that teachers would not want students to see on the interet but there are other things in te world that can hurt children, but we still use them. For instance cars. Tells us of:- 1. EDNET. This is a world-wide Internet discussion list that just grew from 30 to 400 or so subscribers. 2. KIDLINK. Multi lingual. Tells us of -KIDLINK- and how god it is. Learns about the different culture involving Kids, for instance the tooth fairy. Kidlink reaches 60,000 students Al Kids have to answer four questions to join KIDCAFE 1 Who am I? 2. What do I want to do when I grow up? 3. How do I want the world to be better when I grow up? 4. What can I do NOW to make this happen? Ernie was involved in the boy scouts. In this presentation Ernie went off track a little towards the end due to the audience asking various questions. In Ernie speech he became emotional when he thought back to his war memories.

Video Conferencing & Global Art Project

Video Conferencing and the Global Art Project The first part of this session was about video conferencing with this new software that they had just received. It is the same as Sunday's video conferencing exept with this software it is in colour and you can talk at anytime, not just when you hold the mouse down in the audio window like on Sunday's software.

The second part of the session was a Jane McLane from Kimball Elementary School from America telling us about her grade one students at school are being encouraged to develop literacy skills and to understand the positive difference in the world by communicating globaly.

All of the grade one students participate in this technology so each child knows that they are a valued member of the I*EARN global community. Their email address is:

 
• http://www.educ.wsu.edu/i*earn/welcome.html

Session Three, Stop The Drop

The last session of day five consisted of a few people going up the front and telling everyone about their projects and so later they could go off in groups and discuss their project.

I went to talk to Marian Haddrick, who is a year 12 student at Lake Bolac Secondary School. She was the speaker for The "Stop Nuclear testing" group. Aaron and I interviewed her and this is what she had to say:

WHY DID YOU START THE PROTEST?

I started it mainly for personal interest. I asked one of the teachers if there was anything on the Internet about stopping the nuclear testing. she said no so I got a few friends together and sent it out and over three thousand people replied including people from a country near France and Rio de Janero.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO COME OUT OF ALL THIS?

Just to see what other people think. Now that I got all those replies, I want to act more on it. Between the 6th and 9th of August it is peace week and I am going to do a mural with Greanpeace and plant some trees to commemorate victims of the dropping of the atom bomb on hiroshimr.

WHEN DID THIS ALL START?

It all began in early May.

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO TELL US?

The program "Hot Chips" is very interested in what we are doing, especially with I*EARN so we are going to contact them and tell them more.

They told us more on what they want YOU to do:

 
• Go to this Web site, //www.world.net/yoursay
• Then select Le Monde newspaper option
• Then select "Protest via the Internet"
• Send your letter!
• OR,
• Go to learn.youth and write a reply to topic 148 and join them there.
• You can contact Marian and the Lake Bolac Secondary School by email to this address:
• bolacsc@peg.apc.org

By Grant Smith.

Water Watch

Today we went on water watch field trip and before we went we had a meeting in the commerce room. John Steele was our presenter. He welcomed everyone and then everyone individually introduced themselves. We watched a video called water watch and it was made by the Broadford and Mansfield students. The video was very interesting and showed how the students tested water in creeks etc and about what they are doing to improve things in the near future. Then we received a phamphlet on water watch and learnt the basic steps on water testing organisation. Then we watched another video called 'Friends Of Ganges' in India, Nepal. They showed the Ganges river basin and local streams, rivers and the condition they were in. It was really bad sewage running in and out. Then we had morning tea and then jumped on the bus to CERES a environmental park in Brunswick. At CERES we visited Merri Creek. A creek in bad shape. We all received a work sheet and had to find a spot on the river and study it and answer questions. Our results were not good. The creek was badly polluted and in dirty shape. Then we had lunch and after that went for a walk through Energy Park at CERES. The park was good with all difference ways of energy and power resources. Around 1:30pm we headed back to the uni. Once back at the Uni we had a different speaker named Andy Alm. Andy talked about his water problems and sources in California. The trip was very interesting. BY BETHANY COSTELLO AND ROSEMARY McLEOD.