Filed under: ESD tools
Robert Steele, an AtKisson consultant, facilitated a Tools4ESD conference in Hanoi on 11 December 2007. A wealth of information was given to the participants on ESD. Ofcourse, he gave an introduction on the Accelerator Toolkit developed by AtKisson but also introduced tools on the UK teachernet
You can download a lot of information for free on the UK Teachernet:
a. s3: Sustainable School Self-evaluation Tool
b. Chronos for Schools e-Learning Tool
c. Think Leadership Auditing & Benchmarking Tool
d. Leading for the future Professional Development Course
e. WWF Whole-school Pathway Tool
f. LTL Schools Grounds Evaluation Toolkit
g. Waste Watch School Auditing Tool
Just have a look.
Filed under: ESD tools
For some years now I have been receiving newsletters from educators who hold a blog. One of my favourite blogs is elearnspace from George Siemens. Indeed, he is a microcelebrity or a very well-known person to a small number of people.
In the educational blog space, called edublogs, a post can cause a serious discussion/debat, and more importantly a network spiral effect of ideas built on other ideas. If you are still not sure what a blog can do in the broader context of our ESDNET,check out this video.
On the socalled Web 2.0 you can find a lot of free and simple tools that can help you teaching ESD topics. There are numerous things you can do with those tools.
For example: A groupwork on ESD for you students while documenting it with an online photo album of Flickr or Picasa. Maybe you can organise contractwork and ask your students to hold an e-portfolio on a blog or a joomla site. If this is too complicated, you start practising what you preach and open a favourites list for your students- this can guide them while undertaking internet research on ESD! As educators you can also subscribe to some newsletters of collegues like George Siemens, he will keep you abreast of the latest trends in education. Of course you can also visit the web2.0 website!
Do you remember Joel Bacha’s presentation on ESD indicators during our ESD workshop in August? They have now finished two books on ESD indicators. I had already a chance to browse through this book, it’s what we all have been waiting for. Look out for it the coming weeks!
1. UNESCO (2007) ‘Asia Pacific Guidelines for the Development of
National ESD
Indicators’ Bangkok: UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for
Education ISBN 92-9223-121-9 (print version);
ISBN 92-9223-122-7 (electronic version).
2. UNESCO (2007) ‘Monitoring and Assessing Progress During the UN DESD
in the Asia Pacific Region: A Quick Guide to Developing National ESD
Indicators’ Bangkok: UNESCO Asia Pacific Regional Bureau of Education.
ISBN: 92-9223-115-4 (print version); ISBN: 92-9223-124-3 (electronic
version).
Filed under: ESD tools
I haven’t posted anything on the blog for some time since I was on a writeshop with my team. We are now finishing a book ICT4ESD based on some experiences of the IMIH (Implementing ICT in Hanoi project), HEEP (Hanoi Environmental Education Project) and EMTC2 (ICT in Education and Management Project). The ICT4ESD teachers’toolkit will link the new media to active teaching and learning methodologies.
An Integrated Action Guide Focusing on Active Teaching/Learning and Web 2.0 Tools Applied in Different Subjects at Different Educational Levels + applied across the curriculum
The toolkit will be a printed book + DVD + CDROM and a website we have developed especially for it http://www.web20atschool.net/. (In English and Vietnamese) EMTC2 have also developed a Vietnamese site for physics http://www.p4a.homedns.org/
We hope to finish in time to submit it for the UNESCO ICT in Education Inovation Awards. (In Search of Innovative Practice in ICT in Education) If you to enter this competition, visit www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/innovative_practices The deadline is 31 October.
Greetings,
Bart Cornille
VVOB project coordinator
Filed under: ESD tools
As promotors of open and free software I must bring to your attention the Star Office TM 8 office suite from Sun Microsytems Inc. It provides a full-featured, multi platform office productivity suite compatible with Microsoft Office.
A what?
A good alternative for expensive Microsoft Office products.
Google -who else? – incorporated the Star Office in a total package, including Google Earth, Firefox, Adobe Reader, Picassa and much more. It’s free, it’s safe, it is on http://pack.google.com/
If you want to know more details of the world’s largest Open Source Project, you can read the following link:
or
Finally, governments all over the world are seriously considering open and free software!
Filed under: ESD tools
The purpose of the new blog is to establish a community of practice amongst teacher educators to infuse ESD. To wet your appetite and learn to understand how a good community of practice works you can contact Renato Opertti. He is the focal point of the succesful worldwide Community of Practice in Curriculum Development. Do you want to become a member? Email: r.opertii@unesco.org
Alan AtKisson, President and Founder of AtKisson Group, as well as the International Director of Earth Charter International, will be leading a 3-day Intensive workshop on the AtKisson Accelerator tools for doing sustainable development and CSR in Chiang Mai, Thailand from 26-28 Octorber. This is a rare opportunity to participate in a workshop facilitated by Alan and share his vast wealth of knowledge and experience on ESD. More info on www.atkisson.com
Filed under: ESD tools
Do you think this blog is a good start for our ESD Net or do we need something else? Please, fill in the questionnaire below. And if you have interesting proposals, articles, comments… let us know.
Also, check the new series of Chris Jordan whose pictures are a perfect visualisation tool for ESD. Do you wonder what two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes, actually stands for? The number of trees harvested? Chris Jordan looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminium cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. He hopes that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. His underlying desire is to affirm and sanctify the crucial role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.
In other words, it’s about making the good things last longer… Check it out on http://chrisjordan.com/
