Archives: On the road

Bobby Hobgood will present at the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina Spring Workshops in Asheville, N.C. on Saturday, March 13, 2010.

Classroom assessment by the minute: Teaching students to monitor their own learning from no-tech to high-tech

The pressure of covering the curriculum while preparing for EOCs or EOGs often prevents us from integrating formative assessment strategies that lead to higher quality learning. The secret to overcoming those external pressures lies in how we think about assessment opportunities minute-by-minute. During this interactive session, we will rethink the roles of teacher and student as we explore easy-to-use strategies for preparing students to monitor their own learning. Participants will leave with simple strategies to help their students see ongoing, formative assessment as an essential learning tool for learning. Examples range from no-tech to high-tech strategies for engaging students while gathering feedback.

LEARN NC staff members will give several presentations at the North Carolina Technology in Education Society Conference, held March 3-5 at the Convention Center in Raleigh. A summary of presentations is below.

Pre-conference workshops

Classroom assessment by the minute: Teaching students to monitor their own learning from no-tech to high-tech

Bobby Hobgood

Wednesday, March 4, 9:00 – 12:00 and 1:00 – 4:00, Raleigh Marriott Alumni Board Room

The pressure of covering the curriculum while preparing for EOCs or EOGs often prevents us from integrating formative assessment strategies that lead to higher quality learning. The secret to overcoming those external pressures lies in how we think about assessment opportunities minute-by-minute. During this interactive session, we will rethink the roles of teacher and student as we explore easy-to-use strategies for preparing students to monitor their own learning. Participants will leave with simple strategies to help their students see ongoing, formative assessment as an essential learning tool for learning. Examples range from no-tech to high-tech strategies for engaging students while gathering feedback.

Concurrent sessions

School Improvement Through Online Professional Development

Ross White, Stephen Greene, and Verna Lalbeharie

Thursday, March 4, 10:45 – 11:45

Explore the latest research on online professional development from e-Learning for Educators, and learn strategies for integrating quality online learning into your school’s professional development plan. We’ll discuss funding strategies, standards alignment, and opportunities from a wide array of online professional development providers in North Carolina.

Beyond Blended Learning: Reaching every student

Bobby Hobgood

Thursday, March 4, 10:45 – 11:45, Room 302a

Learning in the Knowledge Age takes place in a broader range of settings than we knew as students. This session explores the concept of blended learning and how it merges traditional and contemporary pedagogies to meet the needs of today’s learners. Discover how Blended Learning is simply good teaching.

Discovering great online resources for teaching

Bill Ferris and Jason Don Forsythe

Thursday, March 4, 10:45 – 11:45, Room 302b

Bring your laptop and come play with the latest free online teaching tools. The folks behind LEARN NC’s Instructify blog will guide you show you the latest educational games, animation programs, and time savers, as well as cover how you can use them in class.

Adventures in Mapping

David Walbert and Emily Jack

Thursday, March 4, 10:45 – 11:45, Room 306a

Technology has given educators access to maps and mapping tools undreamed of a generation ago. But is more — and higher-tech — better? In this session we’ll look at some of the tools and types of maps available and how teachers can make best use of them in the classroom.

Project-based learning 3.0: Facilitating student collaboration and building teachers’ professional learning networks with free digital tools and LEARN NC

Melissa Thibault and Lesley Richardson

Thursday, March 4, 3:30 – 4:30, Room 301a

Teaching, learning and assessing with technology mediated tools and Internet-based resources is not just for students. To be successful, teachers also need to collaborate! Integrate new information literacy skills and discover resources that will help you broaden your network and model possibilities for bringing new perspectives, and solve problems with project-based learning.

Online Instructional Design: Lessons Learned from COLT

Ross White

Thursday, March 4, 4:45 – 5:45, Room 302c

As courses move to online and blended formats, designing instruction for web-based and asynchronous presentation is a skill teachers will need. LEARN NC staff will discuss the basics of sound instructional design for the online environment, stepping you through some of the lessons learned in the Carolina Online Teacher program.

Digital Natives 3.0: Where assumption meets reality

Dan Kelo and Bobby Hobgood

Friday, March 5, 9:15 – 10:15, 302b

In this session we will challenge some of the prevailing assumptions about the ways in which digital natives use technologies; assessing students’ actual strengths and weaknesses by means of a formative assessment instrument to target areas that require more concentrated development, thus increasing the overall effectiveness of your pedagogical strategies.

Ross White and Jason Don Forsythe of LEARN NC will present “STEM Curriculum and Resources from LEARN NC” at the North Carolina Center for Afterschool Programs Synergy 2010 on Tuesday, March 2. The conference is held at the Koury Center in Greensboro, and the presentation will begin at 1 p.m. An abstract of the presentation is below:

STEM Curriculum and Resources from LEARN NC

Do you want your afterschool staff and volunteers to find everything they need to know to meet NC standards?  Introduce them to LEARN NC!  LEARN NC has a wealth of materials for educators and students that can be integrated into your afterschool program.  Discover the best STEM lesson plans and Web resources, all aligned to the NC Standard Course of Study.  Oh, and did we mention that it’s all free?

K-12 Chinese language instruction in North Carolina has grown at a rate that is more than double the national average. Not surprisingly, the fervor to study Chinese has created an incredible demand for Chinese language teachers. North Carolina has turned to distance education as a solution for addressing both needs. While the number of face-to-face Chinese language programs is increasing, online courses in Chinese language instruction make it possible to involve students across a greater geographic region, thereby extending the reach of Chinese language instruction.

This was the message shared with K-20 educators from around the U.S. and China recently at a meeting held in Washington, D.C. by the Asia Society. The focus of the meeting was “Creating a Supply of K-12 Chinese Language Teachers.” Bobby Hobgood presented the North Carolina model for developing online Chinese language courses now being offered through the North Carolina Virtual Public School. Particular emphasis was given to how LEARN NC prepared Chinese language teachers to develop and teach levels 1-4 and AP Mandarin language courses. Specifically, teachers took courses from the Carolina Online Teacher (COLT) program, collaborated with an instructional designer, attended LinguaFolio training, participated in Learning Management System (LMS) training, and collaborated with outside groups like the Mandarin Online Advisory Board and the Confucius Institute at N.C. State University.

LEARN NC’s Ross White and Nick Yingling will present “Moodle at LEARN NC: Who, What, How, When, Why?” at the Career and Technical Education 2009 Summer Conference held July 21-24 in Greensboro:

Do you want to supplement your classroom with Web 2.0 tools like discussion forums and wikis? Do you teach e-Commerce I or II? Do you want to teach your course online? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to check out Moodle! LEARN NC offers a variety of opportunities for teachers to use Moodle — for professional development, for receiving curriculum from DPI, and for creating and delivering new learning opportunities to students. Come explore the new educational and collaborative possibilities Moodle has to offer.

LEARN NC’s Bobby Hobgood will present “Teaching in North Carolina: Free Web-based tools and resources to help you work smarter” at the Visiting International Faculty conference in Greensboro March 14. This presentation is appropriate for teachers of all subjects in grades K-12.

Presentation description:

Teaching is hard.  There is no script and the only thing predictable about students is their unpredictability.  LEARN NC, a program of the School of Education at UNC Chapel Hill, is your virtual assistant for working smarter and addressing the challenges of unpredictable students.  This session will not only introduce free, reviewed resources from LEARN NC, but will also give you strategies for engaging your students.  Participants will leave with a customized guide and strategies for using web-based resources to improve their teaching.   Come discover the virtual assistant that serves 30,000 educators each day!

Bobby Hobgood of LEARN NC will speak at the Western Region Education Service Alliance Virtual Summer Leadership Conference on July 14. His presentation is titled “Professional Development Online: How e-Learning Addresses the Pitfalls of the Traditional Workshop,” and will be available worldwide to attendees of this free virtual conference.

For more information or to register for the Virtual Summer Leadership Conference, please visit the conference website.

Presentation description

While school calendars and budgets create barriers to professional development opportunities for educators, online professional development courses offer solutions that meet and exceed these challenges. This session for administrators explores the advantages of virtual learning for developing professional skills and knowledge, and provides insight into how educators can take charge of their learning. Participants will have an inside look into how learning occurs in online courses and how e-Learning for Educators partners (LEARN NC, NC DPI, UNC-TV, the Friday Institute, and NCVPS) are collaborating to address the needs of educators in our state.

LEARN NC will have an exhibit at the 10th annual MEGA Showcase on Wednesday, May 6. The showcase lasts from 3:30 – 5:45 p.m. at the Friday Institute in Raleigh. Middle-school students and teachers from around North Carolina have volunteered to exhibit their multimedia and web projects. Technology renewal credits are available for teachers who participate.

LEARN NC’s Ross White will present at this year’s North Carolina Center for Afterschool Programs Summit in Greensboro April 29-May 1:

Want your afterschool staff and volunteers to find everything they need to know to meet state standards? Introduce them to LEARN NC! LEARN NC has a wealth of materials for educators and students that can be integrated into your after-school program. Come discover how you can engage students in real-world activities that integrate critical information, computer and financial literacy, or lessons infused with authentic opportunities for global understanding and collaborative skills. Oh, and did we mention that it’s all free?

Bobby Hobgood and Emily Jack of LEARN NC will be presenting at the Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps Conference March 31-April 1. The event will be held at the Koury Center in Greensboro. A description of their presentation is below:

Engage students using high-tech and low-tech tools for teaching visual literacy

The omnipresence of the worldwide web means that all learners must be able to understand
and process visual information. This session will offer simple pedagogical strategies for engaging students and teaching visual literacy using images from around the world — including using photograph analysis activities to teach higher-level thinking skills. With a focus on cultural literacy, we’ll share lesson plans for all grade levels and core subject areas, easy-to-use Web 2.0 tools, and even easier-to-use no-tech tools to help you guide your students in navigating this visual world.