Archives: August, 2008

If you use the micro-blogging application Twitter, you can now follow LEARN NC and get mini-updates on what we’re up to.

Twitter is a micro-blogging site where you can post updates of up to 140 characters. Updates are frequent and concise by nature.

If you’re not a Twitterer, you can still keep tabs on LEARN NC in the News, information, and updates section.

What would students say if they could write a letter to the next president of the United States? Google and the National Writing Project invite teachers and mentors of high school students to join their online writing and publishing project called “Letters to the next President: Writing our Future.” It is a great way to get students talking about the upcoming presidential election and to think about the issues that are important to them.

Using GoogleDocs, an online writing tool, teachers will be able to guide their students in writing letters that “most directly fits their local curricula and educational goals.” Not only will students learn how to write a thoughtful, persuasive letter, they will be able to voice their opinions on the topics that are important to them. The letters will be published online for the public to read, even the candidates themselves!

If you are interested in becoming a part of this exciting project, you can learn more about it at http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/doc/nwpsites/writing_our_future.csp Registration closes on September 8, 2008, and student writing must be submitted before October 30th.

Part 2 of our digital textbook for North Carolina history is now available! Called Grand visions, rough realities: The development of colonial North Carolina, it contains 67 pages of primary sources and background reading, plus guides for using the kinds of primary sources provided. In developing it, we’ve worked with the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, the North Carolina Museum of History, UNC Libraries, Fort Dobbs State Historic Site, the North Carolina Literary Review, and other partners. Also included in this module are interactive maps built on Google maps technology, video animations, “zoomable” maps and illustrations, and more than 100 other photographs, paintings, illustrations, and maps.

About the digital textbook

LEARN NC’s “digital textbook” for 8th-grade North Carolina history provides a new model for teaching and learning. It makes primary sources central to the learning experience, using them to tell the stories of the past rather than merely illustrating it. Special web-based tools help students learn to read those sources and ask good questions of them. And because it’s on the web, this textbook relies on multimedia whenever possible to supplement or even replace text.

We’re publishing the online textbook in several parts, or “modules.” Part 1, Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, was published last spring and includes an educator’s guide with lesson plans. Part 3, on the Revolutionary period, will be published this fall — we hope, in time for eighth-grade teachers to use the resources when they get to that part of the curriculum. We’re also working on lesson plans and a full educator’s guide for the colonial period. The remaining modules will roll out in 2009.

You can learn more about the digital textbook project from this flyer (PDF, 95KB).

Highlights

Highlights from the colonial module include:

• A collection of wills and probate inventories with process guides for students let them explore daily life and eighteenth-century families.
• Two interactive tools for exploring maps — Google maps and eighteenth-century maps — let students explore travel and transportation then and now.
• Primary sources and background reading about West Africa and the slave trade help students understand the origins of African American culture.
• Science integration! Video animation shows why North Carolina’s coast gets so many hurricanes, and a discussion of the longleaf pine forests combines economic and environmental history with ecology.

More to come!

A few more pieces of colonial content are planned for fall 2008. Still to come: an interactive map of one of North Carolina’s first towns, slideshows of colonial towns and homes, and video demonstrations of colonial life.

Comments?

As we develop future modules and refine the content we’ve already published, we need your help! If you use any part of the digital textbook in your classroom, please contact us to tell us how you’re using it, how your students respond, and what we can do to improve the textbook.

LEARN NC will present three sessions at the Johnston Co. Beginning Teacher Institute on Thursday, August 14th at West Smithfield Elementary. The first session will help teachers cope during their hectic initial ten days of teaching. The second will guide teachers through the resources on the LEARN NC website geared toward new teachers. Finally, we will speak to teachers participating in the LEARN NC Virtual Mentoring program. A LEARN NC mentor will be on hand to talk about the virtual mentoring experience and what teachers can expect to get from the program.

LEARN NC has recently published a number of excellent lesson plans for teaching about world cultures using multimedia. Incorporating audio recordings and photographs from countries around the world, the lesson plans cover a variety of curriculum areas and grade levels and explore topics such as ecology and conservation in Vietnam’s waterways, traditional weaving in Ecuador, salt trading in Asia, and the connections between geography and culture in Nepal.

We’ll be adding more like these over the coming weeks, including a science lesson plan exploring the origins of rubber and a series on using photographs to teach English language learners.

The N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh offers seven six-week online workshops for educators. Teachers can earn continuing education credit, boost their knowledge of captivating North Carolina topics and get ideas for classroom activities. These self-paced workshops are available to public, private and home school educators and provide up to 4 CEU credits.

The schedule for upcoming workshops follows:

• American Indians in North Carolina Past and Present - Begins Sept. 1,

• Legends of North Carolina - Begins Nov. 1, 2008

• Civil Rights in North Carolina - Begins Jan. 1, 2009

• Women in North Carolina History - Begins Feb. 15, 2009

• Stories From the Civil War - Begins April 1, 2009

• North Carolina at Home and in Battle During World War II - Begins May 15, 2009

• North Carolina Geography - Begins July 1, 2009

For More information about the workshops, visit: http://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/edu/ProfDev.htm

A printable registration form can be found at: http://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/collateral/profdevelopment.pdf

For additional details about the online workshops, call 919-807-7971, or e-mail tricia.l.blakistone@ncmail.net

Part 2 of our digital textbook for North Carolina history is scheduled to be published on August 22. Called Grand visions, rough realities: The development of colonial North Carolina, it will contain 67 pages of primary sources and background reading, plus guides for using the kinds of primary sources provided. Also included in this module are interactive maps built on Google maps technology, video animations, “zoomable” maps and illustrations, and at least 200 other photographs, paintings, illustrations, and maps.

If you are planning to use the digital textbook in your classroom and would like a preview before the 22d, please contact us and we’ll be happy to send you a temporary guest login and the double-secret URL.

Part 1, Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, is already available and includes an educator’s guide with lesson plans. Part 3, on the Revolutionary period, will be published this fall — we hope, in time for eighth-grade teachers to use the resources when they get to that part of the curriculum. We’re also working on lesson plans and a full educator’s guide for the colonial period.