It’s great stuff! I was exposed to it through the article in Educational Leadership and I am now reading the book. It makes so much sense! Thank you for your great work! Dave Bell (Texas)

When I started to use IE several years ago now, that I tried it out in a few lessons here and there, was amazed at the success and then began to look for other areas and subjects in which I could use the Lesson Planning Frameworks and other aspects of the theory. Pamela Hagen.

I am just back home after a great pro-day and still reeling from all that I learned from your workshop. Pamela Walker (Victoria, B.C.)

I've been having a great deal of success with IE in the classroom. I taught grade 5 last year using IE-based concepts and had a GREAT year. I'm teaching kindergarten this year and using the concepts again - so far so fabulous! Mary Mulleady, (Teacher, Surrey.)

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News Archive: 2006

last modified 2007-01-31 12:56

LUCID Mid-term conference, Prince Rupert.

The LUCID Project explores the potential of Imaginative Education for improving academic and other educational outcomes in B.C. public school districts with high numbers of Aboriginal students. The LUCID Project is a research partnership between the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University (SFU), the Haida, Stó:lõ, and Tsimshian First Nations, and B.C. School Districts 33, 50 and 52. It is a five year project, and the conference was planned to explore how the project has developed so far and directions for its future. More details are available here.

To read a moving account of the effects of the conference on one of its participants--Dr. Thomas Neilson, who is spending part of his sabbatical as a visiting scholar with the IERG, click here.

4th International Conference on Imaginative Education: Pre-conference workshop

Attendees came from the US, a number of South American and European countries, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. The purpose was to provide people who already had some knowledge of Imaginative Education with a more sophisticated understanding of it and also provide tools enabling them to implement the ideas in their own classrooms and/or teach them to others.

IERG Conference 2006
	We had attendees from over 20 countries again, much to the delight of everyone. The general consent was that the conference was better than ever this year. The keynote speech by Dr. Howard Gardner was characteristically original and insightful, and it stimulated much discussion through the conference, as did the outstanding talks of Dr. Vera John-Steiner, Alan Haskvitz, and Drs. Concettina Manna & Giuliano Minichiello from Naples and Salerno (though we were deeply regretful that Professor Minichiello was unable to attend). This year we had a Thursday night dinner on the 35 th . floor of the hotel, with stunning views over English Bay, and we enjoyed the wonderful and witty singing of Dr. Kristin Lems, who also presented a fascinating paper during the conference. Another social highlight was the dinner cruise, and the conference was enriched this year by a number of singing and dancing performances. These were mostly arranged for us by one of our Ph.D. students, Randolph-Dalton Hyman, who also performed a wonderful concluding dance that combined traditional African and modern dance forms. We will soon be announcing the theme and speakers for our 2007 conference, so please stay tuned. A number of our associates in other countries have also offered to mount Imaginative Education conferences in their own countries, so we anticipate being able to announce other conferences in Europe and Australia quite soon--again, stay tuned! To see the announcements about the 2006 conference, click here
	Taking a break from the papers and workshops on the hotel patio.

International Research Network on Imaginative Education

About forty delegates, from Mexico, Canada, Japan, Romania, Italy, Israel, Australia, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, & Finland, gathered for two days after the conference to discuss the establishment of a network of researchers and developers focused on imaginative education. The first day left everyone a little staggered by the variety of agendas brought to the meeting, but by the end of the second some very clear foci had formed, around which groups of delegates coalesced. The group has set in train a series of proposals that will be made to major granting bodies.

One table of delegates--from Japan, Italy, England, Canada, Australia, and the US--discuss the establishment of research connections

Imagination Education for Everyone! - a Multidisciplinary Conference

Thursday Oct. 19 - Saturday Oct. 21, 2006
North Shore Campus, National-Louis University
5202 Old Orchard Rd., Suite 300, Skokie, IL 60077-4409

The second year of this groundbreaking conference honoring the central role of imagination in the survival of the human spirit. Last year's conference brought educators and creative thinkers from across the U.S. and Canada to explore and experience imagination as a "core subject."

Click here to download the Call for Participation.

Announcing vol. 3 of ierg's newsletter Imagine

Vol. 3 of our newsletter is now available for download.

In this issue of Imagine... Imagine! 3

Philisophic Understanding
Cultivating Idleness
2004 M.Ed. Graduates
Imagination in Practice
The Imaginative Mind Series

Click here to download Imagine or go to our publications page to view past issues of our newsletter.

Introducing! A brief guide to imaginative education
	We are pleased to introduce IERG's new Brief guide to Imaginative Education. The Brief Guide was created to give people interested in Imaginative Education a short, concise overview of the concepts and practices developed at IERG. This is a great place to begin if you are new to Imaginative Education. All the ideas outlined here are explored more in depth in the About the IERG section and other parts of the site. Enjoy!
For anyone who might wish to make a presentation about Imaginative Education, using the Brief Guide, we are pleased also to be able to make available a PowerPoint slide show that is keyed to the main points of the Guide and elaborates on them. There is a Notes section attached to many of the slides with points you may wish to make. You can access the PowerPoint slides by clicking here

"The Educated Mind" - Greek Language Publication
Kieran Egan's The Educated Mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997) is now available in Greek, published by Atrapos, Athens. This complements the Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, and Swedish versions so far published. Russian, Hebrew, Romanian, and Korean translations are underway.

Publications from our associates

Here are some books by three of our associates, Dr. Jos Letschert, from the Netherlands, Dr. Luis Porter, Mexico, and Dr. Yannis Hadzigeorgiou, who works primarily on the island of Rhodes but also teaches on other islands in the Aegean. Our sympathy. If you have a book related to imagination and education, please send us an image of the cover, or a copy of the book for our growing library of associates' books. We would also be happy to list any relevant articles in our publications pages, so please send us their references.

Imaginative Education in Action!
	Watch some Imaginative Education in action! The video of Tannis Calder teaching her unit plan "Mita and the Ograk" is now available to view by clicking here, a link to the video and a pdf version of the unit plan is at the bottom of the page. Explore some of the other units created by members of ierg in our Unit and Lesson Plans section.

For Italian speakers:
	The first issue of a new journal, Educare, has been published. It's primary focus is on educational philosophy and theory. Among its editorial panel is Professor Giuliano Minichiello, one of IERG's Italian associates. The journal is published by the University of Salerno.

LUCID Project Garners Provincial Attention

"Leading edge, culturally sensitive research on education at SFU has caught the eye of the provincial government and spawned a new master of education program...."

Dr. Mark Fettes (pictured left) and the researchers of the 5 year LUCID Research Project are featured in this story about how childrens' and teachers' learning and teaching are being positively influenced through the use of culturally inclusive imaginative education. To read this story click here.

Dr. Fettes will be one of our Invited Speakers at our 3rd International Conference on Imagination and Education. You can read his abstract here. In addition, District Leaders, teacher-researchers, and graduate students involved with the LUCID project will be leading sessions throughout the day of Friday July 15th. You can read more about our conference in the story above.

For more information about the LUCID project, please click on "LUCID" on the left navigation bar, or go to: LUCID

Visit to Italian Associates
Our first Italian associates very graciously hosted Kieran Egan's visit to Salerno recently. Professor Giuliano Minichiello and Drs. Tina Manna and Emiliana Mannese arranged for talks at the University of Salerno, in Avellino, and at the Sala Consigliare di S. Maria la Nova in Naples. Difficult though it was visiting the Bay of Naples in late April and spending days between talks exploring Amalfi and meeting colleagues in lovely surroundings, Dr. Egan bore it all as well as he could. Travel throughout was taken care of by Dr. Manna's friend, Dr. Giuseppe Cardone, a senior researcher in mathematics at the University of Naples, who was gracious and generous with his time beyond any expectations. And who also took the photos here. We discussed various ways in which Italian researchers and the IERG might cooperate in the future, and we anticipate hearing about some of their research at the 2006 IERG conference.

From left to right: Emiliana Mannese, Maria Acierno, Rita Russo, Kieran Egan, Giuliano Minichiello, Tina Manna.	La societe per l'infanzia: tra educazione e immaginazione in Naples.

Imaginative Education Video
	The Knowledge Network's The Leading Edge recently aired an episode which hilighted imaginative education and the IERG. You can view portions of this episode by clicking here.

Imaginative Education making a difference in Romanian Kindergarten

Annabella Cant is the founder of Foundation Wonderland, a humanitarian and educational charity dedicated to the education and inclusion of orphan, abandoned and very poor children. The foundation includes two "Annabella" kindergarten classes in the city of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), which are providing education to 45 young children from across the socio-economic spectrum. The pedagogy in these classes is based on ideas you will find on this website.

Click here to read a letter from Annabella describing how imaginative education has been incorporated into Foundation Wonderland.

First Cohort of Masters of Education in Imagination & Education celebrates their success!
	Congratulations to the first cohort of graduating Master of Education students in Imagination and Education!! The group finished their coursework, and each student presented a portfolio of work at a meeting in Whistler, B.C. in early December, 2004. Their portfolios were inspiring, and immensely varied. Congratulations, too , to Dr. Geoffrey Madoc-Jones who was the sponsor for this cohort.

Falling through Autumn with Imagination

Please join the Imaginative Education Research Group for our first Fall 2006 seminar.

On - September 27, 2006
At - 2:30pm - 4:00pm
In - Halpern Centre, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Campus

Our own Dr. Stefan Popenici, Post-doctoral fellow, will be speaking on:

Imagining the future. Role models, students, captured imagination and modern education's reform.

Excerpt of abstract:

... We will try to find out how imagination is connected with motivation to learn, study and develop skills for the future and what public education do in order to meet these goals. Second, we will present a comparative analysis on major trends in education through the lenses of the intrinsic relation between education and imagination....

Please go to http://www.ierg.net/seminars to read the entire abstract and a short biography written by Dr. Popenici.

Also mark your calendars for the following dates, as we continue our "Falling through Autumn with Imagination" series of talks:

October 25, 2006, Dr. Thomas Nielsen, 2006 Visiting Scholar, IERG
Postponed - , Dr. Michael Ling, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education

Brain Development & Learning: Making sense of the science

August 19-22, 2006 VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Announcing the inaugural meeting of a biennial, international conference devoted to enriching and improving the lives of children by making cutting-edge research in psychology and neuroscience understandable to nonscientists (including parents) who work with children on a daily basis. The two themes for this year's meeting are Brain Plasticity and Interventions.
Speakers include Helen Neville, Michael Meaney, Mark Greenberg, William Greenough, Bruce McCandliss, Martha Garcia-Sellers, Tony Phillips, Janet Werker, and Linda Siegel. In addition to scientists, the conference will also feature a presentation by artists.
Continuing education credits are available in many, many fields -- law, medicine, educa-tion, psychology, allied health professions, etc. for both the US & Canada. People can fulfill those requirements and take a tax deduction for coming to paradise in August.
A limited number of registration scholarships are available for people of limited means.
for more info: http://www.interprofessional.ubc.ca/brain_dev_and_learning.html

Opening Doors to Imaginative Education: Connecting Theory to Practice

Announcing the 2006 Conference on Imagination and Education with a theme of: Opening Doors to Imaginative Education: Connecting Theory to Practice. This event will take place once again in beautiful downtown Vancouver, BC, Canada at the Coast Plaza Hotel and Suites between July 12th and July 15th, 2006.

Confirmed speakers include:
Dr. Howard Gardner (Harvard University)
Dr. Vera John-Steiner (University of New Mexico)
Alan Haskvitz (multi-award winning teacher)
Click here to find out who else has confirmed as invited speakers

You can find images and information about Vancouver here: http://www.tourismvancouver.com. For a beautiful online tour of Vancouver that uses images, music and spoken word, try this site: http://www.vancouverscenes.com .

Meetings with Catalan associates

During the early part of May, a group of our Catalan associates in Barcelona generously hosted a visit and a series of talks by Kieran Egan of the IERG. He spoke in the magnificent buildings of the Institute of Catalan Studies, from where the talk was piped to three other universities. He also spoke at the Ministry of Education. Other discussions were aimed at establishing research and other ties between the Catalan researchers and the IERG.

Portuguese Language Section

We are pleased to add sections of our site in Portuguese, for the many IERGers in Brazil and Portugal, and for other Portuguese speakers. Click to enter or click the navigation panel to the left.
Please feel free to submit material in Portuguese for us to add to the IERG/GPEI area of our site.

Opening Doors to Imaginative Education

Well, the IERG has had a busy couple of weeks during mid-July. It began on July 8th in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, with a LUCID Midterm conference, then, In Vancouver, we held a pre-conference workshop on Imaginative Education on July 11 th . & 12 th , followed by our annual conference from 12 th . to the 15 th , and then, on 17 th . & 18 th . we held the first International Research Network on Imaginative Education. Oddly enough, we seem all to have survived and even quite enjoyed these various events. Partly the enjoyment came from a real sense of promise for the immediate and longer term future of Imaginative Education impacting schools around the world. The above picture was taken on the dinner cruise on the 14 th . July as our boat headed up the Indian Arm fjord.

We will provide information about each of the above events, and will be updating the information about each as developments occur, so do come back and see what is happening as a result of each event.

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News Archive: 2006

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