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Teachers Without Borders (TWB) is an international organization launched in 2000 with a mission to connect teachers to information and each other in order to close the education divide and based upon the premise that teachers are community change agents and key catalysts of global development priorities. The organization was founded by Dr. Fred Mednick, a former principal.
Teachers Without Borders received the 2018 Luxembourg Peace Prize for Outstanding Peace Education, recognized for a free Peace Education program involving teachers from regions in conflict, for having embedded peace education into all TWB courses (see below), and its Voice of Teachers Radio Show in Nigeria. [1]
Teachers Without Borders received the Champions of African Education Award (2010) for its use of radio and local educational capacity building to disseminate information about the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. In 2018, TWB's membership has reached 177 countries. Teachers Without Borders membership is free and enables local educators the opportunity to connect with colleagues globally.
Teachers Without Borders also received the Ahmadiyya Muslim Peace Prize for "outstanding work in the promotion of peace through efforts to convene teachers from regions in conflict, provide unfettered access to courses and networks devoted to teacher professional development, and to ensure that peace education is integrated into all initiatives.
Teachers Without Borders claims that teachers represent the largest professional community in the world (over 65 million); that teachers are uniquely suited as local leaders to recognize and help address development needs; that professional isolation and inconsequential or missing teacher professional development undermines social change; and that the transformation of pre-service and in-service teacher development can bring about more sustainable, equitable, democratic, and economically stable societies.
Teachers Without Borders' initiatives and courses are offered in various formats and settings: online, in schools, as community workshops, in books and journals, and on the radio. All programs have been conceived and led by Teachers Without Borders' members and partners around the world. Content of all TWB courses and workshop resources are free and governed by the least restrictive Creative Commons license. Initiatives include: education in emergencies, girls' education, peace and human rights education, Bullying, ICT in Education, and Child-Friendly Spaces. as well as several teacher pre-service and in-service professional development opportunities - including a five-course Certificate of Teaching Mastery program.
Most Teachers Without Borders initiatives are accompanied by courses offered independently, at universities such as Johns Hopkins University's School of Education (where TWB's founder is an Assistant Professor), and through the Canvas Network, an online MOOC provider. Those courses include: Educating Girls; ASAP: Education in Emergencies; Peace and Human Rights; the five course Certificate of Teaching Mastery; a course on ICTs for educators entitled: High-Tech, High-Touch, High-Teach; and Global Urban Education.
The Emergency Education Program works with teachers on preparedness and planning to avoid crises or lessen their impacts, education amidst emergencies, and in the reconstruction phase. Teachers Without Borders has also helped to launch Parsquake, a consortium of NGOs devoted to earthquake science and safety throughout Persian speaking countries particularly vulnerable and seismically active regions of the world. [2] This program was initiated after the 2008 earthquake in the Sichuan region of China and, in 2011, will engage and support teachers in Finland.The program also supports emergency relief, reconstruction and recovery efforts in areas hit by natural disasters, such as the 2010 floods in Pakistan. The online MOOC, entitled ASAP: Education in Emergencies, is available without cost.
The Peace Education Initiative helps teachers promote peace in their classrooms and communities. Content of TWB's Peace Program is available without cost. The Peace Education course is available to the public as a MOOC and has been offered for Continuing Education Units at Johns Hopkins University.
Teachers Without Borders' girls' education programs address four central themes: (1) access (2) education in emergencies (3) public health, and (4) empowerment. The organization addresses these four themes by connecting global educators to NGOs working in the field; offering a free and low-fee course: (Educating Girls) in partnership with Johns Hopkins University and through the Canvas Network; and by promoting a Girls' Quake Science and Safety Initiative - designed in partnership with United States Geological Survey to ensure access to earthquake science education for teachers and schools in seismically-vulnerable communities around the world.
Teachers Without Borders' Certificate of Teaching Mastery helped to pioneer global access to online teacher professional development through Rice University's "connexions" program, and is available without cost on the Canvas course platform. [3] It consists of five courses that help teachers improve their professional knowledge, classroom practice, and leadership skills. This program has been deployed throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in Mexico and Peru
Teachers Without Borders programs and resources have been adopted by teachers and communities in 177 countries worldwide, including: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Ghana, Haiti, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Africa, Suriname, Turkey, Uganda and the United States of America.
On May 15, 2017, the United States IRS automatically revoked the federal tax exemption status of Teachers Without Borders for "failure to file a Form 990-series return or notice for three consecutive years." [4] [5]
On March 4, 2020, the Office of the Secretary of State of Washington State reinstated Teachers Without Borders (UBI Number 602 008 785).
The University for Peace (UPEACE) is an international, graduate-only research university and intergovernmental organization. The university was established as a treaty organisation by the United Nations General Assembly in 1980.
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" describes publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve, and redistribute under some licenses. These are designed to reduce accessibility barriers by implementing best practices in teaching and to be adapted for local unique contexts.
The history of education in Africa can be roughly divided into pre- and post- colonial periods. Since the introduction of formal education to Africa by European colonists, African education, particularly in West and Central Africa, is characterised by both traditional African teachings and European-style schooling systems. The state of education reflects not only the effects of colonialism, but instability resulting from and exacerbated by armed conflicts in many regions of Africa as well as fallout from humanitarian crises such as famine, lack of drinking water, and outbreaks of diseases such as malaria and Ebola, among others. Although the quality of education and the quantity of well-equipped schools and teachers has steadily increased since the onset of the colonial period, there are still evident numerous inequalities in the existing educational systems based on region, economic status, and gender.
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the Bishops of the United States, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 110 countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
Idit R. Harel is an Israeli-American entrepreneur and CEO of Globaloria. She is a learning sciences researcher and pioneer of Constructionist learning-based EdTech interventions.
Teacher education or teacher training refers to programs, policies, procedures, and provision designed to equip (prospective) teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, approaches, methodologies and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the classroom, school, and wider community. The professionals who engage in training the prospective teachers are called teacher educators.
The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development d/b/a ASCD is a membership-based non-profit organization founded in 1943. It has more than 125,000 members from more than 128 countries, including superintendents, principals, teachers, professors of education, and other educators. The ASCD Community also includes 52 affiliate organizations, self-organized Connected Communities, and ASCD Student Chapters. While ASCD was initially founded with a focus on curriculum and supervision, the association now provides its members with professional development, educational leadership, and capacity building. ASCD is a global community advancing student achievement by supporting the whole child, and seeks to develop programs, products, and services essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead.
Translators without Borders (TWB) is a non-profit organization set up to provide translation services for humanitarian non-profits. It was established in 2010 as a sister organization of Traducteurs Sans Frontières, founded in 1993 by Lori Thicke and Ros Smith-Thomas of Lexcelera. As of 2012 it had about 1600 vetted volunteer translators. TWB aims to close the language gaps that hinder critical humanitarian efforts by connecting non-profit humanitarian organizations with a volunteer community of professional translators, building language translation capacity at the local level and raising awareness globally about language barriers.
Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open education broadens access to the learning and training traditionally offered through formal education systems and is typically offered through online and distance education. The qualifier "open" refers to the elimination of barriers that can preclude both opportunities and recognition for participation in institution-based learning. One aspect of openness or "opening up" education is the development and adoption of open educational resources in support of open educational practices.
The University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies is one of eight professional schools of the University of Chicago. The Graham School's focus is on part-time and flexible programs of study.
Yaacov Hecht , is an Israeli educator and worldwide pioneer of democratic education.
Paul Kim is currently a Korean-American Chief Technology Officer and Associate Dean at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and has held this position since 2001.
A massive open online course or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012, a year called the "Year of the MOOC".
edX is an American massive open online course (MOOC) provider created by Harvard and MIT. It hosts online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide student body, including some courses at no charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform. edX runs on the free Open edX open-source software platform. 2U is the parent company, with edX operating as its global online learning platform and primary brand for products and services.
ALISON is an Irish online education platform for higher education, teaching workplace skills and exploring new interests that provides certificate courses and accredited diploma courses. It was founded on 21 April 2007 in Galway, Ireland, by Irish social entrepreneur Mike Feerick.
SWAYAM is an acronym that stands for "Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds". It is an Indian Massive open online course (MOOC) platform. The SWAYAM initiative was launched by the then Ministry of Human Resource Development (M.H.R.D.), Government of India under Digital India to give a coordinated stage and free entry to web courses, covering all advanced education, High School and skill sector courses. It was launched on 9th July 2017 by Ram Nath Kovind, Honorable President of India.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on accelerating innovation in education through the smart use of technology in education. ISTE provides a variety of services to support professional learning for educators and education leaders, including ISTELive—an ed tech event, the ISTE Standards for learning, teaching and leading with technology, and ISTE Certification. ISTE also provides a suite of professional learning resources, including webinars, online courses, consulting services, books, and peer-reviewed journals and publications.
Online learning involves courses offered by primary institutions that are 100% virtual. Online learning, or virtual classes offered over the internet, is contrasted with traditional courses taken in a brick-and-mortar school building. It is a development in distance education that expanded in the 1990s with the spread of the commercial Internet and the World Wide Web. The learner experience is typically asynchronous but may also incorporate synchronous elements. The vast majority of institutions utilize a learning management system for the administration of online courses. As theories of distance education evolve, digital technologies to support learning and pedagogy continue to transform as well.
Language MOOCs are web-based online courses freely accessible for a limited period of time, created for those interested in developing their skills in a foreign language. As Sokolik (2014) states, enrolment is large, free and not restricted to students by age or geographic location. They have to follow the format of a course, i.e., include a syllabus and schedule and offer the guidance of one or several instructors. The MOOCs are not so new, since courses with such characteristics had been available online for quite a lot of time before Dave Cormier coined the term 'MOOC' in 2008. Furthermore, MOOCs are generally regarded as the natural evolution of OERs, which are freely accessible materials used in Education for teaching, learning and assessment.
Educational technology in sub-Saharan Africa refers to the promotion, development and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), m-learning, media, and other technological tools to improve aspects of education in sub-Saharan Africa. Since the 1960s, various information and communication technologies have aroused strong interest in sub-Saharan Africa as a way of increasing access to education, and enhancing its quality and fairness.