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Nairobi 2010 Conference Reoprt  Climate Change and Natural Resource Use in Eastern Africa: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation Report of the 3rd Scientific Conference of the Ecological Society for Eastern Africa (ESEA) and co-hosted with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) at Multimedia University College, Nairobi, 19 - 21 May 2010 By Nicholas Oguge, Caroline Lumosi, Teddy Odindo, Joseph Ngondi and Philista Malaki October 4, 2010 Summary While the Earth's climate has changed throughout history, the current warming trend has been of particular concern because most of it is human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented.  One of the greatest concerns of this global warming is climate variability and change.  The risks associated with climate change add to development challenges such as food and water insecurity. Although climate change is only one of the many drivers negatively affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services, it certainly exacerbates the other factors such as land degradation and unsustainable natural resource use. There is general concern on the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources. This would widen poverty levels confronting eastern African countries and threaten gains made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Thus, the Ecological Society for Eastern African organised its 3rd annual scientific conference with a theme addressing this global challenge.  The idea was to bring together researchers, policy makers and the general public together to discuss the climate change phenomena, its impacts, mitigation strategies and adaptation measures with regard to natural resource use in Eastern Africa. In order to address above issues and to reach out to a wider audience, we designed the conference strategically on three tiers:   1. Plenary talks: to provide policy information and direction, science on climate change, ecological and socio-economic effects, how to commun

I'm a so-so fan of Skype. I've used it on an infrequent basis and have had more than a few dropped calls. Audio and video alike. However, it's a cheap way to make long distance calls and seems to work better over wi-fi and the video quality is improving on a regular basis. So therefore it's probably a great tool for the classroom. But how can you use Skype to do more than just make calls? Well, there's a pantload of interesting ways! Check out these fun ideas: Collaborate! Meet with other classrooms: One of the most common projects educators utilize Skype for is setting up exchanges with classrooms around the world, usually for cultural exchange purposes or working together on a common assignment. The program's official site provides some great opportunities to meet up with like-minded teachers and students sharing the same goals. Practice a foreign language: Connect with individual learners or classrooms hailing from a different native tongue can use a Skype collaboration to sharpen grammar and pronunciation skills through conversation. Peace One Day: Far beyond classroom collaborations, the Peace One Day initiative teamed up with Skype itself and educators across the globe to teach kids about the importance of ending violence, war, and other social ills. Around the World with 80 Schools: This challenge asks participating schools to hook up with 80 worldwide and report back what all they've learned about other cultures and languages. Talk about the weather: One popular Skype project sees participants from different regions make note of the weather patterns for a specified period of time, with students comparing and contrasting the results. Collaborative poetry: In this assignment, connected classrooms pen poetic pieces together and share them via video conferencing. Practice interviews: The education system frequently receives criticism for its failure to prepare students for the real world, but using Skype to help them run through mock-up

A site from the BBC where teachers can find international partners for cooperative projects. There are also resources and ideas for activities to do with your class. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A vast French language resources site with links to useful sites, lesson plans, games and a great selection of PowerPoints to download. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A really interesting site that explores how world languages have developed, what they are related to and fascinating facts and trivia. A great background resource for any MFL student. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

Find hundreds of audio files to listen and download language files in English, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, and Mandarin. Record sentences in your own language and upload to this useful project. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A wonderful project to build interactive resources with audio to help learn a range of languages from around the world. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

"The Freire Project is dedicated to building an international critical community which works to promote social justice in a variety of cultural contexts. We are committed to conducting and sharing critical research in social, political, and educational locations"

A fabulous language site with sections for French, Spanish, German and Chinese. Learn language topics and play quizzes to test what you have learnt. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

This site looks amazing and a clever way of using the power of crowd sourcing to translate the web. Translate text into another language to learn Spanish, German, French, Italian and Chinese. The text is levelled to your ability. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A good collection of MFL resources and links for French, German, Spanish and Italian. There is also a link to the 'Estrellas' student resources area. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A superb complete course for beginners of French language. Find a complete PDF textbook, videos and much more to get you started in no time. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A fascinating site that explores endangered languages. Read information and the demographics of the remaining speakers and watch video clips of some phrases. Why not try something different for your 'language of the week'. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A good, simple browser translation tool from Microsoft. The bookmarklet sits in your bookmark toolbar and translates foreign pages into your language with one click. Choose a language from the drop down menu to translate into other languages. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

Ensure your French pronunciation is 'parfait' with this comprehensive French language learning site that has embedded audio files to listen to. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A useful whiteboard resource displaying the date and weather in French. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages,+Culture+&+International+Projects

A wonderful German language resource made by kids for kids. Watch the videos to hear some basic phrases. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages,+Culture+&+International+Projects

An interesting site that connects language learners to native speakers using video conferencing. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

A brilliant site with simple audio/visual flash animations for learning 60 of the world's major languages. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects

The thing that worries most non-specialists teaching language is pronouncing words correctly from a book. This is where Forvo is is priceless. Native speaker users and the site itself have uploaded audio clips of word for us non native speakers to copy. The site has 250+ languages uploaded. I tested the Mandarin section, as I understand that, and it was faultless. An amazing resource. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Languages%2C+Culture+%26+International+Projects