Hello again!

[Monica Biswas]

Hi Everyone-

I have returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and am re-adjusting 
to life in Boston.  Thank you so much for your well wishes...  The 
experience was, as you can imagine, unforgettable.  The people in the 
village of Vanga are wonderfully spirited, and warm and generous.  Our 
work with the village will be a new challenge for YouthLearn, and I know 
it will push us to be more thoughtful and creative about how technology 
can be used to enrich education. 

Over the course of the trip, our team had the opportunity to visit a 
number of primary and secondary schools, talk with principals, teachers, 
and students, as well as others in the community.  We raised questions 
about the best use for the technology center (called the Vanga Community 
Learning Resource Center).  We found that teachers are looking for teaching materials, new and creative teaching 
strategies, and current and relevant content.  The young people there are 
thirsting to learn new things;  their inherent appreciation for education 
was awe-inspiring to me...  Each student was engaged in learning, and each 
teacher was looking to add to his or her skill set...

Our trip also highlighted the importance of training people in the skills 
of media literacy.  As Vanga is a fairly isolated community, the flurry of 
information that the internet will bring, will require strong skills of 
evaluating information. 

These are just some preliminary thoughts from our trip--    We will keep 
you posted as we develop trainings and tools.  And again, any 
recommendations on french educational websites for teachers would be quite 
helpful! 

All the best-
Monica

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Monica Biswas 
YouthLearn Initiative                 Education Development Center
www.youthlearn.org                  55 Chapel Street, Newton,MA
mbiswas at edc.org                  617.618.2764 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
YouthLearn ( http://www.youthlearn.org ) brings together youth
professionals to share information on using technology to create
exciting learning environments. YouthLearn was created by the
Morino Institute ( http://www.morino.org ) and is now an Initiative
at Education Development Center ( http://www.edc.org ). We hope
this list assists you in your efforts to make a difference in the
lives and potential of young people.

Tips:
* To post a message to this group, send an email to
mailto:youthlearn at mail.edc.org

* To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list or
to receive YouthLearn in digest form, go to
http://www.youthlearn.org/join/subscribe.html

* To search the YouthLearn archives, go to
http://www.edc.org/hypermail/youthlearn/

* To contact the list facilitator, send an email to
mailto:info at youthlearn.org