Mon, May 28, 2007

Outside the Box/Inside the Ring: Conflict Resolution Curriculum

Outside the Box/Inside the Ring is a free 10-lesson curriculum initially targeted at the middle-school level. It was co-created by Joshua Gordon and Joseph Morrissey and Part of the Solution ADR Services in 2004-2005. The curriculum is designed to be activity driven (as opposed to lectures) and is available for download as a series of pdf files. Non-profits and educators are provided the material for non-commercial, educational use.

Some example lessons include:
Fair Factor: Do you have conflict resolution skills?
What’s up? An introduction to conflict.
Do you speak conflict? Building a common language and sharing experiences.
Dudes, whose shoes? Empathy and Outside the Box thinking.
Say what? How to communicate around conflict.
How can you win when I win?

A Youtube video has been prepared to introduce the curriculum by showing clips of participants in the pilot for the program.

Mon, May 21, 2007

Human Rights Syllabi for the College Classroom

This online collection of more than 150 human rights syllabi is designed for the college and university instructor. It is a product of the Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) Educators Network, in conjunction with the Interdisciplinary Field Studies major at the University of California at Berkeley. The collection brings together syllabi used in human rights courses currently or recently offered in colleges and universities in institutions of higher education in the U.S. and in other countries.  Human rights syllabi, duly emailed to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), will be added to the website. Rita Maran served as Editor and Christina Ung as Assistant Editor. The syllabi are organized into the following categories:

Anthropology
Crimes Against Humanity
Cultural Relativism
Disability
Education
Europe
Film
Food
Foreign Policy
Genocide
Geography
Globalization
Health and Medicine
Hindu Ethics
History
Holocaust
Human Rights Clinic
Indigenous Peoples
Interdisciplinary
International Organization
Labor
Language
Latin America
Law
Literature
Music
Nontraditional Courses
Online Research
Philosophy
Political Science
Refugees
Religion
Science and Technology
Slavery/Racism
State Crimes
The Child
Truth Commissions
United States
War and Conflict
Women

Sat, May 19, 2007

The Vietnam War: Oral Histories

The Vietnam War: Oral Histories is the interesting product of a learning engagement project. The site provides good quality video-taped interviews with vets talking about a broad range of topics related to their war experience. The web site is a part of Thomas E. Murray’s dissertation on engaging students with active learning using the Vietnam War as a case study. Tom Hall’s case provides a good starting place for listening.

Wed, May 16, 2007

Conflict Negotiation Skills for Youth workshop manual from UNESCAP

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) produced a 166-page training manual on Conflict Negotiation Skills for Youth that is available at no cost as a pdf or for purchase as a hard copy. The 2003 conflict negotiation training manual is directed at government and nongovernmental organization personnel working with young people. It presents a variety of participatory training methods and exercises. Users are encouraged to refine and adapt the materials. The contents are organized as follows:

CONFLICT NEGOTIATION SKILLS FOR YOUTH
Facilitator’s Guide
SECTION I: YOUTH AND THE CONFLICTS THEY FACE IN DAILY LIFE
Session 1: Understanding youth
Session 2: Understanding conflict
SECTION II: TECHNIQUES FOR RESOLVING INTRA-PERSONAL AND INTER-PERSONAL CONFLICTS
Session 3: Self-awareness
Session 4: Communication
Session 5: Negotiation
Session 6: Mediation
SECTION III: TECHNIQUES FOR RESOLVING GROUP CONFLICT
Session 7: Group building
Session 8: Team building and cooperation
Session 9: Advocacy for youth development
References

Mon, May 14, 2007

ResearchChannel.org Video Library

ResearchChannel.org, based out of the University of Seattle, is a nonprofit media and technology organization founded in 1996 by leading research and academic institutions so they could share the work of their researchers with the public. These ideas are shared in their original form via video. Today, more than 50 participating members and affiliates provide all programming, and that number continues to grow. The site is browseable and searchable, and the daily webcast schedule is available via RSS and a monthly electronic newsletter, Think Forward. A sample search on the term “conflict” produced 31 videos. The Video Library contains more than 3000 programs and is available in three formats — Windows Media and Quicktime for standard Internet connections, and MPEG-2 (ibm VideoCharger) for high-speed (Internet2 or similar) connections.

Thu, May 10, 2007

New Ombuds Journal Launched - Submissions sought

Tom Kosakowski over at the Ombuds blog announced the following good news:

The International Ombudsman Association has announced that its nascent peer-reviewed publication is now accepting submissions. The Journal of the International Ombudsman Association (JIOA), will publish online and include scholarly articles and information relevant to the organizational ombuds. Submitted articles will be considered for the inaugural and subsequent issues. More information, including instructions for authors and a description of the review process, is available from the JIOA homepage.

Wed, May 09, 2007

Harnessing the Interactive Web: A Web 2.0 Toolkit for Instructors

In the week between semesters our Office for Teaching and Learning hosts a full week of faculty development workshops known as “Xtreme Week”. I offered a session on some of the interesting tools available in our networked world and thought readers of this blog might appreciate seeing the slides from the workshop, available via Slideshare.net and embedded below. Note that some of the slides contain hotlinks to additional content (look for underlines).

Fri, May 04, 2007

PeaceMaker Game demos now available

Last year I wrote about development work being done on a game called PeaceMaker that focuses on the Middle East conflict. Your goal: Be a leader and bring peace to the region before your term in office ends. Well, the good news is the game is now available in Mac and PC versions, and you can try the game for free in demo or tutorial modes. If you like it, it costs $19.95 to unlock the demo version. You can watch a video of a game play trailer to help you decide whether you want to download the file or not.

Wed, May 02, 2007

Language and Civil Society - Peace Education Teaching Guide

  Language and Civil Society is an online journal targeting teachers of English as a Second Language. This Issue on Peace Education, written by Dr. Carolyn Duffy, focuses on using Peace Education tasks and activities as the content around which teachers can motivate learners to develop their language skills. The content is divided into 10 chapters as noted below. Each chapter contains some background information on the concepts and then detailed examples of a couple activities to teach this concept and usually some additional links to internet resources or related appendices for that content area. Language teachers should really appreciate the attention to the use of terms in context.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Defining Peace
Chapter 2: Analyzing Conflict
Chapter 3: Conflict Resolution
Chapter 4: Being Good Communicators: Listening Reflectively
Chapter 5: Speaking the Language of Peace
Chapter 6: Developing Cultural Understanding
Chapter 7: Cornerstones of Peace: Valuing Diversity and Practicing Tolerance
Chapter 8: Developing Empathy
Chapter 9: Expressions of Peace
Chapter 10: Promoting Peace through Action

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