The Pisgah
Forest Institute (PFI) staff is in the process of developing the final details
for its next in-service training workshop during the 2004 - 2005 academic year. This next short course, which is being overseen
by PFI Operations Coordinator Heather Cosby, will focus on WEATHER. The program
will be offered on the Brevard College campus on the
afternoon of Friday, February 25 and Saturday, February 26. Among the
major topics being addressed will be air pressure, wind, observing
the sky, storms and climates / biomes. There will be a fair amount of hands-on
activities including building weather instruments, engaging in weather
identification games and analyzing weather data from the National Climatic
Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville and other information sources
accessible via the internet. NCDC meteorologists William Angel and Axel Grauman have assisted in the design of the workshop and
will be leading portions of the instruction. Both have taught in prior PFI
summer courses. Participants who complete this offering will be eligible to
receive up to one continuing education unit (1 CEU) in addition to
Criteria 3 credit towards their North Carolina Environmental Educator (NCEE)
certification. Attendees will receive a course workbook and other pertinent
takeaways of value in teaching the material that will be presented. There
is no charge to attend the Weather workshop, which is designed for K-12
teachers, home schooling instructors and camp counselors. However
registration is limited. Those interested in enrolling should do so
through the PFI website, www.brevard.pfi/edu.
Enrollment
in the PFI summer courses is proceeding at a rapid pace. That acceleration is
due in part to the responses from the recent mass mailing that the staff sent
to public and private schools across North Carolina. A description of these eight
workshops and registration directions also can be found on the PFI website.
Those considering attending are urged to sign up at their earliest convenience.
The
Institute is providing the opportunity for two Brevard College students to do an internship with
the PFI staff during the Spring 2005 term. One will
involve gaining experience with applications of virtual forest methodology
to better understand forest growth dynamics. The results of this effort should
be of value regarding the implementation of PFI's
Distance Learning Program. The second concerns attempting to better
understand movements of Earth's energy and matter through observations of
system interfaces. The results of that undertaking should be applicable in PFI' s "Elements of Nature" workshop.
PFI’s
website is located at www.brevard.edu/pfi.
KceeI is working actively with the
administration at Keystone College as well as ERC on finalizing the budget and grant
proposal for 2005-2006. KceeI is also in the production stage of the 2005 brochure,
which may be viewed at its website in a printable Adobe PDF form (http://www.kceei.keystone.edu/Workshops.htm).
Howard
Jennings is actively working with consultant Dr. David Reese from the Northeast
Intermediate Unit 19 (NEIU-19). Dr.
Reese has assisted in securing Graduate Education Credit from Wilkes University for KceeI’s
three summer courses. He is also
assisting with obtaining Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit from
NEIU-19. CPE courses are graduate level
and must be approved by both the Instructional Program Planning Council (IPPC)
as well as the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The Forest Stewardship,
Watershed Concepts, and Geology courses are set to be presented to the Advisory
Board of NEIU-19 on February 9th.
The IPPC is composed of approximately one representative, teacher,
administration, or staff member, from each of the 20 districts in the local
area.
The
Institute is researching new materials for 2005, as well as determining which
materials will be used again for the upcoming summer 2005 courses. A survey was sent out to the participants of
last year’s courses as part of this effort.
This survey will be used to try to gather additional information on the
2004 summer courses. Participants were
asked to rate and comment on the materials provided to them, how they were
integrated, what was integrated specifically, and what were the most challenging
and positive experiences encountered during the workshops. They were also provided the video “Maple
Sugaring at Keystone College’s Woodland Campus” to be used in
their classrooms as appropriate. KceeI is planning to integrate this video into the Forest
Stewardship course. This video will be
available on the website as a streaming link in the near future.
Keystone College has participated in another session
of the “Environmental Forum” sponsored by NEIU-19, PA Department of Natural
Resources, Bureau of State Parks, Lackawanna Heritage Valley and Pennsylvania American
Water. This is a year-long program for high school students in grades
7-12 that focuses on the future of the Lackawanna Valley and how local communities are
connecting to the area’s most prominent natural resources – the Lackawanna and Susquehanna Rivers. On January 10, Tim Eichner, Assistant Director of KceeI, Dr. Robert Cook, Assistant Professor at Keystone College, and Dr. Jerry Skinner, Professor
at Keystone College, conducted three educational
sessions consisting of an introduction to a Garmin
global positioning system unit, groundwater, and winter ecology. Approximately 70 students and 13 teachers
from local schools participated in this educational experience. KceeI will continue to be involved in the Environmental Forum
until it culminates with student service projects and a formal presentation in
May.
KceeI’s
website is located at www.kceei.keystone.edu.
Brevard College
Director
Jodi Huggins and Associate Director Symantha Petitt presented two sessions entitled “Empowering your
Students with Visual Literacy” at the North Carolina Educational Technology
Conference on December 1-2. This
presentation demonstrated ways to use primary source images from the Library of
Congress to improve reading, writing, and comprehension skills with their
students. Both sessions were
well-received, with follow-up inquiries from several participants. These inquiries ranged from requests to use
materials in the classroom to an invitation to submit an article to Meridian, an online journal dedicated to the research and practice
of computer technology in the middle school.
Two
separate Level One Digital Storytelling (DS) Workshop series are in
progress. Eight teachers are
participating in a series being conducted at Rugby Middle School.
Twelve additional teachers are participating in a series being conducted
in the AAM lab at Brevard College.
A third spring DS Workshop series has been scheduled at Rosman Elementary School that will include 14 participants.
Brevard AAM has just completed a workshop
series designed for Polk County K-8 teachers entitled “Using Primary Sources to
Promote Visual Literacy and Reading in the Classroom.” In this 10-hour series, teachers learned ways
to use primary source images, manuscripts, and documents to enhance their
students’ reading skills. In addition,
the AAM staff demonstrated to participants ways to incorporate graphic organizers and
thinking maps into their primary source-based activities, as well as how to
create these graphic organizers in Microsoft Word.
Brevard’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.brevard.edu/aam/.
Mars Hill College
The spring
semester has gotten off to a quick start as the Mars Hill College AAM staff members are already teaching
digital storytelling workshops in schools and on campus. At each of the schools and at the college,
registration has filled quickly with a waiting list. In order to make the workshop series more
flexible, Dr. Ed Shearin and AnneMarie Walter have
redesigned the curriculum into a series of modules.
At Mars
Hill Elementary and Bethel Elementary, Ed and AnneMarie
have taken the mobile lab to the teachers in a series of after school
workshops. The next evening session at
the college began on January 25 with 16 teachers.
At the end
of the fall semester, the digital storytelling workshop at Burnsville
Elementary was completed. One trio of
teachers used the September flood (from Hurricanes Ivan and Frances) to create
a story that took pictures of earlier floods from the LOC and combined them
with their own pictures. They recorded
the audio in both English and Spanish and created digital stories in both
languages.
Mars Hill AAM staff are
currently planning a program for WNC school librarians. On February 4 media coordinators from around
the region will gather at Mars Hill for a focus group that includes discussion
of their role in the schools and in the AAM program. A special digital storytelling workshop
series is also planned for later this spring for media coordinators.
Ed Shearin
attended the Second National Coaches Academy for Professional Learning in Miami, FL. Sponsored by the National
Staff Development Council (NSDC) and the Wachovia Foundation, this academy is
training in-school coaches for facilitation of high quality professional
learning. The goal of high quality professional learning is "All teachers in all schools will
experience high-quality professional learning as part of their daily work by
2007.”
Ed was
selected to attend the academy by NCDPI and the Wachovia Foundation to
represent higher education in NC. In this second academy, the emphasis
was on professional learning delivery models [Easton, Lois Brown, (Ed). (2004) Powerful Designs for
Professional Learning. Oxford, Ohio: National
Staff Development Council] for professional learning, contracting for
professional learning, and the multiple roles of school-based coaches [Killion, J & Harrison, C. (1997). "The
Multiple Roles of Staff Developers". Journal of Staff Development, 18 (3), 1-15].
If you need
to add to your professional library, the Powerful
Designs book is highly recommended. Part I of the book
describes the most effective professional learning designs as they relate to NSDC's Professional Learning Standards (adopted by the
State of NC, 2002). In Part II, the chapters uses stories about
the design in action. Part III is a CD with all the handouts for the
chapters. The book is available from NSCD (http://www.nsdc.org/library/publications/index.cfm).
The Media
Arts Project (www.themap.org)
in Asheville, NC, is adding the AAM Newsletter compiled by AnneMarie Walter to its electronic mailing list.
You can join the list at http://www.themap.org/content/view/18/55/.
On January
13, the Asheville Citizen-Times
reprinted a short version of the article about digital storytelling that
appeared earlier in EdTech Magazine.
Mars Hill’s
AAM program website is located at: http://www.aam.mhc.edu/.
Montreat College
In August
2004, the Montreat Partner worked with nine faculty at
Stone Mountain School in Black Mountain to introduce them to the Library of
Congress website and show them ways to incorporate primary source photo
analysis into their curriculum. Stone Mountain School is located at an old camp where the
cabins not being used as living quarters are used as classrooms. It is a
year-round emotional growth school that provides an alternative education for
adolescent boys. The boys live at the camp and do chores, which include
chopping their own firewood in the winter.
The cabins are not Internet-ready and are only equipped with one or two
old PCs. In order to conduct the
workshop, Brian and Wendy had to provide all of the equipment necessary for the
session, including the Internot* CD. The session went
extremely well. The teachers really enjoyed the website and began strategizing
ways they could borrow the headmaster’s computer (the only computer on campus
with an Internet connection) long enough to download items for their
classrooms. They were pleased to learn
that the Internot CDs were theirs to keep and use
with its students. Although classroom instruction is conducted differently at Stone Mountain, the faculty showed a great
interest in learning new ways they could educate its students on traditional
subject areas and topics. The lack of the Internet and the school’s hectic
schedule has limited the Montreat staff from returning to conduct additional
workshops, but the workshop that was conducted was a success.
The
Montreat Partner ended the fall semester successfully. In all, 12
teachers at Emma Elementary, 10 teachers at WD Williams Elementary, 9 teachers
at Erwin High and 24 teachers at Cliffside Elementary complete 18 hours of
workshop sessions.
After the
Christmas break, the Montreat staff returned ready for the full spring
schedule. Within the past two weeks, Sunshine Elementary completed a
35-hour workshop series on digital storytelling, RS Middle completed a 15-hour
workshop series on using primary sources, and Owen Middle began an 18-hour
workshop series on blending primary sources with application
software. Starting January 24, teachers from WD Williams began an
intermediate level series on digital storytelling that builds on the skills
gained from last semester.
Wendy and
Brian conducted an all-day workshop for the Asheville City Schools’ INPUT
trainers for their middle and high schools on January 19. Participants engaged
in hands-on activities working with photos, manuscripts, maps, oral histories,
and movies from the LOC. The session was so well-received that Wendy and
Brian have been asked to conduct another workshop for the group in February. Plans are also underway for Montreat to host
a summer institute for teachers from this school system.
*Internot is a technique that simulates a live Internet
experience. AAM staff develop
Internot CDs to provide LOC Web site resources to
teachers who have limited, filtered, or no Internet connectivity in their
schools.
Montreat’s
AAM program website is located at: http://aam.montreat.edu/.
Western Carolina University
Basic
training for teachers at Martin’s Creek Elementary/Middle School was completed
in December. Teachers completed 18
contact hours of training ranging from introduction to LOC primary sources to
digital storytelling, as well as using local and national primary sources to
enhance learning.
All WCU-AAM Phase I teachers have been notified of Phase II activities. There are 15 schools and one school system
actively working on setting up basic AAM training for teachers. Three 15-hour workshop series have been
set. Additionally, the primary workshop
series is being restructured. This
includes updating handouts and agenda items.
Support for
the AAM Phase I teachers continues with
maintenance and repair of laptops, as well as partnering with them on
workshops. Cherokee High School now has a video conference station
in place. LOC video conference
broadcasts should begin as soon as all technical issues are resolved.
Requests
from AAM teachers to have available to them
high-end video and audio equipment so they can continue work on projects and
begin new ones has prompted two new computer stations in the WCU-AAM office. One is for high-end video editing and CD/DVD
burning. This is very useful for those
teachers who have difficulty with high speed Internet access in their
classrooms or problems with access to needed resources. Teachers can burn their projects onto a DVD
or CD and have them available to use when needed. The second unit allows for
image scanning and audio editing. This
unit also allows CD/DVD burning.
WCU’s AAM program website is located at: http://aam.wcu.edu/newaam/.
California University of Pennsylvania
AAM Workshops
Designing
and delivering workshops to K-12 teachers in California University’s service area remains the core
activity of AAM at Cal U. Following are this month’s workshop-related
activities:
California Area School District
12/7/05 – Two teachers attended a Make It
and Take It workshop
1/23/05 – Two teachers attended a Digital
Storytelling Process workshop
Workshop curriculum development
AAM staff continues to develop workshop
curricula and have now completed curricula for six workshops. These six workshops are offered to schools as
the basic workshops necessary for teachers to become AAM certified. AAM workshop curricula are guided by
the continuous improvement process and input from participating teachers.
Integrating
AAM into California University of Pennsylvania Courses
To-date,
110 California University faculty have been introduced to AAM either through group or individual meetings. Informing and educating California University faculty about AAM is an important first step to
integrating the LOC online primary source materials into course curricula.
Community
Outreach
AAM staff met with Toni Gayan, head librarian of
the John K. Tener public library in Charleroi, and Nikki Sheppick,
representative of the Charleroi Area Historical Society, to discuss how AAM could leverage LOC online resources
to assist with efforts to establish and operate a Genealogical Resource Center within the JKT public library. It was decided that AAM staff will give the keynote
presentation at the GRC’s April 2005 grand opening event,
which will be advertised to the general public.
The presentation will focus on persons and topics germane to Charleroi and Washington County, and AAM staff will demonstrate LOC
resources related to those persons and topics.
Department
of Library Services and Public Libraries
AAM staff conducted a one-hour presentation/workshop for public librarians
from the Washington and Greene County Library Systems. Mike Brna gave an overview of AAM and the LOC. Byron Holdiman conducted a hands-on workshop
designed to inform librarians of the many online resources available to them
from the LOC and how those online resources could be successfully leveraged to
retain and attract library patrons. All 17 librarians attending were
previously unaware of the scope of online services available from the LOC and
found the information useful and beneficial.
The librarians also found it helpful to learn how the LOC is being
introduced into local schools, as it will enable them to appropriately service
patrons seeking help with assignments related to LOC primary source
materials. The group also discussed the
possibility of having AAM workshops at their libraries and
showed enthusiasm for taking a bus trip to visit the LOC.
Other
AAM staffers were invited to
Intermediate Unit One to make a presentation about the AAM project to staff and curriculum
coordinators representing schools in and around California University’s service area. Intermediate units are regional educational
service agencies created by the Pennsylvania State Legislature in 1970 to
provide support to local school districts, to expand educational services and
to provide cost savings to taxpayers by eliminating service redundancy and
taking advantage of economy of scale.
Intermediate Unit One serves K-12 schools in and around California University’s service area. Mike Brna gave an overview about AAM and managing information in the
digital age, while Byron Holdiman gave examples of how teachers participating
in AAM workshops have applied what they’ve
learned in their classrooms. A total of
40 people attended the presentation/demonstration.
Mike and
Byron were guests on the regional television “Valley Views” talk show, which is
hosted by Robert Burke, Managing Editor of the Valley Independent, a local newspaper serving the greater Mon Valley region. The 30-minute show was devoted entirely to AAM and was broadcast via CUTV, which
is California University’s television broadcast
station. CUTV broadcasts over three
regional television cable networks and reaches 100,000 homes across several
counties in Southwestern
Pennsylvania. “Valley Views” airs on four different days at
different times throughout the week.
Feedback from the broadcast has been positive and the segment featuring AAM has aired 16 times over the past
six weeks.
AAM at California University has begun developing an “adjunct
trainer” pool to prepare others to help deliver AAM workshops during times of high
demand. Two persons have been recruited
and will undergo train-the-trainer sessions in the near future and recruiting
continues for at least three other adjunct trainers.
CUP’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.cup.edu/education/aam.
Waynesburg College
December
and January have been a busy time of planning and preparation for new
workshops. The staff is concentrating on targeting districts that have not
taken advantage of the first 12 hours of workshops, while developing the next
two workshops to be offered. Dr. Ann
Canning is developing the next two workshops in which the content will blend
oral traditions, local history, LOC resources, and digital storytelling.
In
preparation for the new workshops, the AAM staff and WC faculty participated
in the LOC’s Gathering Your Community’s Stories video
conference in mid-December. The conference provided a wealth of information
that will be used in the development of the new workshops. The plan is to implement some of the tips and
activities from the video conference in our workshops. The group was surprised
at how interactive the workshop was using a video conference format. The
initial perception was that there would be more of a monologue. The level of
dialogue and exchange was exciting. The staff is now investigating more
information about the use of technology in gathering and preserving
artifacts.
The AAM staff is collaborating with the
local Main Street project, Waynesburg Prosperous & Beautiful, and
Memory Medallion (http://www.memorymedallion.com/),
a local firm that specializes in preserving personal and community histories.
Undergraduate students enrolled in Service Learning class will research
historic Waynesburg buildings. Students
will use the LOC model for oral history to gather artifacts from local folklife culture to be digitized and used in teacher
workshops and their classrooms. Dr. Tycho De Boer,
professor of history, and Rae Redd, college
librarian, will collaborate by mentoring history students on the project. The
Waynesburg Memory Project will provide an in-depth glimpse into local history
during the last half of the 19th century. The research will be
published onto “Memory Medallions” that can be accessed using PDAs and laptops equipped with software and a reader wand
that can be borrowed from the Main Street manager. The medallions will be
prominently displayed on the historic buildings.
The college
museum and library holdings are being searched for primary source documents.
One of the first pieces of local history discovered in the College’s Museum is
the Women’s Centennial, an 1896 publication that chronicles the role of women throughout
the first 100 years of Greene County history (see image). Digital Preservationist Amy Martin is working
with the students to create a digital archive of local primary source
documents. Ann Canning is developing
curriculum that blends the local history with LOC primary source documents.
Ann Canning
and Amy Martin presented the Digging Deeper and Mapping Memories workshops at Trinity School District. They conducted each workshop
twice, once for the high school and once for the middle school. A total of 28 teachers attended the
workshops. The evaluations were extremely positive. Ann Canning and Barbara
Kirby met with the principal and assistant principal at Carmichaels Elementary.
Carmichaels is planning to launch the AAM project in March at their spring
in-service. Outreach continues to districts which have not fully embraced AAM with an emphasis on reaching the
building principals and Act 48 Councils.
Waynesburg’s
AAM program website is located at: http://aam.waynesburg.edu.
University of South Carolina Upstate
The new
winter term blew in just like the current cold weather. USC Upstate will miss Digital Preservationist
Samantha Cofield, who has taken a job with South
Carolina Educational Television’s Knowitall.com team. Borrowing
a line from a popular song, somehow “we will survive” at USC Upstate without
Samantha.
Director
Bob Pettis and LOC’s Elizabeth Ridgway
enjoyed the warmer climate in Myrtle Beach, SC, where they both presented sessions
at the South Carolina Educational Technology Conference. Bob and Elizabeth also attended the Florida
Technology Conference at the end of January.
Elizabeth staffed the LOC’s booth and Bob facilitated
a session on Digital Primary Sources.
Winter
workshops have started at USC Upstate.
Bob is currently teaching workshops to 42 participants in two school
districts. The focus is on the
instructional use of digital images. A
third digital images workshop with another 22 participants will begin in early
February.
USCS’s AAM program website is located at:
http://www.uscupstate.edu/academics/education/adventure_mind.asp.
Northern Virginia Schools Partnership
During the
week of January 10th the AAM NVA staff served about 140 teachers in four Northern Virginia School Districts with specialized programs for
school-based teams, classroom teachers, and foreign language and social studies
teachers. Among those participants were 40 library media specialists,
technology specialists, and classroom teacher teams who participated in two
full days of workshops and visited the LOC. Some comments from the participants
included:
“This was the best professional development I’ve had in 6
years.”
“Great opportunity and program.”
“Keep the AAM NVA site going. It’s a great way to save time and find good sources.”
“Very exciting project!”
The AAM NVA partnership continues to grow
each day and is enjoying seeing teachers implementing lessons with students
that use primary sources from the LOC.
Northern
Virginia’s
AAM program website is located at: http://www.aamnva.org/.
Home School Program
AAM Home School Staff
The AAM Home School Program welcomes Julie Umanova as the Administrative Assistant.
Julie previously worked as a Legal Assistant with Charity Legal Aid in Asheville.
New AAM Home School Computer Lab
The AAM Home School Program will begin
offering workshops at the Columbus Campus of Isothermal Community College (ICC)
on February 7. The classes will be held Monday afternoons until May 23. Cheryl Lawter, the AAM Lab Assistant for the workshops held on the main
campus of ICC, will serve as the Lab Assistant for the Columbus Campus. Thank
you to Carole Bartol, Director of the ICC – Columbus
Campus, and Curtis Vance, ICC Technology Systems Administrator, for making this
opportunity possible for home school parents and students in Polk County.
Spring 2005 Schedule
Workshops
will be held at 11 colleges and community colleges during the spring semester.
Parents may reserve a computer for each member of their family by calling the AAM Home School office toll-free at 866-325-8585.
The days for each college are listed below.
AB Tech Community College............................................................ Wednesday
AB Tech - Enka.................................................................................. Monday
Blue Ridge Community College........................................................ Tuesday
Brevard College................................................................................. Tuesday
Haywood Community College........................................................... Friday
Isothermal Community College......................................................... Tuesday
Isothermal Community College - Columbus..................................... Monday
Mars Hill College................................................................................ Monday
Mayland Community College - Burnsville ......................................... Tuesday
Montreat College................................................................................ Wednesday
Tri-County Community College - Andrews........................................ Thursday
The Home School’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.aamhomeschool.org/.