ERC E-Newsletter

Issue No. 96

Tuesday, September 7, 2004

PFI - KCEEI - AAM


PISGAH FOREST INSTITUTE (PFI)

The Pisgah Forest Institute (PFI) staff wishes to express its appreciation to Congressman Charles H. Taylor (R, NC-11) for taking time from his busy schedule on July 25th in order to address the the attendees of the final Summer 2004 workshop, Earth/Environmental Science for Middle and High School Educators. In his remarks the Congressman commended PFI for stressing objectivity and scientific accuracy in its in-service training program. He also stated that an effort is underway to establish another environmental science training program for teachers modeled after PFI that will be based in Northern California in addition to the one already started this summer in Pennsylvania at Keystone College.

The largest portion of PFI's funding comes through a Community Service grant from the USDA Forest Service which is handled through the Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas (ERC). Mr. Taylor established the ERC to further promote economic development in the region through education, infrastructure and capital development. PFI is one of the educational programs made possible by the funding appropriated for the 11th District due to Mr. Taylor’s efforts.

Through the generosity of the Progress Energy Foundation, more teachers from the Progress Energy service area attended institute workshops. In the Summer of 2004, fifty-one such educators took a total of 65 PFI courses.

The PFI staff is very appreciative of the many participants in the 2004 summer workshops who sent copies of the digital photographs that they took while attending those classes. Several of these recently were added to the PFI website, www.brevard.edu/pfi. Others have been posted on the Institute bulletin board in the Moore Science Building on the Brevard College campus. Still other pictures will be incorporated into future PFI brochures and other publications.

The variety of workshops, demonstrations and lecture/discussions that will presented at the 14th Annual Conference of the Environmental Educators of North Carolina, which will be held on October 1st – 4th at the Ridge Haven Conference Center located just west of Brevard, will result in professionally beneficial experiences of teachers in traditional and non-traditional positions. PFI staff members have been involved in the formulation of the program. A special effort has been made to include activities that would assist attendees who are considering becoming environmental educators. More information about this meeting can be found at the EENC website. (www.EENC.org)

PFI’s website is located at www.brevard.edu/pfi.  

Since the end of the summer programs, KceeI has taken the time to thank those who helped contribute to their successful program – Congressman Don Sherwood, Keystone College President Ned Boehm, Dean of the College Charlotte Ravaioli, the campus community, the course consultants and presenters from various agencies, and especially the support and guidance of Jennie Pressley from the Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas, Inc.

The Institute staff is in the process of selecting dates and courses for the upcoming year. KceeI hopes to run the Forest Stewardship and Watershed Concepts course again in the summer of 2005 based on how well they went this year. Other courses, as well as partnerships, are being discussed. KceeI is also undergoing the process of developing a proposal to the NEIU-19 which will allow for teachers to earn Continuing Professional Education credits as well as Act 48 hours.

This Fall the Institute will partner with NEIU-19 in helping to facilitate environmental education opportunities in northeastern Pennsylvania. KceeI will host two 4-hour sessions at Keystone in early October on “ Lake and Pond Ecology” and “Groundwater Education” where teachers attending will earn Act 48 hours.

KceeI has met with Dr. Vito Forlenza, Assistant Executive Director, NEIU-19 to consider a partnership helping the intermediate unit with a GIS course.

KceeI has helped to assist the Cradle of Forestry in American Interpretive Association (CFAIA) to select a partner in Lycoming County, PA. The Natural Inquirer TLP will be a working partnership between science educators at three middle schools, CFAIA, and the Forest Service’s Natural Inquirer staff. Its purpose will be to develop and evaluate electronic and computer-based technology that enhances the use of the Natural Inquirer in middle school classrooms, and to ultimately provide training to other educators.

Keystone College has been chosen as the “Liberty Award” winner in recognition of its environmental partnerships. The College will be honored at Scranton’s Interdependence Day on September 12 th.

KceeI’s website is www.kceei.keystone.edu.

BrevardCollege

A new face has joined the Brevard College partner as the Associate Director of the AAM program.  Symantha Petitt is a veteran middle school teacher from Henderson County Schools, where she taught North Carolina history, social studies, language arts, and science.  During her time with Henderson County Schools, she co-wrote a Community Foundation grant to fund Information Literacy-based staff development for her school, for which she also provided instruction.  Symantha has also been a participant in past AAM workshops.  At the same time, the Brevard College partner would like to say a fond farewell to Chesley Huskins, Instructional Technologist and Digital Preservationist. Chesley left to pursue a career as Media Specialist at Brevard High School. She will still be working closely with the AAM program as Brevard High schedules upcoming staff development with the Brevard College partner.

After wrapping up a successful Summer Institute workshop series, the Brevard College partner is taking learning to the road with school visits in the Brevard service area. On August 16 th and 17 th, workshops were held at Hendersonville Christian School (formerly Faith Christian School). On day one, the 16 participants were led through word processing techniques. Many “oohs” and “ahs” filled the room as the captivated teachers learned the finer details of inserting drop caps and creating headers and footers. The participants produced a newsletter based on content from America’s Digital Library. Day two consisted of presentation techniques on PowerPoint. Once again, teachers enjoyed learning the various bells and whistles of custom animation and slide transitions, as they created a presentation using images and sound clips from the American Memory Quilts and Quiltmaking Collection. Follow-up workshops have been scheduled for September and October.

The Brevard College AAM staff is analyzing the American Memory Collection for connections to all content areas to gain a broad audience base for workshop participation. With the launching of Phase II, the Brevard College partner gave presentations to various schools in the Brevard service area. On August 23, the workshops were presented to the Brevard High School faculty. Other presentations were held on August 25 th at Henderson County Public Schools Central Office, on August 30 th at Brevard Academy and on September 3 rd at West Henderson High School.

AAM-Brevard is looking forward to teaming with AAM-Mars Hill on the upcoming Digital Storytelling workshop to be held on October 5th, 8th, and 11 th at the AAM-Brevard computer lab.

Brevard’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.brevard.edu/aam/

MarsHillCollege

As the summer ends, Mars Hill College AAM staff members Dr. Ed Shearin and AnneMarie Walter completed all five planned digital storytelling workshops. In addition, they conducted a special workshop for Mitchell County teachers.

Because of water problems in the county, the opening of school was delayed. AAM alumni teachers Ann Schortinghouse and Jackie Rensink contacted Ed and AnneMarie about bringing digital storytelling to Harris Middle School. Twelve teachers attended the workshop – nine from Harris and three from nearby Deyton Elementary. All the teachers created digital stories that they could use in their classes from language arts to science to music and more. Two teams of teacher focused on mathematics. Harris teachers Betty Hall and Sue Ellen Grindeland developed “Math – Who Needs It?” In their story, they demonstrated how people use math every day at home and in the workplace. Jennifer Gregory’s digital story used examples of why we need measurement. Both of these stories used photographs from the American Memory collections. Carolyn Dotts and Ava Hollifield created a wonderful story with the theme, “Never Give Up.” Told in first person, the teachers shared the true story of a man whose dyslexia made it difficult to learn to read. After failing in school, he received help from those around him and succeeded in learning to read. He later graduated from college and became a teacher himself. Again, all images came from the Library of Congress.

Mars Hill AAM’s work with school principals is paying off. Staff members have already scheduled workshops in a number of schools, including a return visit to Harris Middle School.

Ed and AnneMarie presented digital storytelling to the Teaching American History Master Teacher Corps at the end of August. Project Coordinator Polly Johnson has brought excitement to history teachers throughout the area. Polly completed the AAM program at Montreat College.

Additionally, the Mars Hill AAM and Brevard AAM staff will team up to present digital storytelling on the Brevard College campus to teachers from Transylvania, Henderson, and Polk counties. Since the implementation of digital storytelling in January 2004, 99 teachers representing 35 schools have been trained.

With classes beginning at Mars Hill, the AAM staff is again being invited to introduce the American Memory site to undergraduate classes. Ed Shearin met with Dr. Deb Morris, Education Chair and ACCESS Professor in History, to review evaluating primary resources from the LOC. AnneMarie spoke to Dr. Morris’ U.S. History evening class about evaluating primary sources. As many students in MHC’s ACCESS program are pre-service teachers, this is an excellent way to introduce the digital resources of the LOC to teachers early in their careers. Additional MHC faculty/staff are scheduled to take Digital Storytelling Level 1 this Fall to implement in their content and work areas.

Digital storytelling has evolved. Below are the current descriptions of Level I and Level II:

Mars Hill’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.aam.mhc.edu/

MontreatCollege

Montreat held its second Summer Institute on July 20-22 with 12 teachers in attendance. The institute, like the first one in June, covered digital storytelling using primary resources from the Library of Congress. The teachers seemed to thoroughly enjoy their time of learning new ideas and developing activities for their classrooms. When offered the opportunity to participate in a six- hour follow-up workshop, six teachers signed up. The follow-up workshop was split into two three-hour sessions and was held during the weeks of August 9 th and 16 th. Adding the teachers from the June institute, Montreat had an attendance of eight teachers. Teachers attending these follow-up workshops were encouraged to recruit colleagues to participate in the same 18-hour series. As a direct result of the summer institutes, three schools are currently on the calendar for participating in workshops this fall, and it is certain that more will be added.

Twenty teachers and the principal from Sunshine Elementary held their annual school retreat at Montreat on July 27 th-28 th and completed the first 12 hours of a 35-hour series. The participants had a great time learning photo analysis techniques and how to replicate the primary source photos in a short “Make It and Take It” session. They enjoyed searching through the LOC Website and American Memory to find treasures for their students and build digital stories with their photograph finds. The Montreat AAM partner staff traveled to Sunshine on August 24 th to continue the series with a more in-depth look at digital storytelling.

On August 3 rd, nine teachers at Stone Mountain School participated in the “What are Primary Resources?” workshop. The school did not have Internet access, so Montreat staff used the “Internot”* to deliver the workshop. Each participant worked off their individual copy of the Internot and learned how to navigate through and download resources from American Memory. While limited in where they could go and what could be downloaded, the teachers expressed how appreciative they were for the Internot and for the ideas of how to use the primary resources with their students.

Digital Preservationist Brian Bartlett spent most of the last weekend in July re-imaging the Montreat AAM computer lab to clean the computers from this summer’s use and prepare the computers for the Home School partner. He worked with Pam Johnson, Home School AAM Director, to ensure the software they needed was installed and made ready for home school parents and students.

Information packets were assembled and mailed to every school and central office within Montreat’s service area during the week of August 16 th. Within a week, Montreat’s AAM staff had heard from three schools wishing to schedule workshops for the fall and the spring with one school showing interest in a summer institute for 2005. Montreat is preparing for a busy year.

* A technique that simulates a live Internet experience. AAM staff develop Internot CDs to demonstrate LOC Website resources and how to access them 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/

WesternCarolinaUniversity

Workshops

WCU AAM staff will be working with six schools to develop workshops for this fall.  It is hoped that all teachers in all three schools will take part in the workshop series.  The goal is to work with 200 teachers in the Fall and provide 18 hours of training. 

Lesson Plan Database

Nineteen new lesson plans have been added to the national lesson plan database.  The new lessons were developed by teachers in the Montreat AAM program.  Evaluators for the plans are from SIU-Edwardsville.

Sixty-one additional plans from Montreat are in the process of being evaluated by teams at WCU and SIU-E.  DePaul, USC Upstate, and Loyola University have also submitted lesson plans for review.  These will be sent to evaluators as soon as their current assignment is complete.

WeatherBug

WCU AAM is working with the AAM National office and WeatherBug staff to develop a series of LOC American Memory-based learning activities to accompany each of the WeatherBug's K-12 lessons. 

Pre-Service Teacher Workshops

WCU AAM will present a 30-minute workshop for pre-service teacher education students in September.  These are secondary English methods students.  The focus will be on the American Memory lesson plans and the AAM lesson plan database. 

WCU’s AAM program website is located at: http://aam.wcu.edu/newaam/

CaliforniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

The AAM director and assistant met with the superintendent and principal of the Brownsville Area School District to discuss AAM in more detail. Following that meeting, the AAM director introduced the Phase II workshops with a PowerPoint presentation to 43 teachers from the Brownsville Area School District on August 27. The teachers expressed interest in AAM and workshops are scheduled to begin near the end of September or early October. The date depends upon the completion of a new computer lab currently under construction at Brownsville High School.

California University’s AAM project is ramping up its awareness campaign as letters and informational packets were sent to superintendents of the 10 eligible school districts in California University’s service area. Six of the 10 districts have either committed to using AAM or are seeking additional information about the project.

Byron Holdiman was hired as the Digital Preservationist. Mr. Holdiman came to AAM from PALINET, which is a cooperative membership organization of hundreds of institutions that collect, preserve, and provide access to the record of humankind. These institutions include libraries, information centers, museums, archives, and other similar organizations situated in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and neighboring states. The Network was formed in 1936 to promote library cooperation and resource sharing. Since then, PALINET has provided services in response to the growing and changing needs of libraries and related organizations of all types and sizes.

A video conference meeting was held on August 24 th with Judy Graves and Marilyn Parr from the LOC. The California University contingent included AAM staff, AAM adjunct trainers, and university library personnel. The purpose of the video conference was to explore ways to better partner with each other and to introduce staff. The result was a closer working relationship and a clearer understanding of common goals and ways to achieve them.

AAM Assistant Annette Gates completed SAP training for online purchasing. The SAP software will facilitate and improve the purchasing and tracking processes for the AAM project.

California University’s AAM project continues to build strategic relationships. The AAM director met with Sandi Sheppard, who is the PT3 Coordinator from the PA Academy for the Profession of Teaching & Learning. The goal of Pennsylvania’s PT3 is to improve PA State System of Higher Education teacher education graduates’ use of technology in their teaching practices and to integrate technology into their students’ learning environment. Ms. Sheppard has extensive experience training teachers to use technology in their classrooms. The AAM project will adopt PT3’s Curriculum Assessment Rubric for evaluating the technology component of lesson plans developed at AAM workshops. PT3 has an excellent website for teacher resources. Its URL is http://www.pa-academy.org/pt3/portal/index1.htm.

CUP’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.cup.edu/education/aam

WaynesburgCollege

The Waynesburg College AAM Website is officially launched at http://aam.waynesburg.edu. The page was designed to be a dynamic representation of the work that is accomplished. The home page features the AAM logo/link and an early artist’s rendition of Miller Hall, Waynesburg College’s administration building from the Library of Congress. The navigation bar features a visual timeline of Pennsylvania history with each image linked to the LOC’s bibliographic information and a short history. Each teacher that participated in the 2004 Summer Institute is featured on the site and AAM’s “In the Spotlight” feature is being used to highlight participant work and to draw repeat visits to the site.

Work continues on and off campus. Workshops are scheduled in three districts using the format that best fits the individual needs and preferences of the respective districts. Fayette County’s Albert Gallatin School District will host three days of AAM workshops this fall, two days in the district and one on campus. In Greene County the AAM staff will hold concurrent workshops in two districts on October 14 and 15. Central Greene and Jefferson Morgan share the same in-service dates. Bonnie Ordonez director of Waynesburg College Masters of Instructional Technology program will assist with the instruction. Carmichaels is interested in evening instructions for their teachers. Additionally, evening workshop for teachers throughout the 12 th District are scheduled beginning October 6 through November 12 from 4 p.m.– 7 p.m. for seven weeks to complete a 21-hour certification course. Outreach to district superintendents is underway in Washington County.

Ann Canning and Amy Martin partnered with Dr. Maureen Mulvaney in the WC Education Department to conduct a workshop for pre-service secondary education students preparing for their student teaching assignments. Six students were introduced to the Library of Congress primary source documents and the AAM project. Thirty pre-service elementary education students will participate in a three-hour workshop on September 8 as part of their Elementary Social Studies Methods course. The AAM staff is preparing for a faculty workshop on September 3 and the entire faculty is scheduled to participate. The introduction will be followed up with three one-hour sessions that will complete the Introduction to the Library of Congress Workshop for College faculty.

Barbara Kirby continues to work with the Director’s Meeting Planning Committee to finalize the October meeting agenda. Additionally, she scheduled a meeting with Congressman Murtha and his staff to share progress made on the AAM project in the 12 th Congressional District by regional partners, California University and Waynesburg College.

Waynesburg’s AAM program website is located at: http://aam.waynesburg.edu

University of South Carolina Upstate

The AAM partner staff at USC Upstate has had a wonderful summer of workshops. June participation in a district-wide U.S. History Grant Institute involved both a pre-institute workshop about “Using the Internet” followed by “Introduction to American Memory” workshops during which teachers were required to develop lessons integrating primary sources.

Also beginning in June, USC Upstate provided three separate “On-Line Instructional Activities” workshops and one 24-hour “Summer Multimedia Institute.” One of the “Internet Instructional Activities” workshops was a 60-hour series, and the other two were worth 24 hours of recertification credits. Each lasted three days, but with different project requirements. One of these classes was taught to an elementary-level group, and the others were for teachers from all grade levels. All participants were challenged to integrate American Memory into their lessons so that the overall content was at least 25 percent.

Similarly, USC Upstate conducted one full-fledged, two-week, 60-hour district-wide workshop series where participants created lesson plans integrating the following components through creation of a Web page: an interactive Jeopardy game, an Internet-based activity, and a multimedia segment. They were also able to use their digital cameras, which were awarded as incentives for taking the workshop, in completing a fun, camera basics “Who Am I?”/ “Who is my neighbor?” activity, which you can read about at the following URL:

http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/TecEds/training/summer-2003/materials/WhoIsMyNeighborActivity.doc

USCS’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.uscupstate.edu/academics/education/adventure_mind.asp

Northern VirginiaSchools Partnership

Rhonda Clevenson has returned to direct the Northern Virginia Partnership. The partnership is happy to share pilot WebQuests created by social studies teachers in Arlington Public Schools. The WebQuests are located on the AAMNVA Website under “Teachers.” The WebQuests will be implemented with students during this school year and revised as needed.

Back-to-school week for AAMNVA has included 160 gifted resource teachers in Fairfax County continuing their introduction to the LOC site, with back-to-school workshops focusing on using LOC exhibitions with students. Alexandria teachers enjoyed a special Brown vs. Board of Education teachers institute. There was also a special workshop at the LOC for library assistants.

Northern Virginia’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.aamnva.org/

HomeSchool Program

AAM Home School Program Presented to WNC Home School Associations

Pam Johnson, AAM Home School Director , presented an overview of the AAM Home School Program to the Homeschool Association of Rutherford and Polk Counties organizational meeting on Monday, August 16, and the Henderson County Homeschool Association on Thursday, August 19. The availability of the lessons online, making it possible for parents to integrate this resource into their current curriculum, was cited as a very important aspect by several parents.

Comments from previous participating parents included:

New Lab Assistants

Elaine Boone has returned to serve as the computer lab assistant at Mayland Community College’s Burnsville Campus. Elaine left in January to take a full-time substitute position at Mountain Heritage High School. She is a retired school teacher and lives in Burnsville with her husband, David. Elaine was recently elected to the Yancey County School Board and will begin her term in December. We are please to have Elaine return to assist the home school educators and students on Tuesdays at Mayland Community College.

Rhonda Goldsmith has first hand experience with home schooling. She home-schooled her own two daughters, who are now grown. One is employed part-time at Madison Middle School as a technology assistant. Rhonda will support home school families at Mars Hill College on Mondays during 2004-1005.

Cheryl Lawter recently graduated from Isothermal Community College with honors in Information Systems. Cheryl will support home school families at Isothermal Community College on Tuesdays during 2004-2005.

Laurel Richardson will be serving as new computer lab assistant at Brevard College. Laurel is currently completing her master’s degree in Special Education from Western Carolina University.

The Home School Partner welcomes back the returning lab assistants also. They are:

The Home School’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.aamhomeschool.org/

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