Voice of the Community, featuring photos by Carlos Reyes-Manzo, is the result of a three-year research project exploring the strengths and challenges facing rural PEI communities. The book is a collaboration between Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Reyes-Manzo, and a research team led by Dr. Vianne Timmons (former Vice-President, Academic Development and Adjunct Professor of Education) and consisting of Drs. Sandy McAuley and Fiona Walton (Education), Barb Campbell and Kim Critchley (Nursing), and Jennifer Taylor (Family and Nutritional Science). (Andes Press Agency)

Researchers involved with the New Learners Study are investigating new learners entering university (specifically UPEI), and their attitudes, understanding, and competencies regarding digital technologies, global issues, and writing. This mixed-methods pilot study includes data collected from both an e-survey of first-year students and student focus groups to investigate such questions as:

How best to use technology to advantage students
Do students use technology differently socially and academically?
Do students want their personal technology to enter their academic world?
What types of technology are students using?
Is there a gender divide when it comes to technology use?
Are students taking full advantage of all Web 2.0 tools?
What are students’ expectations surrounding technology use in the classroom?

Research Team: Dr. Martha...

Executive Director Gail Lecky was invited to an ED485 class to discuss how her organization and parents are involved in French Second Language education on PEI. CPF is an important community partner in FSL Education.

Visual artist Lynn Gaudet from Western PEI shared her talent and experience with GenieArts with ED 403F students. She shared an activity to demonstrate how visual art can be intergrated into a Math lesson. The activity was called Battleship Mathematiques. Students created an ocean of fish on canvas with paint and hidden under the fish were math equations. Students then played the game trying to catch the fish by guessing where they were located in the ocean by correctly solving the equations.

The Master of Education in Leadership in Learning is the first graduate degree program to be offered in Nunavut. Most of the graduates are mature students who are already working as educators in their communities. Studies occur part-time over three years through face-to-face courses in Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet combined with online learning.
The specially tailored curriculum balances western and Inuit knowledge of education and educational leadership.

UPEI also delivers a Master of Education degree in Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie, Alberta.

For more information: www.upei.ca/education/master_ed

The Specialization in International Education (SIE) is an optional, award-winning program for second-year Bachelor of Education students at the University of Prince Edward Island. The program is designed to develop students’ sensitivity to cultural diversity and to increase their understanding of global issues, so that their teaching is infused with a global perspective and they are better prepared to teach in other countries or in diverse cultural settings.

Students are required to undertake their final six-week teaching practicum in a cultural and educational system that is different from their own. Placements range from elite international schools in European cities to under-resourced village schools in rural African communities. Since its inception in 1998, over 130 Education students have graduated with a Specialization in International Education, having completed...

Dr. Kyhm Goslin (Education) will deliver a keynote address to the Atlantic School Board Trustees - Governing Schools Toward Improvement - in January 2010. Attendees include school trustees and superintendents from the Maritime provinces.

Dr. Khym Goslin (Education) delivered a keynote address to the Atlantic Administrators Conference. Attendees included school administrators from the Atlantic provinces.

This research project involved six rural communities on Prince Edward Island: O’Leary, Lennox Island, Kensington, Rustico, Montague, and Souris. In each of these communities, focus groups were held to learn about health issues concerning the children and youth of that community. These focus group results have been analyzed and validated by an Advocacy Group of community leaders. After the Advocacy Group has identified a priority health issue, community working groups are formed to develop initiatives that address the priority.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Vianne Timmons
Co-Investigators: Dr. Kimberley Critchley, Dr. Jennifer Taylor, Dr. Fiona Walton, Dr. Barbara Campbell, Dr. Alexander McAuley
Research Co-ordinators: Jane MacDonald & Rosalyn Adamowycz

An Atlantic research and training project entitled "Train the Trainer: A Family Literacy Approach for Aboriginal Families in Atlantic Canada" is being led by UPEI. Launched in 2007, the three-year research project is developing and implementing a family literacy training program with teachers and volunteers in Aboriginal communities. The research is being conducted in communities in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island.

A "Train the Trainer" manual will be developed with the communities, based on relevant cultural materials, to use in the implementation of the program. It will then be available as a general guide to be used by other groups for training people for their respective projects. Local facilitators will acquire the skills and knowledge to host family literacy programs. Parents and children who participate will acquire skills related to...