We wanted to alert you to two events this month that all Leapfrog Institutes members and collaborators are invited to participate in:

1. The Department of Educational Policy and Administration is opening participation in its Global Youth Policy and Leadership graduate seminar to all educational professionals: With the dynamic participation of such organizations as Leapfrog Institutes, Destination ImagiNation of Minnesota, and Minnesota 4-H, this must-attend seminar will focus on designing a collaborative approach for developing innovation, interests, skills, and projects among youth. The results will be used to design an Innovative Youth conference-within-a-conference for the May 2009 Destination ImagiNation Global Finals. This is a don’t miss Experience! For more information contact Art Harkins: harki001@umn.edu
2. Leapfrog Institutes is co-chairing a FREE virtual (and live) conference on e-skills and e-competencies October 31.  The Knowledge Society demands that we leapfrog ahead in our education systems, build a new digital literacy, and improve soft skills (creativity, innovation, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, among others) that could help all 21^st century citizens become productive, effective knowledge workers. Educators, policymakers, business leaders, parents, and youth must identify and develop new sets of e-skills and e-competencies to help youth succeed, and build a capacity for success toward the 22^nd century.  The purpose of this event is to identify, project and discuss the e-skills and e-competencies required for success in the 21^st and early 22^nd centuries. This event will explore, gather and analyze relevant experiences in training and development of e-skills throughout North America.  More information is available online at http://www.e-competencies.org.

The Knowledge Society demands that we leapfrog ahead in our education systems, build a new digital literacy, and improve soft skills (creativity, innovation, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, among others) that could help all 21^st century citizens become productive, effective knowledge workers. Educators, policymakers, business leaders, parents, and youth must identify and develop new sets of e-skills and e-competencies to help youth succeed, and build a capacity for success toward the 22^nd century. The purpose of this event is to identify, project and discuss the e-skills and e-competencies required for success in the 21^st and early 22^nd centuries. This event will explore, gather and analyze relevant experiences in training and development of e-skills throughout North America.

The activity builds from the collaborative work of scholars from FLACSO-México, the University of Minnesota and the University of Toronto. This public session invites thought leaders and innovators in the development of the e-skills to share their work and experiences. Guest presenters will be invited to participate physically or virtually, and all presentations will be recorded, translated into Spanish and English, and available for viewing online and discussion.

This event is funded through the support of PIERAN, the Interinstitutional Program for North American Studies at El Colegio de México, and the collaborating institutions.

This is not your typical conference!

To facilitate focused discussions and innovative approaches to dialogue on e-competencies, the organizing committee has established the following rules:

• No presentation may be longer than 10 minutes (this is the maximum length allowed by YouTube, and will be strictly enforced).
• A maximum of four PowerPoint (or similar) slides will be allowed. It is the presenter’s responsibility to ensure both English and Spanish versions of their slides and any accompanying materials are available.

In addition:

• There are no registration fees for this conference!
• Although in-person presentations are encouraged, presenters may participate virtually (via Skype or Adobe Acrobat Connect) or in-person.
• Participants that find it difficult to participate via live video or in person may contribute a pre-recorded YouTube (or similar) video to be shown during the event and made available in the online library.
• Presenters and participants from throughout the world are invited.
• All participants will be invited to continue our discussions online at this conference website and elsewhere.
• All conference products will be made available for further dissemination and development through a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

To submit a proposal, click here. (Deadline: September 26, 2008)

Leapfrog means to jump ahead of the competition, to meet or exceed the needs of 21st Century citizens and workers, and to take a prominent leadership role in educational improvement. The Leapfrog approach focuses on preparing youth for both immediate and life-long participation in value-adding life, learning, work performances, and global-oriented competence.

During October 17-19 this year Anqing Teachers College will sponsor a conference on Leapfrog-inspired changes in the near futures of Chinese and U.S. education. Six members of the University of Minnesota CEHD community are involved with coordination, presentations, and papers for the conference which will be held in Anqing, China.

The University of Minnesota, Anqing Teachers College, and the World Future Society are collaborators in this exciting development.

The official title of the conference is Interdisciplinary Education in Teacher Training Programs via Leapfrog Principles. We will release more information about the conference in the near future.

All eight draft papers for the ATC conference are linked here. Please make any comments that you feel will improve the papers. The deadline for suggesting changes to the papers is April 4, 2008. After that, the papers will be edited by Dr. Tim Mack, President of the World Future Society, for a special issue of the journal Futures Research Quarterly.

We look forward to reading your ideas!

Arthur Harkins and Sam Song, co-editors

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