PFI’s third summer workshop, Elements
of Nature, has just concluded. Designed to complement our introductory
workshops on Earth and Environmental Science, Elements is a popular workshop, especially with returning
participants. A theme of the workshop is cycling of matter in nature. Each day
has a different focus—on the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, or
biosphere—but the interconnections between each area are stressed. The new
staff members, Dr. Jennifer Frick-Ruppert, Mr. Kevin Fischer, and Mr. Ryan
McCormack, all were instrumental in teaching different segments of the course
and were able to contribute their expertise to an excellent workshop conceived
and organized by long-time staff members. Mr. David Funderburk was particularly
instrumental in preparing for and executing Elements,
and was himself a key element in the workshop’s success. He was ably assisted
by the other staff members, Ms. Jessica Sharp, Ms. Jayne Hall, and Mr. Aaron
Motley. USDA Forest Service employee Mr.
Bill Jackson provided an excellent overview of nutrient cycling in the
atmosphere, and local educator Mr. Dick Hilliard provided geology
expertise.
Much of Elements of Nature was physically
conducted in Pisgah National Forest, although presentations and
activities also occurred in the classrooms and laboratories of Brevard College. During the day on the Geosphere,
participants hiked in the Forest surrounding the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education to view
granite domes, migrating boulders, and river rocks, also calculating stream
sediment load and flow rate. The following day, the Hydrosphere, found
participants immersed in the Davidson River as they evaluated water quality of
a stream surrounded by National Forest, learning chemical, physical, and
biological techniques. Over the course of several afternoons, the Forest
Service’s video, The Greatest Good,
was viewed by the participants. Participants were assisted in collecting,
identifying, and preserving tree leaves from the Brevard College campus as herbarium specimens for
their classrooms. All these activities emphasized the forest as a valuable
resource at many different levels.
The
remaining workshops include the three-day workshops The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Medicinal, Invasive, and Poisonous
Plants, and What Goes Around Comes
Around: the Art and Science of Recycling and Composting in the Classroom,
and the six-day Earth and Environmental
Science for Middle and High School Teachers. An open slot is present in the
first of the short courses. To register or receive information on the workshops
visit the PFI website.
PFI's
website is located at www.brevard.edu/pfi.
KceeI is currently preparing for our next course, Forests
and Society. This course begins on
Sunday, July 16 and concludes on Friday, July 21. Following the success of the Watershed
Explorers Course, KceeI hopes to provide the participants with a yet another
rewarding experience. There will be 25
teachers participating which is the maximum enrollment for any KceeI
course. A quote that was recently shared
with us will be a model for what we will strive to embody in our future
courses, “I wish all my courses could have been as engaging, interactive and
hands on as this was, I would definitely recommend these courses to others!”
Jim Nelson, a retired state forester of 42 ˝ years, will
present the keynote address on the History of Pennsylvania’s Forests for the
third time. Jim’s account of the
Pennsylvania Forest History is always very well received and KceeI is pleased
to welcome him again in 2006. As part of
his presentation, Jim will show part of a recently released DVD entitled, “Pennsylvania Forest
History with Jim Nelson.” This program
depicts how past land use has formed today’s forest and explains the role of
forest management in sustaining our forest ecosystems into the 21st
century. This film was written and
narrated by Jim Nelson.
There are
many facilitators who assist KceeI in carrying out this course. They come from a variety of local
agencies. They are: The DCNR, The USDA
Forest Service, The PA Game Commission, Penn State Cooperative Extension, Deer
Park Lumber, The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Grey Towers
National
Historic Landmark, The Conservation Districts of Bradford, Lackawanna and Wyoming Counties, as well as professors from Keystone College.
We are looking forward to yet another successful course.
The schedule for the remaining KceeI courses is as follows:
- Exotic and Invasive Species July 23rd – July 26th
- Geology of Northeastern PA July 23rd – July 28th
Stay tuned
to the next newsletter for more about the Forests and Society course.
Just a reminder…
KceeI’s
website is located at www.KceeI.keystone.edu.
Pacific Forest Institute
For updated
information on the Pacific Forest Institute, please visit our website at:
http://www.jessup.edu/academics/pacificforestinstitute.
Hunter M.
Goosmann, General Manager of ERC Broadband, is in Chicago this week attending the
Community/Municipal Broadband Solutions Summit. The summit is sponsored by the
Rural Broadband Coalition and focuses on regulations, trends and economic
development.
ERC Broadband has partnered with SkyRunner to offer wireless service in the
Spartanburg, SC area. This allows ERC Broadband to increase its footprint
at the present time without the high cost of building additional fiber. ERC Broadband has had an operational
Point of Presence (PoP) in Spartanburg since April 2005.
ERC Broadband’s website is located at: www.ercbroadband.org.
DePaul University
DePaul was
asked to give a presentation and conduct two hands-on sessions at the fifth
annual TITUS Summer Institute on July 12th.
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) serves a highly diverse urban
student population. The university's teacher preparation programs, through the
Council on Teacher Education (CTE) enrolls approximately 1,100 students per year and
is the top provider of new teachers to the Chicago Public School (CPS) system, annually recommending 250
to 300 teachers for certification.
Project TITUS (Teachers Infusing Technology in Urban Schools) prepares
teachers to use technology effectively in urban public school classrooms. Approximately 80 CPS teachers are expected to attend the
summer institute.
The plenary
session will be an orientation to using the Library of Congress Web site,
including purpose for going to the site and navigating through the site. The hands-on sessions will focus on access to
and exploration of primary resources in the American Memory, the instructional
values and uses of primary sources in the curricula, and an evaluation and
discussion of the lesson plans on the Learning Page.
DePaul’s AAM program Web site is located
at: http://aam.depaul.edu/.
Governors State University
The month
of June was devoted to digital storytelling, which GSU have revamped into
Digital Historical Narratives (DHN).
These workshops are taught within a constructivist learning environment
which supports 21st Century learning for the digital students. The participants
were both GSU professors and K-12 teachers.
Most of the
examples created by the GSU professors and classroom teachers are in the format
of "digital historical narratives"
using primary sources from the LOC. For
those who have not yet caught the national fever for digital stories and
narratives or seek further understanding of the importance of digital
storytelling as related to higher order thinking skills, check out the
following resources:
Be sure to
visit the Digital Historical Narratives produced by
the participants during this 21-hour workshop.
Here are a few examples of stories and narratives:
- Dr. John Meyer Counting Audubon's Birds. See how a math professor not
only used LOC primary sources but also created a problem-based
narrative. Often math teachers
struggle to see ways to incorporate LOC primary sources into meaningful
learning experiences. This project
goes beyond that to challenge students with some higher order thinking.
- Shirley Comer Nursing Licensure is a
digital narrative regarding the historical perspective of how and why
nursing became a profession that requires a license to practice. The production will be used in an
undergraduate course in “The History and Ethics of Health Professionals.”
- Karyn Concannon Pink & Say Never Forget demonstrates
how an elementary teacher used the book by the same name to create her own
first-person narrative which makes the book come to life and makes that
personal connection to the words on the page for her young students.
Governors State’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://aam.govst.edu/.
Loyola University
As many
already are aware, AAM Director Dr. Joy Rogers has retired from Loyola University
Chicago and AAM as of June 30,
2006. She will be missed greatly by many at Loyola
and by the AAM program as well. As of July 1, Dr. Marcus Hughes and Michelle
Fry will continue the AAM program as acting co-directors at
Loyola. Both Marcus and Michelle are
working with the School of Education Dean, Dr. David Prasse, on the transition
of directorship. Considering the
staffing changes, all are looking forward to an exciting and successful continuation
of the program.
Along with
staffing changes, the program has continued working on LOC goals. They have also been busy setting workshop
schedules and plans. For example, Loyola
faculty members have requested AAM workshops for their students in
both summer and fall courses. The
program has also been planning workshops for various K-12 schools throughout
the Chicago area.
Loyola’s AAM Web site is located at: http://www.luc.edu/schools/education/aam/index.shtml.
Eastern Illinois University
The AAM program at Eastern Illinois University is enjoying working with East
Central Illinois educators in workshops and conferences. Many teachers are using their summer vacation
to learn about the invaluable resources available from the Library’s Web site
and how to effectively incorporate primary sources into curriculum. The past
two months have seen a surge of middle and high school educators interested in
the EIU AAM program. Teachers at these levels from
Casey-Westfield, Tuscola, and Hutsonville have recently completed basic
training.
A workshop
will be held August 10 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum titled “Verse
and Chorus: Lincoln” that is a unique professional
development opportunity for educators.
The three-hour sessions will explore songs and poems from the LOC’s
digital collections inspired by the life and actions of Abraham Lincoln. EIU AAM also continues to be invited to
speak at conferences for education professional organizations on the topics of
increasing comprehension and information literacy skills utilizing primary
sources from the Library.
EIU AAM experienced a personnel change in
June when Steve Staskiewicz left his role as Digital Preservationist to pursue other
professional interests. Steve has not yet been replaced, as EIU AAM considers the evolution of the
program and attributes to look for in applicants that will meet the needs of
the new Teaching with Primary Sources program.
The external communications component of EIU AAM is very important.
The May
edition of the EIU AAM Newsletter featured a theme of
“Patriotism” and identified Library digitized primary sources and collections
that could be used to deepen student understanding of this topic.
EIU’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://www.eiu.edu/~eiuaam/.
Illinois State University
The excitement among ISU-AAM participants as they find new
resources and teaching methodologies is contagious. Selected comments gathered
at the end of our summer institutes include:
·
“This
has been a great week. I have learned a great deal. I will recommend this to
others!”
·
“It
was helpful to see how everyone incorporated the LOC into their lessons. It
sparked new ideas!”
·
“Thank
you for an outstanding four days. I really got a lot out of this class
that I will actually use!”
·
“I
love the final product I’m leaving the class with! It was a great use of my
time (even in the summer).”
·
“I
love learning activities and experiences which allow me to improve how and what
I teach—even after 31 years of teaching, there are always ways for me to grow
and learn. I also need time to use and practice new skills and ideas and have
greatly appreciated the time we have been given, and the patient one-on-one
help we received from the instructors.”
Their
excitement has helped us spread the word about our program throughout Central Illinois. Several participants have asked
for advanced professional development in order to return and learn more about
the primary resources available from the LOC.
We are
currently preparing for a presentation to a “Summer Camp for School Librarians”
sponsored by the Rolling Prairie Library System located in Decatur, Illinois. Participants will be introduced to teaching with primary sources.
ISU’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/aam.
Southern Illinois
University-Edwardsville
AAM SIUE completed the first of four
“block sessions” for the second Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) cohort. There are nine students with various
backgrounds and subject emphasis including history, science, math, foreign
language, and language arts. During the
first block, students are introduced to the Library of Congress Web site, basic
primary source analysis techniques, evaluating lessons using digital primary
sources, and exploring best practices of technology integration.
Another
three-credit graduate course will begin on July 17 as the first open enrollment
AAM course. This course will be taught as a partial
online / in-class course.
The
Regional Office of Education #10 (Christian/Montgomery counties) held a 12-hour
basic workshop series in Taylorville June 7-8.
Fifteen teachers successfully completed the basic workshop series creating
curricula on the topics: Statue of
Liberty, child labor, the seven continents, segregation /civil rights,
literature of slave narratives, and edits from famous Americans.
Virden School District held a district-wide basic workshop
series on June 14-15. Ten teachers
completed the basic workshop series creating curricula about the birth of the
American flag and Chinese and Mexican immigration.
WCU AAM Director Beth Coulter, AAM Online Education Director Pam Johnson, and SIUE AAM Director Amy Wilkinson presented at
the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in San Diego on July 5. There were more than 30 people in
attendance. The presentation and
handouts can be found at the NECC’s Web site through July 2006 at this link: http://web.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2006/program/presenter_handouts.php.
SIU-E’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://www.siue.edu/education/aam.
Metropolitan State College of Denver
AAM-Colorado Highlights for 2005-2006
During
the reporting year 2006-2006, AAM-Colorado serviced more than 20 Colorado school districts, with more than 600 teachers, librarians, media
specialists, and administrators attending AAM-Colorado workshops. AAM-Colorado has collaborated with 11 school districts to create on-site
primary source workshops. In addition, more than 600 pre-service teachers per
year are introduced to accessing Library of Congress digital primary source
material and the technology required to use it, in Metro State’s required teacher education course, Educational Technology (EDT 3610).
Jefferson
County Public Schools, the largest district in Colorado, was informed that they have been awarded a $950,000 Teaching American
History grant. AAM-Colorado has been asked to participate, and will teach its workshops to
all grant participants.
Summer
2006 Learning Activities Development
AAM-Colorado Learning
Activities Development (LAD) brings teams of
content experts together to create learning activities incorporating primary
sources and other educational elements to accomplish stated learning outcomes. LAD projects:
·
Follow
a specified template.
·
Are
centered around a topic (unit or lesson) using American Memory primary sources.
·
Propose
and answer essential questions about the topic.
·
Address
specific state learning standards.
AAM-Colorado-trained educators are
currently completing Learning Activities Development projects for Summer 2006. Topics that have been completed during the 2005-2006 year,
or are currently in development include:
Elementary/Middle School Level
·
Indian Battles of the 19th Century
Middle School Level
·
Archie’s Autographs: White House Visitors at the
Turn of the 20th Century
·
What’s a Region: Geography
·
Westward Expansion through Colorado
·
Investigative Study of Benjamin Franklin
·
The Battle of Gettysburg
·
Colfax Avenue’s Role in the
Commercial Development of Downtown Denver
·
Mark Twain’s Years in Hartford, CT
·
Conservation and the Creation of Major National Parks
High School Level
·
Analyzing World War I and II Propaganda
·
The Immigrant Experience in the United
States: 1850-1930
·
Uncovering the Evolution of the Rights of African
Americans Using American Memory
·
Chinese Americans
·
The Impact of the Progressive Era on America
·
The Power of Words: The Effectiveness of Rhetoric in Letters and
Speeches of the Civil War Period
·
Great
Depression – Impact on the Lives of Americans
·
Battles
of the American Revolution
·
The Rise of Collective Federalism
A selection
of completed LAD projects will be made available to the educational community through
links on the AAM-Colorado Web site. For
more information, visit the AAM-Colorado LAD page at http://aamcolorado.mscd.edu/learnactSchedule0606.htm.
AAM-Colorado
Events
AAM-Colorado has hosted the
following special events in 2005-2006:
·
Librarian Days: Librarians from around
the state were invited to attend a professional development day and bring a teacher. Activities include
presentations by AAM-Colorado collaborators,
and workshop participants who have created learning activities development
projects. More than 75 educators attended AAM-Colorado’s 2006
Librarian Days.
·
Google Earth/Geocaching Presentations:
Educators were invited to attend presentations demonstrating how geocaching can be used in conjunction with Google Earth, to
create activities relating to a variety of topics including math, science,
geography, and history.
·
Historical Walking Tours of Denver: Using primary sources
for comparison, Metro State’s Adjunct Professor of
History Kevin Rucker and AAM-Colorado Assistant
Director Chris Jennings guided walking tours of historic downtown Denver.
·
Podcasting on Colfax
Avenue: Completed in conjunction with the brochure “26 Miles
of Colfax History,” and funded
through a grant from the History
Channel’s Save Our History program, students from Holstrum Special Options School and their teacher Michelle Pearson
(an AAM-Colorado participant) spent weeks researching the street’s long history and producing the brochure and
podcasts. To hear the podcasts,
go to http://historicdenver.org/colfaxhistory.asp.
Goodbye and Welcome to AAM-Colorado Staff
Regretfully, AAM-Colorado says goodbye to Assistant
Director Chris Jennings, as he departs for Washington, D.C. and the Library of Congress. AAM-Colorado is pleased to welcome
former student employee Diane Watkins as Online
Content Developer beginning July 2006.
MSCD’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://aamcolorado.mscd.edu.
Quincy University
The week of
July 11th, Quincy University began its K-12 faculty institutes.
The August one already has an even larger registration. The video conferencing
with the Library has given these teachers another perspective on learning. The
local district in Quincy does not allow video conferencing
in schools. Not one teacher had participated in such an experience.
Shortly the
QU Web site will be posted. This site
and the handouts for the institutes are indications of the Community of
Practice present among AAM directors. It is with gratitude to
this group that handouts are shared with institute participants.
Quincy’s AAM program Web site is located at:
http://www.aamprogram.org/introduction/aam_partners_detail.aspx?id=29.