Archives: September, 2008

If you’re attending the North Carolina Association of Elementary Educators conference in Raleigh, be sure to stop by two LEARN NC presentations. Bobby Hobgood, Melissa Thibault and Lesley Richardson will present during the conference, held October 26-28 at the Raleigh Convention Center. The presentations are as follows:

Globalizing the elementary classroom: From no-tech to high-tech

Bobby Hobgood

Making global connections in the elementary classroom is a fun, engaging approach to enhancing your existing curriculum. This interactive session demonstrates no-tech and high-tech strategies that reinforce what you’re already teaching while preparing students for their future. Participants will leave with ready-made materials for globalizing the curriculum.

Hands On Science: it’s not as hard as you think!

Melissa Thibault and Lesley Richardson

Don’t consider yourself a scientist? Think again! Whether you need lessons to engage students in authentic inquiry or sources of information to build your own understanding of scientific content, LEARN NC will point you to great free resources that will have you and your students questioning, observing, inferring, and hypothesizing before you know it.

LEARN NC will present at the North Carolina School Board Association Annual Conference, which takes place November 10-12 at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro. Executive Director Melissa Thibault will give the following presentation:

Virtual Mentoring: Free online support for beginning teachers with LEARN NC

Mentors provide on-the-ground support, but mentors can’t always be there to help a new teacher, and they may not have course-specific expertise. Extend the reach of your mentoring and provide 24/7 course-specific support with Virtual Mentoring! LEARN NC provides a complete package of course-specific online resources, everything you need to effectively mentor your new civics, U.S. history, biology, e-commerce, or English 9 teachers, for free. We will even host the course and provide helpdesk support. All you need to provide is the instructor.

In addition to Virtual Mentoring courses, LEARN NC offers access to a collection of high-quality, standards-aligned online professional development courses you can teach within your system, including courses in adolescent literacy, reading in the content areas, reaching English language learners, and other critical issues. We’re even hosting e-Coaching and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) online, providing an excellent way to follow up face-to-face workshops or to sustain a new initiative in your system. Come find out how your school or school system can take advantage of the free resources and online collaboration tools provided by LEARN NC, your teachers’ network.

LEARN NC’s Bobby Hobgood will conduct three (!) presentations at this year’s Foreign Language Association of North Carolina (FLANC) Conference. They include:

Audio in the Foreign Language Classroom: Preparing Students to Listen
iPods have transformed how we access and listen to audio in the form of music and information. With all the hype, has anyone thought about ‘how’ we will take advantage of this in the classroom? How do we prepare students to listen and learn from audio sources? This hands-on session will explore how to locate audio resources, how to integrate them into the curriculum, and how to create and use them to achieve instructional goals.

Building Online Foreign Language Courses with Ann Marie Gunter and Helga Fasciano
North Carolina’s FLAP grant is creating an Online Chinese program using Skype, conversation coaches, LinguaFolio, and interactive components that focuses on speaking and listening skills first, and then reading and writing. Data from the pilots, including site visits, evaluations, and articulation plans culminating in AP Chinese, will be shared.

Foreign Languages online: Yes, it can work!
Language teaching and learning online creates opportunities for students who can’t otherwise participate in traditional settings. This session gives you an inside look into online language courses and how they function to move students toward proficiency and performance. Participants will learn how to use technology tools to practice listening and speaking in the target language.

The conference takes place October 9-11 at Wake Forest University. If you’re planning to attend, please be sure to drop in on Bobby’s session.

LEARN NC will offer the following workshop on Monday, September 15 at the Southwest Education Alliance on the campus of UNC Charlotte:

Creating a Student-Centered Foreign Language Classroom through Technology, with Dr. Bobby Hobgood

Have you ever thought about how much time students spend engaged in learning versus how much time you spend teaching in the foreign language classroom? Participants will explore how the convergence of technology and a change in mindset create a student-centered language learning environment. This LEARN NC experiential session offers strategies and free tools for revitalizing your foreign language classroom.

The Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville, North Carolina has planned a fun-filled day on September 28, 2008 in appreciation of teachers. Walk the trails, talk with staff, and meet some of the Center’s raptors. You can also find out how your class can adopt a bird or get bird artifacts for educational use, and schedule a Carolina Raptor Center program for your class or school. Other highlights include:

• Live raptor presentations all afternoon
• Free environmental education materials for every educator
• Light refreshments
• 10% gift shop discount for educators during the event
• Door prizes

Admission is free for educators with an educator ID, and guest admission is 1/2 price. Please RSVP by Friday, September 26th, by calling 704-875-6521 Ext. 205. The event will be held weather permitting.

For more information, please visit the Carolina Raptor Center website.

Applications are now being accepted for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s 2008-2009 Mini-Grant Program. The Biotechnology Education Mini-Grant Program offers awards of up to $6,000 to assist in the development and implementation of activities, programs, and courses for biotechnology education and training at the K-12 level. Any North Carolina non-profit institution may apply.

All proposals must be submitted electronically using the Biotechnology Center’s online submission process. Proposals must be received by noon on January 21, 2009.

For detailed information or to apply for a Biotechnology Education Mini-Grant, please visit the North Carolina Biotechnology Center website.

Instructify, LEARN NC’s productivity and lifestyle blog for teachers, is officially a year old. Stop by Instructify to read about free tools to help teachers and students succeed in the classroom, such as online graphing calculators, educational games, and online applications to help with your next school fundraiser. Instructify connects teachers to new technology and best practices to save them time and make their teaching lives easier.

LimiTV is a North Carolina-based non-profit organization that for the past 12 years has informed teachers, parents, and the community at large about the ways students’ time with TV and video games can hinder learning, adversely affect health, stimulate aggressive behavior, and compromise early childhood brain development. LimiTV has entered into a partnership with LEARN NC to offer an online course that helps teachers:

• Understand how excessive screen time (over 10 hours a week) hinders reading skills, thinking skills, attention span, and speaking skills.
• Motivate students to switch to activities that help, rather than hinder, their learning ability.

The course has three sessions, two weeks apart. Classes that start in September will be at no charge; thereafter, the fee is $100, with group discounts available.

The course applies to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study as follows:

• English Language Development: Grades K-6, Goals 1-4
• English Language Arts: Grades K-6, Goals 1-4
• Healthful Living: Grades K-6, Goals 1-4, 7-10

Please see “New LimiTV Offering” on the LimiTV website for details.

Learn to use Web 2.0 tools in your classroom. Teachers have a lot of interactive web resources at their disposal. But how can they use these tools in the classroom? The North Carolina School of Science and Math will host an online workshop where teachers learn to use computers, phones, and MP3 players to make their teaching lives easier. According to the description on the flyer:

If you have no idea what a tweet, ning, or jott might be—or why you should care—this is the workshop for you! Michelle Brenner, from the humanities department at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, is a self-proclaimed and self-taught computer geek. She has sorted through the amazing amount of new interactive websites out there and developed ways to get your classroom organized and your students engaged.

The live workshop is free of charge, and runs September 16, 18, 23, 25, 30 and October 30 from 3:30 - 5:30 each day. Participants will earn 1.5 CEUs for completing 12 hours of in-class time plus 6 hours of homework. To register, email Peg Kirk or call 919-416-2632.

For more information, download this flyer.