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About the Virtues Project
Introduction
Virtues is an iEARN online collaborative
project, designed by teachers from Pakistan as a part of the iEARN
CIVICS-BRIDGE teachers training workshop held US Consulate -Karachi in
spring of 2001 in Karachi. CIVICS-BRIDGE is a project supported by iEARN-US
and US Department of Education and Cultural Affairs. Later Mary Ann Gormley
from Massachusetts- USA joined the project as a key participant and
facilitator of the project.
The project played a key role in bringing the students close
from United States with those from Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon,
Azerbaijan and Morocco.
The
Virtues project found an ideal place in many participating schools, within
the curriculum area of Creative Writing, English Language and Social
Studies.
Virtues is one of the flagship project of
BRIDGE Program ( Building Respect Through Internet Dialogue and Global
Education) and very beautifully realized the goals of the BRIDGE project.
Goals of iEARN-BRIDGE
Program:
•
To generate personal and institutional
ties among students, educators and their schools
•
To engage the partner schools in
ongoing communication, collaborative projects, and where possible, the
exchange of people to promote mutual understanding
•
To enhance the use of the Internet in
schools in developing educational materials and methodologies that will
benefit the foreign and U.S. schools in teaching language, geography, social
studies, and culture
•
To develop tools and a climate for
discussing differing points of view, overcoming suspicion and avoiding and
resolving conflict
•
To generate tangible products as an
outcome of the collaborative projects; for example, a publication, a
website, an action plan for follow-on projects
Outcomes of the
Virtues Project:
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A place is created in the iEARN Interactive Forum for
young people to engage in online dialogue
to highlight, investigate, and write or draw about virtues that make a
difference.
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Project facilitators
developed 6-8 different lesson/integration plans that were used for
integrating Virtues project in English Language, Creative Writing,
Social Studies and Art curriculum.
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Students from at
least 20 different schools from Pakistan, USA, Egypt, Lebanon,
Azerbaijan, Morocco, and Jordan were engaged in online dialogue in the
‘iEARN Virtues’ interactive forum as part of the curricular activities
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Students from a
variety of geographical regions, race, colour, culture and ethnic
orientations got a great opportunity to understand each other through
their online interactions. They reflected
and shared their experiences, perceptions, aspirations on values focused
on peace, happiness, culture, religions, family, how they want to be
remembered, love and caring, bringing change in the world and many more.
They were
allowed in the project to appreciate each other's writing
and artwork and to promote interaction between participants so that they
can encourage each other, give positive responses of the work so that
all can learn from each other
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The rich project
discussion in the iEARN interactive forum resulted in‘Virtues- A Book
of Inner and Outer World’ that presents a selection of online
dialogue of high schools students from around the world. The first
Virtues publication is successfully launched at the 2nd
BRIDGE Regional Conference in Amman, Jordan in July 2004.
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Virtues provided a
wide range of learning experiences to students focusing the affective
and cognitive domain both ; it engaged students in character building
and self articulation as they reflected upon the values, their culture
and shared them with peer and experts globally. In addition the project
participation also provided an opportunity for students to develop their
critical thinking skills as the process of project participation
required them to think, reflect and then articulate their thought and
experiences for presentation. The participating students experienced
authentic learning experience as they were engaged in writing about real
issues that matter to them, writing for real audiences and responding to
people around the world.
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