Wed, Apr 25, 2007

Animated New Yorker Magazine Cartoons

Thanks to Ringtales, you can now laugh along with animated New Yorker cartoons, and receive new ones three times a week as they are released via a podcast feed. Great fun.

Fri, Apr 20, 2007

Youth Mediation in Middle School: Peace Talks Radio Episode

Peace Talks Radio has been producing good audio content for a long time. An episode really worth listening to is one on Youth Mediation in Middle School. This episode focuses specifically on youth mediation programs that are designed to help young people handle the conflicts arising in the middle school context. Two adults and one young person are featured. The adults are Lilly Irvin-Vitela, director of the New Mexico Center for Dispute Resolution in Albuquerque and Ellie Dendahl coordinator of the school mediation program in Santa Fe for the Center for Dispute Resolution. The young person is Elena Carnes, a highschool junior at the time of the interview, and a former middle school mediator. The direct link to the mp3 is here.

Tue, Apr 17, 2007

Blogs for Learning website

Blogs for Learning is a community-based online resource hosted by Michigan State University, dedicated to providing information on the technical and pedagogical aspects of blogging within the classroom. Blogs for Learning features its own discussion blog (called The Learning Curve) where students and teachers can talk about blogging in the classroom. Blogs for learning also features a library of articles written by teachers, noted academics, and students discussing pedagogical, legal, and technical aspects of educational blogging. The site also features a collection of how-to interactive tutorials designed to help educators and students with the more technical aspects of working with a blog (in this case WordPress or Blogger).

Mon, Apr 16, 2007

World Situation Updates via Reuters AlertNet

Reuters AlertNet is a humanitarian news network website sponsored by the Reuters Foundation that aims to keep relief professionals and the wider public up-to-date on humanitarian crises around the globe. According to their own description, AlertNet attracts upwards of four million users a year and has a network of four hundred contributing humanitarian organizations.

Particularly impressive are their crisis profiles and the Interactive Map covering conflicts, food security concerns, sudden disasters and health across the world. You can configure a map so that it looks the way you want it to and then use the “Export Map” tool to get a copy of the map in a range of sizes.  Also impressive are the news alert systems available to push out content you care about via email, to your desktop, or to your phone.

Finally, if you are interested in online learning modules on humanitarian crisis-related concerns, you can currently work your way through 3 modules for journalists explaining How Aid Works, Covering Food Crises, and Tackling Humanitarian Features.

Sat, Apr 07, 2007

YouTube video of Mediation Introduction (Parent/Adolescent conflict)

New mediators might appreciate seeing this short (under 5 minutes) video of the opening phase of a mediation involving a dispute between a mother and adolescent daughter. As the mediator’s accents reveal, this video was produced in Australia. See it here.

Fri, Apr 06, 2007

Conflict Quotes, Quips and Proverbs collection

You Didn’t Just Say That!: Quotes, Quips and Proverbs for Dealing in the World of Conflict and Negotiation is a free compilation of great little nuggets brought together by Joshua N. Weiss at the Harvard Program on Negotiation. Included in the 2005 edition pdf document are cartoon illustrations by Stu Rees (aka Stu’s Views). The wide-ranging collection is broken into sections, as noted below.

1. Conflict Generally
2. Preparation and Strategy for Conflict
3. Negotiation
4. Communication and Conflict
5. Psychology and Conflict
6. Trust and Trust Building in Conflict
7. Escalation/De-Escalation in Conflict
8. Power and Conflict

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