Annual Report

2005


The 2005 JEARN was quite a challenging year. Minimun cost to run the office was used and all the works were done by board of members. But it does not mean poor, rather steady progress is clear to everyonefs eyes. Six times of Board Meeting and JEARN Flash News issued every month made JEARN active.

[Questions 2005]

  1. What is your full postal address?

    2. 4-1-23 Sannomiya Venture Building 503, Hamabedori, Chuo-ku, Kobe city, Japan §651-0083

  2. Are you the contact person for your country?

    3.      •  Yoko Takagi, the country coordinator@

  3. How many schools/sites were there last year in your country or Center (May 2005)?

    4.      •  Registered Individual Members 104 (it mearns 104 schools/sites), Group Members 8.

  4. How many teachers and students?

    5.      •  50 teachers and 1350 students

  5. What language(s) do your students use?

    6.      •  Mostly English, some Japanese

  6. All centres have difficulty in funding their work, please identify how iEARN is funded in your country?

    7.      •  Mainly Membership fees and small amount of Government grant

  7. Teacher training or professional development activities :

    8.      •  iEARN On-line teacher training,
         •  Local teacher training in Collaborative Project Based learning,
         •  iEARN International Conference,
         •  Others: gICT Trainingh,
         •  gHow to teach Englishh sessions provided by JEARN members

  8. List the three most important concerns/problems/challenges you face .

    9.      •  How to run the office without paid staff due to small budget
         •  Hard to take iEARN projects into school curriculum, and evaluation method
         •  Hard to take members to iEARN Conference because its period is duing school days

  9. List the three most important outcomes/accomplishments last year.

    10.      •  Board of members leads NPO JEARN to the active working organization
         •  gJEARN Flashh is issued every month to near 1000 readers
         •  NDYS 2006 in Taiwan and JICA Hyogo session

  10. What are your specific goals for next year?

    11.      •  To become a Tax Exemption NPO
         •  Successful iEARN-Asia Conference and Asia Video Conference Network
         •  To get grants to have some paid staff

  11. What WWW pages?

    12.      •  http://ndys.jearn.jp/eng.html
         •  http://origamip.seesaa.net/ http://www2.jearn.jp/fs/1191/index.htm
         •  http://www.ako-info.jp/artmile/index-e.html
         •  http://www.jearn.jp/2003conference/negai/index.html

  12. What hard-copy publications ? NDYS Report Book

    13.      •  JAPAN ART MILE Cross-cultural Art Miles of SYRIA and JAPAN
    This is a project supported by Kansai University and UNRWA, where students in Japan and Palestinian students at UNRWA schools in Syria work together for learning each otherfs culture through ICT and create five murals in corporation as result of their learning. This project starts in a 2006 school year, but since 2005, JAM has been working for this.

         •  ORIGAMI Project
    Egypt, India, Iran, Nigeria, Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago, USA They are interested in Origami and enjoy paper folding a lot. We sent Origami Paper some countries because of they told us they couldn't get the kind of paper in their countries. We exchanged Christmas decorations and pictures. Japanese students made a lot of Origami Works to show them at http://origamip.seesaa.net/
    Please enjoy Origami world.

         •  TEDDY BEAR PROJECT
    It has been the most popular project in Japan, and there is a good flow of matching by coordinators. New TBP Homepage is linked to JEARN.

         •  NATURAL DISASTER YOUTH SUMMIT 2006 and Global Disaster Safety Map Project
    Introduction
    Natural Disaster Youth Summit (NDYS) 2006 started in September 2005 and ended in great success in January 2006.
    As the final event of the project, we held NDYS 2006 in Taiwan with full support from iEARN-Taiwan, National Sience and Technology Museum, Kaohsiung City Board of Education, Hyogo Prefecture, and some more organizations.
    There are about 450 people participated in this events. Students and teachers got together in Taiwan are from Iran, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Trinidad and Tobago.
    In this project students and teachers in different countries share their experiences of how to take measures before natural disasters.
    They learn the importance of human lives and the importance of cooperation in saving lives. They share their moments of happiness and sorrow through out the year and try to empower each other to reduce the consequences of natural disasters.
    NDYS little Ambassadors (Teddy bears , cats , owls, lions ) take gifts, post cards, earthquake bags and instructions for how to face a natural disaster from a group of students to others thereby strengthening the friendship bond among them.
    How it works
    The project is defined by facilitators, teachers introduce the project and form NDYS teams in their schools. The activities are gradually done by students. Though there are pre defined activities like preparing safety maps, there is always a room to do the activities in your own way and to introduce new activities. Sometimes the students do a field work to complete their maps and though there is no limit to what one can do, there is not much time required to do the core activities of the project.
    Participant countries by now
    Argentina, Armenia, Cameroon, Egypt, Guinea, Georgia, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Russia, Senegal, Slovakia, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, USA.
    Outcomes by now
    PowerPoint presentations, booklets, websites in different languages, safety maps and a big friendly family of teachers and students.

         •  NEGAI CONNECTION PROJECT
    NEGAI is a peace song made by Hiroshima Municipal Ohzu Junior High School students in 2002. This song was chosen as the theme song of 2003 iEARN Conference. We had a great NEGAI Concert on July 24 in Awaji 2003 JEARN Conference with a lot of participants from 12 countries. We shared our feelings and ideas for the world peace.
    After the conference we wanted to continue this friendship, so we set up NEGAI Connection Project. The themes of this project are Dream, Bridge, Earth, Globe and Reconciliation. Ms, Yoko Takagi, JEARN leader had got an idea," if this song would have more verses after the fifth verse ,. "Then we began to collect more lyric verses after these four original ones. So far 503 verses have been sent from all over the world. It may be the world longest song. All of them are full of wishes for peace, friendship, happiness, dreams, solidarity and so on. More than 15 schools (4000 students) are participating including in Japan, Kenya, Iran, India, Kosovo, Vietnam, Sierra Leone, Taiwan, Russia and so on.