Bill Ferris and Emily Jack of LEARN NC will address middle and high school teachers in Wake County on Tuesday, December 9. During three 45-minute sessions, they will discuss what’s new, different, and useful on the LEARN NC website, including the digital textbook of North Carolina history, the multimedia library, online professional development, and Instructify.
On Saturday, Sept. 27, LEARN NC’s Bobby Hobgood and Ann Marie Gunter of the Department of Public Instruction will give a presentation at the UNC Global 2008 Symposium of Asia in the Curriculum at the FedEx Global Education Center at UNC - Chapel Hill.
The description of the presentation, entitled “Mandarin Chinese online: Yes, it can work!” is below:
Language teaching and learning online creates opportunities for students who can’t otherwise participate in traditional classroom settings. This session demystifies the process for teaching and learning a world language through online, asynchronous courses. The presenters will take you inside online language courses and how they function to move students toward proficiency and performance. As an example, we will explore the development of Online Mandarin Chinese courses developed by LEARN NC in collaboration with the NC Department of Public Instruction and the NC Virtual Public School. The session features a guided tour of Levels 1 and 2 Mandarin Online Chinese courses being taught to NC high school students. The presentation includes:
Gail Burchfiel and Saroj Primlani of LEARN NC will present at the Accessing Higher Ground Conference, which takes place November 11-14 at the Millennium Hotel in Boulder, Colorado:
The University of North Carolina General Administration has partnered with LEARN NC to develop online programs in science and math as part of the Joint 2+2 Initiative, a collaborative effort between the NC Community College System and the University of North Carolina.
This presentation by the instructional designer on the project will focus on a specific aspect of this program: the problems and challenges encountered in developing accessible online math and science courses for delivery in Blackboard with faculty developers, limited time and resources.
Developing accessible content for these courses has involved much trial and error, experimentation, and frustration. It has been a learning process all along the way. We believe it will be helpful to share these experiences and what we have learned, and to show that accessible content can be developed, no matter what the hurdles may be.
LEARN NC’s Melissa Thibault will present a session on free online resources at this year’s North Carolina English Teachers Association Conference. The conference takes place October 23-25 at Twin City Quarters in Winston-Salem.
An abstract of Thibault’s presentation, “Prepare the Citizens of Tomorrow with Relevant, Technology-enhanced Instruction: Free Lessons and Tools from LEARN North Carolina,” follows:
Future-ready students need the skills and habits of mind that will prepare them for a job that may not even exist today. These 21st century skills are essential, yet lessons we choose must be reliable and aligned with the North Carolina curriculum. With LEARN NC’s resources, you don’t have to choose between preparing future-ready students and preparing for the test. Come discover how you can ensure students will be engaged in real-world activities that integrate critical, computer and information literacy, providing authentic opportunities for global understanding and developing collaborative skills.
LEARN NC’s Gail Burchfiel will conduct a presentation, “Developing Accessible Online Math and Science Courses” at the UNC CAUSE Conference in Greensboro. The conference will take place November 17-19 at the Greensboro Marriott Downtown.
The University of North Carolina General Administration has partnered with LEARN NC to develop online programs in science and math as part of the Joint 2+2 Initiative, a collaborative effort between the NC Community College System and the University of North Carolina.
This presentation by the instructional designer on the project will focus on a specific aspect of this program: the problems and challenges encountered in developing accessible online math and science courses for delivery in Blackboard with faculty developers, limited time and resources.
Developing accessible content for these courses has involved much trial and error, experimentation, and frustration. It has been a learning process all along the way. We believe it will be helpful to share these experiences and what we have learned, and to show that accessible content can be developed, no matter what the hurdles may be.
Bobby Hobgood and David Walbert of LEARN NC will present at the North Carolina Charter Schools Conference, which takes place October 16-17 at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center in Research Triangle Park:
Have you kept pace with the way in which the Internet has evolved? This session is more than an awareness of the new LEARN NC website. Instead, we’ll help you to understand how to maximize your time spent locating and collecting quality resources. We’ll explore techniques for easily identifying resources to create a new unit of study or to revise something you’ve taught for years that hasn’t kept pace with the current needs of your students. No matter your technological proficiency, and even if you’ve seen LEARN NC before, you’ve never seen it like this.
Step right up for LEARN NC presentations at the North Carolina School Library Media Association Conference October 29-31 at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem. LEARN NC presentations are as follows:
How do we navigate an enormous wealth of resources to identify content for making global connections? This session will help you define global education and develop a mindset for supporting a global curriculum. Participants will learn how to combine information literate practices with global education to bring the “real world” into the classroom.
Our culture is saturated with media, and students need to learn how to think critically about what they read and see – and about what’s left out of the story. We’ll demonstrate strategies and provide collaborative, interdisciplinary lessons for teaching students K-12 to consider the perspectives behind photographs, fiction, and nonfiction.
Students need the “Three Cs” to become globally competitive. This session introduces a process for globalizing your program that promotes essential skills for global citizens. Participants will learn how to enhance their program using a S.E.A.R.C.H. strategy for making global connections. Discover how this process prepares 21st century citizens!
Use the power of the web to get your students hooked on books. We’ll show you how to motivate kids to read using Web 2.0 tools like wikis and social networking sites, and how to use the LEARN NC website to find useful web resources for readers’ advisory
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:
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.
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:
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.
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