Archives: On the road

David Walbert and Emily Jack of LEARN NC will present at the NC Association for the Gifted and Talented Conference at Marriott & Embassy Suites Hotels in Winston-Salem on March 25-27. The presentation will pertain to the use of “digital history” in the classroom, specifically LEARN NC’s digital textbook of North Carolina history. The revolutionary textbook makes primary sources and multimedia central to the learning experience, offering built-in differentiation and using interactive tools to help students learn to ask good questions.

David Walbert and Maren Wood of LEARN NC will present at the North Carolina Council for the Social Studies Conference at the Koury Center in Greensboro, which takes place February 11-13. The presentation will focus on the use of “digital history” in the classroom, specifically LEARN NC’s digital textbook of North Carolina history. The revolutionary textbook makes primary sources and multimedia central to the learning experience, offering built-in differentiation and using interactive tools to help students learn to ask good questions.

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.

LEARN NC will conduct several presentations at the North Carolina Middle School Association Conference in Greensboro on March 16 and 17. Presentations are as follows:

The North Carolina History Digital Textbook Project

David Walbert and Ross White

LEARN NC’s “digital textbook” for 8th-grade North Carolina history offers a new model for teaching and learning, making primary sources and multimedia central to the learning experience. Learn how to use this free online resource to inspire your students, promote inquiry, and bring the past into the twenty-first century.

Seeing the world in a new way

David Walbert and Eric Eaton, Polk Co. Middle School

Participants will explore LEARN NC’s multimedia, lesson plans, and professional resources and learn how to use them to enhance visual literacy skills while studying world cultures. We are living in an increasingly global society, and learning to look more analytically at images will help students better understand their world.

Turbocharge Your Teaching with Free Technology

Bill Ferris and Ross White

To Instructify means to find new ways to present the same old content. Or MacGyvering anything from software to Post-it notes into cutting-edge teaching tools. Learn to take advantage of countless free resources that lead to authentic, engaging learning experiences for students and more spare time for you.

LEARN NC will conduct several presentations at this year’s North Carolina Technology in Education Society (NCTIES) Conference, which takes place March 4-6 at the Raleigh Convention Center. A description of the presentations is below:

Using the intelligent Web – intelligently

Bobby Hobgood and Bill Ferris

As Web 2.0 transitions to Web 3.0 or the “intelligent web,” we will see greater customization of tools, services, and resources for different learners. While we know that technology can help us differentiate instruction, will a more intelligent Web make it easier to choose the right resource or tool? LEARN NC offers the resources and structure for planning, implementing, and assessing instruction in a differentiated classroom. This hands-on session will help you develop a plan for differentiating instruction through content, process, and product. Participants will try out new tools and learn techniques for differentiation through technology. Everyone will leave with a concrete plan and the associated tools for engaging students and meeting their individual learning needs. All kinds of learners are welcome!

Multimedia Make-Over: rebuilding tired presentations and renovating old assignments with LEARN NC

Melissa Thibault and Phil Kaufman

You have been planning to learn more about making some of your presentations more effective, but who has the time to learn and resources to create digital videos? Even if you are new to using digital media, you’ll be pleased to discover that developing a simple yet effective video presentation is easier than you think. If you are unsure how to begin, but interested in bringing your presentations into the 21st Century, this is the workshop for you! Try your hand at easy-to-use, free applications like PhotoStory (Windows only) and Picasa, combined with copyright-friendly image sources, and you will soon be ready to develop your own video presentation. Using LEARN NC, you will discover resources and best practices lessons and strategies to integrate these tools and techniques into your teaching.

Reaching Every Student with Blended Learning: Changing Classroom Instruction with LEARN NC

Melissa Thibault and Lesley Richardson

How times have changed! Multimedia content brings the world into your classrooom. Authentic online science collaboration makes your students researchers. Inquiry-based engagement with digital primary sources brings history to life. Time to reinvent yourself! Discover, teach and share with LEARN NC, and together we will reach and teach every student.

Visual literacy across the curriculum: Teaching with images from Flickr

David Walbert and Emily Jack

Learn to maximize the power of images in your classroom or media center using the photo-sharing website Flickr. We’ll demonstrate educational uses, show how to find high-quality photographs with historical and cultural value, and share lesson plans that incorporate visual literacy into all areas of the North Carolina curriculum.

From Online to On-ground: Online teaching strategies for the face-to-face classroom

Bobby Hobgood

Whether you teach online or on-ground, this session explores the teaching techniques and tools that engage students in collaborative learning to create and sustain a learning community. We’ll explore a set of guidelines for creating a learning community that have implications for both environments. Handouts and hand-holding provided!

e-Learning for Educators: Online Professional Development that Works

Ross White and Diane Lucas

Tired of sitting through professional development sessions that don’t actually improve teaching? Learn how online professional development can make you a better teacher. E-Learning for Educators is a partnership between LEARN NC, UNC-TV, DPI, NCVPS, and the Friday Institute — the leaders in online learning for North Carolina.

Data Collection Tools in the Classroom, Web Surveys, Clickers and SMS Polls

Phil Kaufman and Bobby Hobgood

Bobby Hobgood and Emily Jack of LEARN NC will conduct a hands-on workshop for media specialists in Randolph County and Asheboro City Schools on January 27 in Asheboro. A description of the workshop appears below:

Web 2.0 is a description of the tools, content, and functionality of the internet, as we currently know it. We benefit from the richness of media it houses, in particular, the phenomenal archive of images both past and present. As media specialists, we are inspired by the potential of this enormous collection only a Google search away.

While we can easily find images through simple searches, the ability to locate, choose, and use appropriate images for instruction is not so straightforward. During this workshop, we’ll explore the power of the image in a Web 2.0 world. Specifically, we will:

• Explore the concept of visuals with value,
• Experience how media specialists and instructors use images — both as creators and consumers — to engage students,
• Learn techniques for using images as teaching realia,
• Identify sources of web-based images, and
• Survey three perspectives on using images responsibly.

On Tuesday, January 13, David Walbert and Emily Jack will present at a Wake County Public Schools session about using media and technology to support social studies classrooms. The session will offer resources for teaching North Carolina history and U.S. history, with a focus on the digital textbook for North Carolina history.

Lesley Richardson, LEARN NC’s Media and Web Librarian, will present “Extend Your Reach with LEARN NC: Using Web-based Tools to Build Your Media Program” at the 4th Annual Librarian to Librarian Summit at the Joyner Library at East Carolina University on Saturday, January 10, 2009.

The session  will show school libararians and media specialists how to use the power of the web to get students hooked on books. They will learn 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.

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:

• Demonstration of the technologies used to teach Chinese language online
• An overview of the scope and sequence of this series of courses
• A “walk-through” of a typical week of learning
• An examination of the roles of the instructor, conversation coach, and distance learning advisor
• Evaluation data from students and Distance Learning Advisors
• Description of quality assurance components including instructor preparation and resources to prepare schools for including online language courses
• Information about content to be shared from the courses
• Announcement of online course Teaching World Languages Online: An Online Course for Developers and Instructors

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:

Developing Accessible Online Math and Science Courses

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.