AISA Circular Oct 2014

AISA Members’ Circular October 2014

In this issue:

Note from the Executive Director

AISA Schoolink – Join FREE for a year!

AISA 2015 Conference Registration

2014/15 AISA Members Directory

AISA Margaret Sanders International Scholarship

AISA 2015 Participant Led Workshops

AISA Art Challenge

AISA Annual Membership Dues

Note from the Executive Director Greetings from Addis Ababa - where I am currently working with the AISA Board on the design of the AISA Strategic Plan for 2015 - 2019. You’ll be hearing much more about this plan in the coming months but suffice to say here that we are looking forward to a very new approach to targeting the specific learning needs of our members. We also continue to plan for our big conference in Cape Town in 2015. It will be one of our best yet but one key question we are asking is ‘Are our very large AISA Conferences still an effective way for our members to access Professional Learning’? You can follow me on twitter @AISADirector and let me know your thoughts.

Peter Bateman

Executive Director

AISA Margaret Sanders International Scholarship – Submission Deadline November 1st

We have great news for all our full school members who are submitting applications for the Margaret Sanders International Scholarship. The AISA Awards and Scholarships committee of the AISA Board has decided to move the submission date for this scholarship to November 1st each year. Please make sure your counselors put this new submission date in their calendar.

[Just a note that this is NOT the AISA Margaret Sanders Scholarship for Girls which is a different scholarship.]

AISA Art Challenge Submissions are still open to all member schools for entries for the AISA 2014 Art Challenge. AISA members are invited to submit artworks to AISA. The top 12 of these will be included in the AISA 2015 Calendar. Submission deadline to participate in the challenge is 31 October 2014. Rules and guidelines for the competition can be found on the AISA website.

Alternatively you can contact us directly for more information: info@ aisa.or.ke

AISA Schoolink – Join FREE for a year!

AISA 2015 Conference Registration – Opens November 1st, 2014

We will re-open the new AISA 2015 conference registration on 1 November 2014. The Early Bird discount has been extended until 15 January 2015.

A reminder that once you register for the AISA conference you should book your hotel in Cape Town quickly (before mid December) since there is a large sporting event in Cape Town at the same time as our conference and hotel rooms will be in high demand. If you have registered already on the old system, don’t worry, we have your registration and we won’t ask you to register again. If you have any conference related queries, please email us on - conferences@aisa. or.ke

AISA SchooLink can help with continuing teaching and learning in case you have to close school for an extended period of time.

What is AISA SchooLink?

AISA SchooLink (a part of World Virtual School Project) provides a Moodle platform for schools to run their courses online. The purpose is to provide a blended learning environment through which teachers and students share classroom information, work collaboratively on projects and participate in classroom activities. In addition, it serves as an emergency platform for schools, to continue instruction online in times of emergency school closure.

SchooLink also provides for collaboration among its member schools within and outside of AISA region through the participation in our global collaborative projects such as 1. Virtual Science Fair, 2. Poetry Cafe (username: poetrycafe Password: poetrycafe) and 3. i-Olympiad.

Click on the links to know more about them. AISA also runs some PD through SchooLink and has plans to bring in more.

2014/15 AISA Members Directory

Why Moodle?

Moodle is a very stable platform, which can be hosted in-house or in the ‘cloud’. AISA SchooLink supports member schools by creating and hosting their Moodle instances safely and securely with a hosting company (Marleo) based in Europe. Schools hosting their own Moodle instances in-house can use this facility to back-up their Moodle instance on a regular basis.

By now most of our members should have received their copy of the 2014/15 AISA Members Directory via post. Regrettably we have had a bit of a snafu with some copies of this year’s directory. Pages 40 to 49 are missing in some copies.

If yours is one of those please get in touch with us at info@aisa.or.ke and we will send you a correct copy.

Our apologies for the inconvenience and a special apology to the members whose listings were on those pages. Please be assured that all Members Directory entries do appear in our online directory available here.

AISA 2015 Participant Led Workshops

SchooLink Membership:

We currently have 10 active members in the AISA SchooLink program and aim to add more pilot schools every year. We have some vacancies available for schools who are interested in joining the pilot program for the 2015/16 year. The pilot is for one year and during the time AISA has made arrangements to waive all the ASP service costs (normally $1,400 per school), support costs (normally $750 per school) and will provide a grant of up to $750 towards participation in an annual face to face meeting for AISA SchooLink Tech Coordinators during the AISA 2015 Conference in Cape Town.

If you are interested in joining the SchooLink program or would like more information on it. Please email Santha Kumar: skumar@istafrica. com

We know at AISA that we have some truly innovative educators across the continent who are implementing some exciting learning initiatives in their schools and classrooms everyday. We believe that at AISA we should provide a platform with which to ‘talent share’ and grow our educators to inspire learning amongst each other. If you are a teacher in an AISA school and you feel you could improve student learning for our schools by running a workshop we would love to hear from you! Our commitment to you is that we will work with you, coach and encourage you in growing as an international workshop facilitator, and provide a supportive platform for you to communicate your ideas on improving learning in the classroom.

Do you want to facilitate a workshop at our 2015 March Conference?

Please find the AISA 2015 Participant Led Workshop Form here!

AISA Annual Membership Dues (2015/16) If you are planning on registering for the AISA 2015 Conference, applying for our scholarships or participating in our upcoming Regional Institutes and Workshops, you will need to make sure your membership is up to date. If you need any assistance with this, or would like statement of your membership please contact Barnabas or Connie in our accounts department: accounts@ aisa.or.ke.

You are receiving this circular as a valued member of the AISA network.

Visit www.aisa.or.ke for more information. © 2014 Association of International Schools in Africa. All rights reserved.