Academy for Educational Development
AED GIVES FULBRIGHT TEACHER Washington, D.C., December 15, 2008—For the first time, the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program will involve entire schools by keeping the participating K-12 teachers connected to their home classrooms and to each other with Web-based applications developed by iEARN-USA in a program administered by AED. Since 1946, the Fulbright program has helped nearly 23,000 teachers and administrators develop cross-cultural understanding through a year abroad. This year, it will send 60 teachers from across the United States to classrooms in ten foreign countries, and bring their counterparts here. The 2009-2010 participants will be able to share multimedia content online through tools that AED and iEARN are creating to enable and encourage cross-classroom communication as well as online project-based learning. Past participants of the teacher exchange program indicated they wanted to stay connected with their students and institutions at home while overseas. Fulbright teachers also expressed a desire to share ideas and curriculum materials with their peers in the exchange program, according to Bonnie Barhyte, senior vice president and director of the AED Leadership and Institutional Development Group. “Our innovative approach will spread the experience of the exchange program beyond the individual teachers to include potentially thousands of students in joint projects,” said Barhyte. “It will expand their world.” In addition, iEARN-USA will design and implement an online course about teaching in cross-cultural settings to prepare Fulbright participants before they embark on their year abroad. “Enabling these teachers to work online prior to, during, and after their year overseas will significantly enhance their experience and result in sustained, collaborative projects among the teachers and their students,” noted Tina Habib, director of government grant programs at iEARN-USA. More than 250 U.S teachers applied for this year’s exchange program. Those selected will be notified in February and will spend the 2009-2010 school year abroad with a local teacher. Participating countries include Hungary, India, South Africa, Turkey, Mexico, Ghana, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, and the Czech Republic. About AED AED is a nonprofit organization that works globally to improve education, health, civil society and economic development--the foundation of thriving societies. Focusing on the underserved, AED implements more than 250 programs serving people in all 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries (www.aed.org). About iEARN iEARN, the 20-year-old International Education and Resource Network, has grown to become the world’s largest educational network for project-based learning, with programs in more than 125 countries. iEARN-USA was awarded the 2003 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education and is a 2004 Tech Museum Laureate winner for “technology benefiting humanity” (www.iearn.org). ### |
