The site also features a section for teachers to share lesson ideas and for schools to post projects
Jeff Rud
CanWest News Service
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
www.vancouver2010.com/edu
Victoria's Deanna Binder gazed up at the flashy new Olympic web portal displayed on the screen at the front of the room and nodded in approval.
"This is the next generation,'' Binder said Tuesday.
Twenty years ago, Binder was breaking new Olympic ground herself as the supervisor for the youth education program with the 1988 Calgary Games. She spearheaded an effort that resulted in every elementary school in Canada receiving a binder of learning materials that tied together curriculum and the Olympics for kindergarten to Grade 6 students.
But those were pre-Internet days. Tuesday at the Delta Ocean Pointe hotel in Victoria, Binder could only marvel at the unveiling of an "online education portal" for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
The website with the address www.vancouver2010.com/edu, nicknamed "slash-edu" by organizers, features a bilingual e-magazine that will include monthly cover stories, interviews with athletes, Vancouver 2010 press releases and updates and links to resource sites. Those sites include the Canadian and International Olympic and Paralympic Committees and the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Games.
The portal features a teachers' section to share lesson ideas and best practices related to the "three pillars" of the Olympic movement -- sport, culture and sustainability. That online forum will be operational in November.
It also includes a section where schools can post projects and Olympics-related events, and one where students can "share their dreams and passion.''
Vanoc executive vice-president Terry Wright said the portal builds on the organizing committee's commitment to "make Vancouver 2010 Canada's Games.''
Canada has been a leader in this area since the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal featured the first education program tied to the Olympic movement. The Calgary Games in 1988 were the first to deliver an education program that supported core curriculum in the host country's schools.
Following next year's Beijing Summer Games, the website will be expanded worldwide.
"A great legacy of our Games would be inspiring children to pursue their dreams, to seek their own podium,'' Wright said.
B.C. Education Minister Shirley Bond said the portal will allow classrooms, schools and teachers from across Canada to connect with each other "to talk about striving for excellence.''
Vanoc director of education programs Don Black said the school section will enable Canadian teachers and students to showcase the positive things they are doing, even if they don't seem obviously tied to the Olympics.
For example, a class or school working to clean up a local creekbed could post a report on that project, he said. And schools are expected to heavily use this area to post their experiences as the Olympic torch relay winds through their communities.
"At the end of the day, slash-edu is really about helping teachers engage their students and inspiring the students to be the best they can be,'' Black said.
