AISA Members’ Circular Sept 01, 2014
In this issue:
Note from the Executive Director
What is AISA SchooLink?
AISA Website Revamp
AISA Scholarships
Conference Registration Recommendations
AISA Members Making a Splash
Note from the Executive Director Greetings from Nairobi. As you may know some of our colleagues and schools in West Africa are caught up in the turmoil unfolding as a result of the Ebola epidemic. AISA continues to support several schools as they make difficult decisions about possible closure, late opening and home schooling options via our SchooLink platform. I know you join me in offering them all our very best wishes and a safe journey through this difficult time.
Today (Sept 1st) AISA opens our 2015 Conference registration system. This is a brand new system that we have tested rigorously but it may need some fine tuning. We ask you for your patience if you should have any issues while registering. Elsewhere in this circular are some very important tips and details about how schools should register. Suffice to say here that we think this will be our best conference yet. There has been massive interest in the 2015 workshop and institute programme - I strongly urge you to register and sign up for your session sooner than later. We have had to implement quotas again this year to ensure all our schools have chance to participate in this unique learning experience. Not only is AISA 2015 in the stunning surrounds of Cape Town International Convention Centre but it will also take place alongside the AISA International Child Protection Symposium. All the details of the Symposium plus the AISA School Leaders Retreat, the AISA Business Managers Institute, the AISA Educators Conference and the various IB, IGCSE (new for AISA), Service Learning, Advanced Moodle, and Trauma First Responders pre-conference workshops are available at www. aisaor.ke/aisa2015
Peter Bateman
Executive Director
AISA Website Revamp It is finally here, launch day has arrived. Today we open the conference registration system and reveal the new look and feel of the AISA website. We want to hear your thoughts on it, and if you encounter any issues, please contact me and let me know. We have given the system a rigorous testing, so we don’t anticipate any problems, but we can never be too sure when the internet gremlins are going to strike. So please be patient with it as we troubleshoot anything that arises and please contact us and let us know if you find something. My email address: Mhenderson@aisa.or.ke
Conference Registration Recommendations Its official, AISA conference 2015, in Cape Town, registration is now open! It’s important to please note, if you are going to have more than one person registering for the conference from your institution, we would recommend registering as many at the same time as possible. By doing this then your business managers will receive a single invoice, rather than several individual invoices for each individual registration. I am sure that all your business managers will appreciate this. If you have any questions please contact: Max Henderson - info@aisa.or.ke
Schoolink 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.
Why Moodle?
Moodle is a very stable platform, which could be hosted in-house or in the cloud. AISA SchooLink supports member schools by creating and hosting their Moodle instances 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.
AISA Scholarships 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 have decided that they are moving the date of the scholarship approval and awarding to later in the year. This means that we are able to give you an extension on the submission deadline for applications for the Margaret Sanders International Scholarship (2015/16) to November 1st. Just a note that this is NOT the AISA Margaret Sanders Scholarship for Girls which is a different scholarship. The deadline for this remains March 15th 2015.
AISA Members Making a Splash
SchooLink Membership:
We have 10 active members in the AISA SchooLink program and we can add some pilot schools every year. We have some vacancies available for schools who are interested in joining the pilot program. The pilot is for one year and during the time,AISA has made arrangements to waive all the ASP service costs ($1,400 per school), support costs ($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.
AISA Schools making a splash – http://youtu.be/4CCgByIItHw
If you are interested in joining the SchooLink program or would like more information on it. Please email Santha Kumar: skumar@istafrica. com
You are receiving this circular as a valued member of the AISA network. Visit www.aisa.or.ke for more information. Š 2014 Association of International Schools in Africa. All rights reserved.