Please Help Build the She's the First Digital Penpal Program

My friend Brianne from She's the First needs our help.  The post below is from Brianne.....please read and lets see what we can do!  

"A Quick Survey to Help Build She's the First's Digital Penpal Program!" 

Meet Elizabeth. She's 18 and about to graduate from high school in Tanzania. She loves Bollywood movies, wants to fight discrimination against women, and dreams of studying business in London one day. She's asking me for advice on college and telling me what she's planning for her graduation party. We talk about New Years traditions, cupcakes, and United Nations Week. 

Elizabeth's education is sponsored by She's the First (link toshesthefirst.org), a not-for-profit sponsoring girls' education in the developing world, helping them be the first in their families to graduate. In the process, She’s the First fosters leadership and self-awareness in young Americans, by inspiring them to lead creative fundraisers and correspond with sponsored students.

As She's the First's penpal coordinator, I have the amazing privilege of being able to connect with Elizabeth in Tanzania from my desk in New York City.  Shannon Miller's group of girls from the Van Meter chapter of She's the First are doing the same with Neema, the Kisa scholar they sponsor in Tanzania. And now, we're innovating a new penpal program that will break barriers and give students all over the United States and the girls we sponsor around the world the chance to communicate, connect, and learn from each other. But first -- we need your help!

We want to hear from educators across the board on digital penpal programs, and how you feel your students could benefit from communication with their peers in other countries. 

Please take a few moments to fill out our brief survey -- and forward the link to your colleagues.

Your input will shape our strategy for communicating with the 150+ girls She's the First has sponsored so far, creating learning opportunities in US schools and abroad, and cultivating friendships that may last a lifetime.

Please forward this short survey on to your students as well. We need their voices to help us in this game changing effort to connect students around the globe. 

Thank you for taking the time to make a difference in girls' education!

(Any questions, comments, or concerns, please email brianne@shesthefirst.org -- I'd love to talk penpals with you!)

The 6th Graders Amazing "I Am A Digital Citizen" Animoto's

I teach a class to all of our 6th graders at Van Meter called Technology Literacy. To start off the class each quarter, we talk about being a digital citizen.

They took our conversation and their knowledge to create some pretty amazing Animoto's.

Today they shared them with our class. We were so impressed by the work of all the groups.

We couldn't wait to share them with you too.

Celebrate World Read Aloud Day on March 7th...."Change the World, Story by Story"

(Cross-posted at Two Libraries One Voice) 

On March 7, 2012 we will be celebrating World Read Aloud Day with the world.  

The theme this year says it all....

Change the World, Story by Story

This amazing day is sponsored by LitWorlds, whose mission is, "to use the power of story to cultivate literacy skills in the world's most vulnerable children through Education, Advocacy and Innovation."

Through social media such as Skype, Twitter, and Facebook we will come together once again to celebrate the power of words and magic of literacy.  

Last year we celebrated by connecting with 13 other classrooms and 9 authors throughout the day.  It was one of the best days and one we will never forget.  So when LitWorld announced WRAD 2012, we just couldn't wait to start planning.  

We have created the "Change the World, Story by Story" wiki.  If you would like to join us on March 7th, please join the wiki and sign up on the "Skype Schedule and Projects" page.  We will post different resources and artifacts as well on the wiki.  

John created these beautiful posters and they are decorating our hallways.  

Shannon created this banner for the wiki and it could also be used as a bookmark for WRAD. 

We are also VERY excited to announce that we have been invited by LitWorlds to be WRADvocates.  As WRADvocates our role is to be the "Ambassador for World Read Aloud Day" is our area by spreading the word through social media, celebrations, and connections that we will make.  

As we look ahead to the year and all of the events in front of us, World Read Aloud Day is definitely one that will bring excitement, fun, and new friendships to our students and school communities.  

And we hope that you will want to bring this to yours too by joining us on March 7th.