In Their Words: Many Voices For Darfur
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel
In a way, we decided to take sides when we launched Many Voices for Darfur, a global collaboration project. Wendy Drexler and I asked our students an unsettling question: What is our responsibility to help end the genocide in Darfur? The answer we came up we with: spreading awareness.
So for 48 hours, starting at midnight EST on March 6th, many student voices will be collected in the name of those suffering in Darfur. We are asking k-12 students around the world to visit our Many Voices for Darfur blog and leave thoughtful, well-written comments. It is our hope that hundreds or even thousands of students will come together to help raise awareness about the first genocide of the 21st century.
Want to get involved? It’s incredibly easy to participate. Students simply visit the Many Voices for Darfur blog during the 48 hours and leave comments addressing one of the prompts listed on the homepage. For more detailed instructions, visit our Many Voices for Darfur Wiki. To learn more about Darfur, check out our Resources Wiki Page.
Mr. Moses, a teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, made a short YouTube video describing the project for his students. He makes a request for multi-media projects that students could share and link to starting on March 6th.
Read what what others are writing about our project. For more information please contact me.
Mr. Mayo
8th Grade Language Arts Teacher
Rockville, MD
Related Resources
- Mr. Mayo Blog
- Flickr > tag > darfur
- Wikipedia > Darfur
- Yahoo! Teacher Document > Twitter Many Voices Project
Note: If you’d like to contribute your story or know a teacher we should showcase on the Yahoo! For Teachers blog, just send an email to yteachersblog (at) yahoo (dot) com and let us know. We’re looking forward to hearing and sharing your stories with educators around the world.
Introduction to del.icio.us
Related Links
In Their Words
One of the best things about working on the Yahoo! For Teachers initiative has been the opportunity to travel around the country to meet teachers and hear their stories. Here are just a few of the amazing teachers we’ve met:
- Last year at the 2007 NSTA Conference in St. Louis we met a science teacher from Kansas who, for three years, sold popcorn at the school basketball games to raise enough money to buy a SMART Board for his classroom.
- At NECC in Atlanta, we met Ms. Vickie from South Carolina. Many of the children in her classroom have parents serving in the military who are stationed overseas. When Ms. Vickie and her classroom heard that children in Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t have enough school supplies, they began a campaign to collect pencils for the soldiers to distribute to schools.
- At our Yahoo! Teachers Workshop in NYC we met Mr. Circe, an innovative and cutting edge teacher, who is finding creative ways to integrate and use technology in his classroom practice. He is also sharing his knowledge of Web 2.0 technologies, mentoring both new and veteran teachers in his school community.
These are just a few of the outstanding educators we’ve met who have shared their stories with us. And we, in turn, have shared these (and more) experiences with our colleagues here at Yahoo!.
We thought it was time to provide an opportunity and forum for educators to share their stories, best practices, social activism and innovative uses of technology with their community. So starting this week, we are pleased to begin a “guest post” feature on our blog called “In Their Words.”
If you’d like to contribute your story or know a teacher we should showcase on the Yahoo! For Teachers blog, just send an email to yteachersblog (at) yahoo (dot) com and let us know. We’re looking forward to hearing and sharing your stories.
Derek Baird
Yahoo! For Teachers Team
Totally Wired: Get the Conversation Going
Anastasia Goodstein is an award-winning blogger and expert on how American tweens and use technology. She is also the creative genius behind the Ypulse blog and Ypulse Mashup conferences. In July 2007, Yahoo! For Teachers was honored to be invited to the first ever YPulse Mashup conference where we also co-presented the Totally Wired Teacher Award.
In her book, Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online, Anastasia explores and demystifies what Gen Y is doing on the web with social media and mobile technology. She also delves into the issues around cyberbullying, MySpace (and other social networks), as well as how all this technology is impacting schools and educators.
In addition to being incredibly knowledgeable in how teens are using technology, she is also keenly aware of how technology is being (or not) integrated in the classroom to support these burgeoning digital learning styles.
In Fall 2007, Anastasia embarked on a national Totally Wired Book Tour where she had the opportunity to educate both parents and teachers about the online lives of Gen Y. When Anastasia returned home from her book tour, she decided to write a discussion guide so that parents, teachers and students would have a starting point for their own conversations.
Anastasia has graciously agreed to allow us to post a copy of her Totally Wired Discussion Guide over in our Yahoo! For Teachers Group (look in the Files section). If you haven’t already, grab a copy of Totally Wired, download the discussion guide and get the conversation going with your peers, students or own kids.
Instead of fearing MySpace and other online communities, learn why they are important to teens and the steps you can take to keep kids safe in these virtual worlds.
Thanks again to Anastasia for sharing her Totally Wired Discussion Guide with the Yahoo! For Teachers community.
Derek
Yahoo! For Teachers Team
Related Resources
Celebrating Educational Blogging
Celebrating Educational Blogging is a fantastic project created by edublogger Steve Hargadon. It’s a mash-up using Blogger and VoiceThread.
Go check it out and get involved—add your audio, video or text story to the community VoiceThread and share with colleagues around the world how you incorporate blogging into your classroom!
Related Links
- Support Blogging
- Yahoo! Teachers Group > BloggingEDU
- Students 2.0 Blog
- Wes Fryer > BloggingEDU
- Yahoo! For Teachers > Twitter
Derek
Yahoo! For Teachers Team
