September in Review & International Day of the Girl Child : My Voice, Our Equal Future !

 

International Day of the Girl

credits: via The Indian Express

The International Day of the Girl Child focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.

Girls worldwide are demanding a life free from gender-based violence, access to health, skills, recognition and investment as leaders of social change.

Progress for adolescent girls has not kept pace with the realities they face today, and COVID-19 has reinforced many of these gaps. 

credits: UNESCO

https://www.facebook.com/unesco

This year, under the theme, My Voice, Our Equal Future, let’s seize the opportunity to be inspired by what adolescent girls see as the change they want, the solutions- big and small- they are leading and demanding across the globe.

In 2020, we commemorate 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

In the past 25 years, 180 million more girls have enrolled in primary and secondary education! But, no country has yet achieved gender equality.

Generation Equality was also launched in early 2020 as a multi-year, multi-partner campaign and movement for bold action on gender equality. 

Today’s more than 1.1 billion girls are poised to take on the future. Every day, girls are breaking boundaries and barriers, tackling issues like child marriage, education inequality, violence, climate justice, and inequitable access to healthcare. Girls are proving they are unstoppable.

credits: UN

https://www.un.org/en/

A clear narrative and actions related to the needs and opportunities of adolescent girls and their solutions is central to the Generation Equality mission.

As adolescent girls worldwide assert their power as change-makers, International Day of the Girl 2020 will focus on their demands to:

• Live free from gender-based violence, harmful practices, and HIV and AIDS ;
• Learn new skills towards the futures they choose ;
• Lead as a generation of activists accelerating social change.

credits: UNESCO

https://www.facebook.com/unesco

Education:

"3/4 of all primary-age children who may never set foot in school are girls. And the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to further halt the fragile progress on #GenerationEquality."

Students must understand how lucky they are because they live in countries where school education is fundamental.

So, invite them to get involved on the International Day of the Girl 2020.

Ways to involve students:

• Sharing stories of inspiring adolescent girls or girl-led organizations who are developing innovative solutions or leading efforts towards positive social change, including gender equality, in their communities and countries. Let’s amplify their leadership, actions and impact to inspire others.  

• Participating in a youth-led digital activation launching on International Day of the Girl. Young people across the world are developing a digital activism campaign, aiming to raise the diversity of girls’ voices and their vision for a reimagined future.  

And now, time to the review of the most popular posts of September.

Here are the most popular posts of the last month:

European Day of Languages : Celebrate at school or at home ! Resources & activities

Literature : Joan Aiken, the writer of supernatural thrillers and charmingly quirky children’s novels.

Women in science & Youth Skills Day ! Yes ! Day of Friendship !

Hoping you're doing well at school. Your students need you! They could understand how crucial is education during lockdown. And to be at school to learn face-to-face. Some of them were completely alone with no support to learn.

Help those students to believe in their abilities.

Perhaps you returned to the school but in some classes you must teach remotely because there is a case or two of infected COVID-29.

It's important to talk with all your students and tell them the social distance is essential, inside and outside school! And waring the masks.

Education, hope and resilience! The three most important words to share! It's a difficult time to all of us.

via Google Images Archive

"We can and must be the generation to end extreme poverty, defeat injustice and inequality – and end the climate crisis."

G-Souto

26.06.2020

Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : September in Review & International Day of Girl : My Voice, Our Equal Future ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

World Teachers’ Day : Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers

http://en.unesco.org/

"Teachers are a critical foundation of every society’s long-term strength - providing children, young people and adults with the knowledge and skills they need to fulfill their potential."

UNESCO, ILO, UNICEF, message 2017

Today is annual World Teachers’ Day, a UNESCO initiative devoted to appreciating, assessing and improving the educators of the world.

Held annually on 5 October since 1994, World Teachers’ Day commemorates the anniversary of the signing of the 1966 UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, which celebrated its 50th anniversary during last year’s edition. 

However, local events may be on some other date close to October 5, so that they do not fall during fall (northern hemisphere) or spring (southern hemisphere) school vacations. 

@UNESCO

World Teachers’ Day 2017 will be celebrated under the theme:

“Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers”

It echoes the 2015 theme that followed the adoption of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) in September 2015, when teacher empowerment was reaffirmed as a top priority in all education and development strategies.

"Being an empowered teacher means having access to high-quality training, fair wages, and continuous opportunities for professional development. It also means having the freedom to support the development of national curricula - and the professional autonomy to choose the most appropriate methods and approaches that enable more effective, inclusive and equitable education. Furthermore, it means being able to teach in safety and security during times of political change, instability, and conflict."

@UNESCO

It has become the occasion to mark achievements and reflect on ways to counter the remaining challenges for the promotion of the teaching profession, like the acute shortage of teachers. Indeed, according to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, the world needs 69 Million teachers if we are to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.

Education is the 4th goal after growth and employment, sustainable consumption and production, and climate change. 

Sustainable Development Goal 4 has 10 targets encompassing many different aspects of education. There are seven targets which are expected outcomes and three targets which are means of achieving these targets.

@UNESCO

This year, World Teachers’ Day commemorates the 20th anniversary of the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel. Teaching personnel at institutions of higher education are often overlooked in discussions concerning the status of teachers. 

Like teachers at pre-primary, primary, and secondary levels, teaching in higher education is a profession requiring expert knowledge, specialized skills, and pedagogical competence.

@UNESCO

Despite global recognition of the importance of teachers in changing children’s lives and building sustainable and prosperous societies, teachers are all too often undervalued and under-empowered.

Worldwide there is a growing shortage of quality teachers and inadequate professional training. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates that to achieve universal primary education by 2030 the world needs 69 Million teachers if we are to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.

All these factors result in equity gaps in access and learning which mostly affect the poorest regions and schools and the earliest grades. This is particularly damaging, as there is clear evidence that the earliest years of a child’s development are the most critical.

 UNESCO Institute for Statistics

http://uis.unesco.org/en/news/

Some Data:

6 Out of 10 Children and Adolescents Are Not Learning a Minimum in Reading and Math

New data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics show that 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. The figure signals “a learning crisis” according to the UIS, which could threaten progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Two-thirds of the children who are not learning are in school. Of the 387 million primary school-age children unable to read proficiently, 262 million are in school. There are also about 137 million adolescents of lower secondary school age who are in classrooms but unable to meet minimum proficiency levels in reading.  

“The figures are staggering but they show the way forward,” says Ms Montoya. “We know where these children live and go to school. They are not hidden or isolated from their governments and communities – they are sitting in classrooms with their own aspirations and potential. We can reach these kids but not by simply hoping that they stay in school and grasp the basics.” 

My thoughts:

Teachers are too often undervalued and under-empowered. Often they don't have access to high-quality training and continuous opportunities for professional development. 

When they want to have the autonomy to choose the most appropriate methods and approaches that enable more effective the learning of their students, and practice inclusive and equitable education, they are not empowered by the school director, other colleagues, and sometimes by parents who don't understand the visin of a different pedagogue who knows well the capacities of their students. A class has different students and some of them learn in different levels.

Sometimes, they don't have the freedom to support the development of national curricula and the professional autonomy to choose the most appropriate methods and approaches that enable more effective, inclusive and equitable education.

To engage their students, teachers create, collaborate, communicate and think critically. Teachers who love to teach they know which are the best methods and approaches that enable every student in a class.

If we love to be a teacher, the most important are our students. And every student must be empower to learn and be a better learner even on a different rythm to enable each one with its own aspirations and potential.

"Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students."

Charles Kuralt

G-Souto

05.10.2017

Copyright © 2017G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

World Teachers' Day : Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Europeana ? Competition Educational Apps : Get involved !

http://pro.europeana.eu/

Are you an app or game developer? So today, I would like to motivate the last hesitant creative to get involved on the "Europeana Creative Challenge".

Europeana is a database of some 30 million cultural and historical documents, images, sound and video files from Europe's museums, libraries, galleries and archives.

Of course, all my readers know Europeana. It's not the first time I write about Europeana. 

Just remember Europeana : app for Education (2013) or Europeana Remix : new interactive project (2011).

Ok ! So, I am writing again about apps. But now you must to create it. Ok ! You have some more days, to be precise, four days and some hours.

Europeana Creative is looking for creative developers, designers, start-ups and other entrepreneurs to RE-use the Europeana collections! 

Europeana Creative has launched two innovation challenges to create educational apps for teaching Natural History and History Education. 

The challenge is to create applications (apps) for a range of themes: natural history education, history education, tourism, social networks and design

For now, Europeana Creative launched the first two Challenges: 

• Natural History 

• History Education 

 Create :

• A concept or prototype of a web application or app which re-uses digital cultural heritage content accessible through www.europeana.eu, our collections and infrastructure.
• A concept or prototype of a web application or app which engages users with digital cultural heritage content.
• A sustainable, elaborated business model to supplement your product.

Credits : Videos CC BY-SA Europeana Creative

The application phase for the 1st Challenge Event started on February 12, 2014. It ends on March 31, 2014, at Midnight.

Entry Criteria:

You must be a web developer, entrepreneur or creative wizard registered in one of the 28 EU member states. 

Participants can be a single person, team, company or organisation. 

Each legal entry can send in one application for a challenge theme. 

You should submit your application written in English. 

For more detailed information on the application please read the Application Guidelines

Need Inspiration for the History Education Challenge? A Few Ideas? Ok, just read here

http://ecreativeeducation2014.istart.org/

Prize:

The best five applications will be invited to a final challenge event to pitch their ideas to representatives from the cultural and creative industries as well as to investors. 

The winner of a category will receive a hands-on Incubation Support Package provided by the project consortium to bring his/her product successfully to the market.

The winners will be expected to deploy a working prototype by the end of July 2014.

The Europeana API allows you to access to most of the collections and incorporate them into things like apps, games, websites, even creating mash-ups using other sources or APIs. The possibilities are endless!

So if you want to apply or simple team up with other creative thinkers your ideas together go on!

True ! You have four days, three hours and some minutes.

But if you have a good idea, don't give up ! You have the time. A brilliant idea starts next minute.

Visit Europeana Creative on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

"We believe in making cultural heritage openly accessible in a digital way, to promote the exchange of ideas and information. This helps us all to understand our cultural diversity better and contributes to a thriving knowledge economy."

Europeana Challenge Team

G-Souto

26.03.2014

Copyright © 2014G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®


Europeana? Competition Educational Apps : Get involved ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Students! Your idea on space!

Homepage Image of © YouTube Space Lab

  http://www.earthtimes.org

The European Space Agency has a responsibility to educate the youth of Europe in matters concerning space exploration and it is constantly looking for new ways to engage educators and their students. 

As the power of social media grows, ESA and YouTube Lab Space have decided to make the most of it: promoting scientific experimentation in space. 

It is not the first time that YouTube is engaging young students in different school curriculum. 

Remember YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011? Last year, millions of video views, and 101 musicians from 33 countries who uploaded videos to YouTube of themselves auditioning for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 and  saw their dreams come true.

http://www.collectspace.com

Now, YouTube Space Lab. YouTube believes that space is more exciting and accessible than ever. And it is!

YouTube Space Lab is an innovative venture that will see Google working with the ESA, Lenovo, NASA, JAXA and Space Adventures to promote scientific experimentation on space. 

On this channel, you can discover space by watching the amazing videos we find from across YouTube. 

Education:

Students interested in science - Biology and Physics - between 14-18 years were challenged to come up with a science experiment which will be streamed live on YouTube from the International Space Station, along with other great prizes. 

Young people suggested an experiment that could be done on space, The application needed to be made in the form of an explanatory video posted to YouTube before 7^th December 2011. 

The shortlist of 60 candidates (between 5.500 candidates) was published the first week of January 2012. 

Overall, the US led with 10 finalists, followed by India with nine. Rounding out the top five countries in terms of total submissions are Poland, Canada and Spain. 

European countries contributed with 21 finalists.

Candidates was selected by a panel of international judges including astronauts from JAXA, NASA, CSA and the ESA, Bertrand Piccard and Stephen Hawking. 

http://www.redorbit.com/

The YouTube community was called until yesterday, January 24th, to help judges make their choices.

This will then be whittled down through a combination of public votes and the decisions of the panel. Two overall winners will be selected in March.

Prizes:

The winning experiment will be conducted on the International Space Station and streamed via YouTube across the world. Wow! Such an adventure! And emotion, of course!

https://images1-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com

As if this were not impressive enough, the project is offering additional incentives including computers, trips to Japan or Russia and the opportunity to experience a zero-gravity flight.

This is a wonderful chance to inspire interest in Science and space exploration of young students as competitors and the audience around the world.

"The YouTube Space Lab campaign is an excellent, creative way of reaching out to future generations of scientists, on the ground and in orbit. Today, numerous fundamental and applied research experiments in life and physical sciences, Earth and space monitoring as well as technology and education are performed on our Columbus laboratory on the ISS, closely coupled to terrestrial research programmes and issues."

Thomas Reiter of the ESA

http://spaceinimages.esa.int/

Between the 60 candidates, two Portuguese teams were selected. Now, on the semi-final, there is one Portuguese team:

"O ex-aluno da ESTP Guilherme Aresta, atualmente a frequentar o 1º ano do Mestrado Integrado em Bioengenharia na FEUP - Universidade do Porto, juntamente com mais dois colegas de curso, foi aprovado recentemente para a fase final do YouTube Space Lab."

Segundo Guilherme Aresta, o objetivo da experiência proposta é "aumentar o rendimento da produção de biocombustíveis", isto é, utilizar a mesma levedura da cerveja para produzir esse tipo de energia.

Poderá ver a equipa portuguesa neste link

YouTube users and the judging panel will determine six regional winners:

Two teams from each of the Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific).

Finalists will travel to Washington, DC, for special events, including the opportunity to take a zero-G flight.

European finalists will also win a visit to the training facilities of ESA's European Astronaut Centre, Cologne, Germany.

Education: some conclusions

• As we could see - 5500 young candidates, is an impressive number! - students are very creative and do wonderful things, in this case, Science and IT, when they are challenged to show their creativity and critical thinking;

• Educators could also get on board with the competition. YouTube  suggested lesson plans and other dedicated resources for teachers who want to incorporate YouTube Space Lab into their classroom; 

• The jury will be looking at how creatively students explain and communicate their idea.

• The two global winners will see their experiments sent into orbit and performed on the Space Station in summer 2012 – live-streamed on YouTube from space.

• Classrooms around the world will be able to watch a live stream on YouTube as the experiments are performed in space.

“If our competition can just play a small part in getting kids interested in science, then we’ll be very, very happy,” (...) “My vision is the final live stream will be the world’s largest science classroom.”

Zahaan Bharmal* 

G-Souto

25.01.2012

Copyright © 2012G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com

Students! Your idea on space by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

* Note: Zahaan Bharmal went on to study physics at Oxford University before joining Google and has been a vocal proponent of teaching young people about space. Now he is Google’s head of marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

References:

Youtbe Space Lab
http://yt-gadget003.appspot.com/page/en_GB/home

European finalists selected in Space Lab students competion
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMPE4NXDXG_index_0.html

Youtube Space Lab - Guilherme Aresta no espaço | ESTP

http://www.estp.edu.pt/portal/

Para o espaço e mais além

http://noticias.sapo.pt/nacional/artigo/para-o-espaco-e-mais-alem_2265.html

Youtube Space Lab | Equipa portuguesa finalista

http://www.youtube.com/spacelab/?x=c2tpcGludHJvPTEmcGFnZT1ob21lJmZyYWdtZW50PWNvbXBldGl0aW9uJmFtcDtleHBlcmltZW50cyZhbXA7dmlkZW9zJmFtcDt2aWRlb2lkPTBudlE5VjRHanhv