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LEARN NC, in collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and with funding by the North Carolina General Assembly, seeks participants for a free, online program to mentor Chinese language teachers in North Carolina. The program is open to teachers who currently or who will teach Mandarin Chinese, either online or face to face.

This initiative is part of a program to increase Chinese language study in North Carolina. The goal of the Chinese Virtual Mentoring program is to facilitate the teaching of Chinese language across the state of North Carolina. Because Virtual Mentoring happens on the web, teachers can participate in this online learning community at any hour, day or night.

Program Description

Participants in Chinese Virtual Mentoring will be a part of an online cohort of Chinese language teachers from across the state for the Fall semester 2009. The program will begin on Monday, August 31, 2009. All participants will benefit from the following design components of this program:

• One-on-one mentoring: The program will be lead by two teachers who have great experience teaching Chinese to American students. Both are experts in Chinese language instruction and have effectively mentored teachers. The mentors will guide teachers through the curriculum, plus tricky areas for new teachers such as classroom management, working with American teenagers, and communicating with others about what happens in their classroom.
• Professional learning community: Teachers will form a professional learning community of instructors teaching the same subject, each sharing his or her successes, challenges, and unique perspective on how to address instructional issues.
• Full curriculum access: Participants in the Chinese Virtual Mentoring program receive access to a fully developed, online Level 1 Chinese language course to use as a year-long course template or as a reference for individual lessons.
• Free: This experience will be available at no cost to licensed North Carolina teachers.
• Teacher Stipend: Participants will receive a stipend for their participation in this program.

Program Requirements

Applicants must meet the following requirements to participate in this program:

• Licensed to teach Chinese in North Carolina
• Less than five years experience teaching Chinese in North Carolina
• Daily, reliable access to the internet
• Daily, reliable access to a computer
• Willingness to collaborate online with Chinese language teachers around the state
• Time to devote three to five hours weekly, spread across the week
• Desire to improve skills for teaching Chinese to American students
• Commitment to participate for the entire semester: September through December 2009

How to apply

Interested applicants should submit the following information as soon as possible to Dr. Bobby Hobgood.

Name:
School System:
School:
Number of Years teaching Chinese in U.S.:
Please list current teaching assignment(s):
Please list current teaching certifications:
Email address (that you check regularly):
Work Phone:
Home Phone:
Home Mailing Address:

Have you ever taken an online course before? If so, please elaborate.

Please state below why you would like to participate in this program. Include in your statement your intent to teach a world language online in North Carolina.

On July 31, a team of twelve journalists at UNC-Chapel Hill launched a fascinating website, Powering a Nation, which investigates energy issues in the United States. The site uses innovative multimedia storytelling to explore themes of energy use at the grassroots level, where real people interact with the systems that bring us food and electricity.

Through short videos, interactive graphics, written text, and slideshows, Powering a Nation features nine stories:

• “The High-Energy Diet,” which explores the implications of the American food system on global carbon emissions
• “Reclaiming Creation,” which investigates the intersection of faith communities and environmental activism
• “Roping the Wind,” a story about Roscoe, Texas, the site of the biggest wind farm on the planet
• “Debating Coal’s Future,” which profiles a town in Ohio as it struggles over whether to approve three new coal-fired power plants
• “Power in Plants,” a story about the push to adopt biofuels as an alternative to fossil-based fuels
• “Down the Lines,” which examines the dangers posed by our aging electrical infrastructure
• “Mining the Mountains,” a story about the debate over mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia
• “Climate Refugees,” which discusses the plight of coastal Inuit communities forced by erosion and flooding to abandon their homes
• “Energy Portraits,” which reports on the daily energy consumption of three families of different ethnicities, ages, and locations in the U.S.

And coming in September, an interactive game will allow visitors to create and store a detailed profile of their energy usage. Opportunities abound for middle-school and high-school teachers to use Powering a Nation, particularly as a way for students to understand how elements of the curriculum connect with some of the most pressing issues of our time.

LEARN NC, in collaboration with the Department of Public Instruction and the North Carolina Virtual Public School, is currently seeking a developer/instructor for an online level-1 Japanese language course, as well as conversation coaches for the course.

Japanese Language Online Course: Level 1

The course will emphasize spoken Japanese and cultivate reading and writing skills as necessary. The successful applicant will:

• Employ course guidelines created in association with similar courses in Arabic and Mandarin Chinese
• Complete course design by July 31, 2010
• For additional compensation of $250 per student, begin teaching the following month

This course will be the first in a planned series of semester-long online Japanese language courses for middle school and high school students. For an example of course content developed for the Level 1 Chinese course, see http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/mandarin1/.

Course developer/instructor

The course developer will have assistance from a development team, and earn a salary of $6,000 to $8,000. The course developer must:

• Possess a native or near-native proficiency in Japanese
• Be certified as a Japanese teacher
• Have basic knowledge of Microsoft Word and use of Japanese characters in the electronic environment
• Be detail-oriented and able to collaborate regularly with the project manager, the instructional designer, and the development team during the development stage
• Have daily, reliable Internet access
• Have his/her own computer throughout the development phase
• Possess a background in language education and second language acquisition
• Be willing to take three, online instructor preparation courses this fall/winter to develop and improve online teaching skills
• Learn to use Blackboard, the course management system in which the course will be developed (LEARN NC will provide online instruction in the use of this tool)
• Work with a video team to develop scripts for introductory dialogue for each lesson and approve video/audio content produced by the video team
• Communicate effectively in English
• Wish to be a part of a pioneering effort to bring Japanese language and an appreciation of Japanese culture to North Carolina students

In addition to the above requirements, the instructor must:

• Coordinate with conversation coaches (1 per 4-5 students) on a weekly basis
• Keep good records of students’ progress and grades throughout the course
• Communicate with the NC Virtual Public School (NC VPS) about technical issues and issues regarding registration
• Work with NC VPS to communicate with distance learning coordinators at representative high schools where students are enrolled
• Love teaching Japanese to a range of students

Conversation Coaches

LEARN NC also seeks conversation coaches for Japanese I. These coaches will provide two, 45-minute practice sessions with groups of 3-4 students weekly for duration of the 18-week semester.

Apply

To apply for the course developer/instructor or conversation coach positions, please submit the following materials in electronic format to Dr. Bobby Hobgood no later than August 31, 2009:

1. Which position you are applying for
2. A current resume or CV
3. A description of your current and past teaching experience in Japanese
4. A statement regarding where you are currently certified to teach Japanese
5. A statement describing your proficiency with technology and any online teaching and learning experience you have
6. A statement indicating your availability to begin working this September
7. Contact information
8. Please submit your application with the Subject Line:  Japanese 1 Developer Applicatio

Deadline

You must submit your application by August 31, 2009.

The Carolina Teachers’ Connection and LEARN NC of the School of Education will sponsor a workshop for alumni classroom teachers and their colleagues. This workshop will enrich their understanding of English as a Second Language (ESL) students and strengthen their teaching of these students. The intent is to provide a forum to gather resources and ideas so that teachers will be better equipped to help ESL students succeed in North Carolina schools.

Speakers

• Keynote speaker Dr. Darla Deardoff of Duke University, who will address the question, “How do I approach my role in teaching kids with very different cultural backgrounds?”
• Dr. Bobby Hobgood of LEARN NC, who will present “Teaching the N.C. Curriculum with Engaging Web-Based Resources.”
• Joanne Marino, ESL Consultant/Title III Director and Ivanna Thrower, ESL/Title III Consultant of NC Department of Public Instruction will present “Success for ELLs: Success for All” using the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) providing techniques participants can use in their own classrooms.
• A panel discussion will provide additional interaction and questioning opportunities.

The workshop will include a list of helpful community resources and opportunities for sharing and questioning. The importance of cultural sensitivity will be emphasized.

CEU credit

0.4 CEUs available

Event details

Date: Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009
Time: 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Place: Carolina Center for Educational Excellence, 9201 Seawell School Rd., Chapel Hill
Cost: $10 to cover lunch

Register

To register, please contact Lucy Williams.

With a grant from the State Library of North Carolina and the Department of Cultural Resources, NC LIVE, LEARN NC, and NC WiseOwl, a service of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, partnered to extend the reach of the PBS video collection to local schools. Through NC WiseOwl, students and teachers at public schools now have unlimited online access to PBS’ library of award-winning programming, including Ken Burns’ “The Civil War,” as well as the Emmy award-winning series “American Experience” and “Frontline.” The videos are available online in an on-demand streaming format, making them extremely accessible.

In addition, these PBS videos are freely available for home viewing by all North Carolina citizens through NC LIVE based on their affiliation with a local public library or any of the 188 public and academic libraries across the state. Faculty and students of North Carolina colleges and universities may also access this content at no charge.

The statewide video-streaming service became available to all public schools March 30, 2009.

The State Library is involved in a project to overhaul the eNCyclopedia, its online resource for facts and information about North Carolina people, government, history, culture, and other topics. To do so, the Library would like educators to give their feedback to help them set priorities for revitalizing this valuable resource.

The eNCyclopedia, initially developed more than a decade ago to assist students requesting North Carolina-related information for school assignments, continues to be heavily used by students, educators, and others seeking North Carolina-related information. In order to make changes that improve and enhance the users’ experience and meet their informational needs, they are soliciting feedback about all aspects of the eNCyclopedia, including its content, appearance, usability, as well as the functionality of the website.

There are two surveys, one for educators, researchers, librarians, and parents, and another for students in grades 4-12. Please consider participating in these surveys and being a part of this worthwhile project. Make your voice heard by taking the survey.

In a partnership with LEARN NC, UNC Chapel Hill has launched a pilot project aimed to support faculty members in online course development and delivery of summer school courses. Five faculty members will be chosen to develop five-week-long online course to be taught during summer 2010. Each faculty member selected will receive a $3,000 stipend, assistance in instructional design and assessment, and a contract from UNC-CH Summer School to continue the course during the summer of 2010.

The National Humanities Center is offering three online seminars for U.S. history and American literature teachers. These seminars were developed in collaboration with the NC Department of Public Instruction and address specific state curriculum standards.

Registration Deadline: May 22, 2009

Participants will receive a stipend of $100.

Each seminar may yield one CEU credit. Because the seminars are conducted online, they may qualify for technology credit in districts that award it. The Center will supply documentation of participation.

The seminars are conducted online through conferencing software. To participate, a teacher will need a computer with an internet connection, speakers, and a microphone. The Center will provide, for free, a headset with a built-in microphone.

For information about seminars available in June and July, please visit the North Carolina Summer Seminars General Information page.

Registration: North Carolina Schedule of Seminars

June Seminars

Defining A New Nation: 1789-1820
Seminar Leader: Scott Casper
National Humanities Center Fellow 2005-06
Professor of History, University of Nevada, Reno

Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Time: 8:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
In the three decades after the American Revolution, the identity of the new nation remained far from settled. American writers and politicians asserted that the United States differed from Europe, but they disagreed about how. Did the American people possess a new “national character,” based on shared experience or a new environment? What policies and practices would best ensure the survival of the republican experiment? And how would a nation founded on the principle that “all men are created equal” address the contradictions of its own inequalities? With selected primary sources from the new republic — in words and pictures — the seminar will explore these questions.

Moving America Left and Right: 1945-1990
Seminar Leader: Nancy MacLean
National Humanities Center Fellow 2008-09
Professor of History and African American Studies, Northwestern University

Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Time: 8:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m
This seminar will approach American history after World War II as a history of social movements. The first session will explore the black freedom movement with an eye to new scholarly interpretations of a “long civil rights movement” reaching back to the New Deal and beyond the 1970s and including the North and West as well as the South. The second session will examine the women’s movement and the conservative movement for insight into the relationships among various movements. It will conclude with a discussion of how viewing the era from 1945 to 1990 as an era of social movements can bring new coherence to the recent past.

Immigration Then and Now: 1890-1920; 1964-2009
Seminar Leader: Gunther Peck
National Humanities Center Fellow 2001-02
Associate Professor of Public Policy and History, Duke University

Date: June 19, 2009
Time: 8:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
One of the most familiar truisms about the United States is that we are a “nation of immigrants.” Indeed, immigration and immigrants inform nearly every narrative of progress and possibility that Americans have told about themselves for more than a century, from individual stories of rags to riches to generational accounts of upward mobility and becoming American. And yet immigration today remains one of the most controversial political topics, generating intense conflicts over who or what is an American and who should have the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. In this seminar, we examine and compare two waves of immigration to the United States: the “new” immigration between 1890 and 1920, composed mainly of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and Japan; and contemporary immigration, post 1964, involving undocumented and legal migration from Southeast Asia, Mexico, Central America, and Africa. By exploring changes and continuities in immigration to the United States, we seek to historicize contemporary controversies and fears.

LEARN NC is a partner in National Environmental Education Week (April 12-18), the single largest organized environmental education event in the United States. EE Week increases the educational impact of Earth Day by creating a full week of environmentally themed lessons and activities in K-12 classrooms, nature centers, zoos, museums, and aquariums. Activities include creating trails for biking and walking, creating backyard habitats, or hosting an environmental play with students.

Last year, nearly 1,850 schools, nature centers, museums, zoos, and other educational institutions helped teach millions of students about the importance of caring for our natural environment. This year the organization hopes to increase participation to 2,200 partner organizations and 4.5 million students.

For more information or to register for this year’s EE Week, educators can click here.

Join the DigitalForsyth team for a workshop on May 16th, 2009 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at Wake Forest University to learn more about creating digital resource lesson plans. In compensation for participating in this workshop and completing a lesson plan, each teacher will receive a $150 honorarium and 1.0 technology CEUs.

DigitalForsyth is seeking applications from teachers to participate in a day-long workshop. During the workshop each teacher will create a lesson plan aligned with the North Carolina standard course of study using DigitalForsyth content. Prior to the workshop each teacher will participate in a self-paced tutorial and planning session that will introduce DigitalForsyth and define the work product expected on May 16th.

To apply for this workshop, send an email explaining your desire to participate. Include your contact information, qualifications, and any prior experience in creating lesson plans using digital materials. Supporting documentation such as lesson plans or references may be attached to your email.

Please email applications and questions to DFeducation[at]winstonnet.org by April 15th, 2009.