Transitioning to Digital Content: 3 Recommendations

By staff writers, eSchool News, April 13, 2013 — As a concept, using digital content in the classroom is nothing new. But making the leap from using traditional print textbooks to fully integrating digital content in the classroom can be intimidating. During a webinar sponsored by the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), some experienced digital content advocates shared how they implemented changes in their schools and districts.

In “Out of Print: Reimagining the K-12 Textbook,” a recent SETDA report, the group issued three recommendations to help school leaders and policy makers guide and implement the use of digital content:

• Complete the shift from print-centric textbook adoption practices to digital resources within five years, beginning with the next major textbook adoption cycle

•  Develop a vision and roadmap for completing the shift, eliminate unnecessary or ineffective policies and regulations, invest in infrastructure and devices, and ensure effective implementation of digital learning policies

•  Ensure a vibrant marketplace for digital and open content

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Shakespeare Uncovered: Education Resources

Recently, you might have seen  Shakespeare Uncovered take on Hamlet and The Tempest.  This  great series combines history, biography, iconic performances, new analysis, and the personal passions of celebrated hosts such as Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons and Joely Richardson to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.

We invite you to see Shakespeare Uncovered as a series of splendid “short courses” made easy with episodes available for streaming.  Designed for immediate use in high school classrooms, an educator site provides a robust collection of lesson plans and curricular materials — which adhere to national learning standards – and contain video segments, comprehensive instructions for classroom implementation, printable student handouts, links to online resources, and suggestions for extension activities to enhance students’ reading, viewing, and appreciation of Shakespeare’s works.

Just a few of the lessons for grades 9-12 are Talking to Myself:  Hamlet’s Soliloquies,  All the Globe’s a Stage:  Shakespeare’s Theatre and Women’s Roles in As You Like It.   PBS LearningMedia, a digital library for teachers, also has scores of classroom resources on Shakespeare for grades 6-13+.

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New Courses from PBS TeacherLine

With the potential challenges of winter weather, online courses can be the best way to meet your professional development needs.  Offering courses with the quality you expect from PBS,  TeacherLine’s Winter Term begins on January 23rd. You can explore the full catalog of online courses to discover what courses will serve your teaching practice.  In addition to the many courses that educators continue to value, here are two new ones:

MATH522: Teaching Math (Grades K-2): A Special Collection from Annenberg Learner
For K-2nd grade teachers | 45 Hours | Syllabus | Sign Up
This inquiry-based course offers math teachers a deep-dive into the NCTM process standards. During the course, teachers will explore ways to expand their practice, and develop lesson plans for each of the five standards.

SCIE572: The Habitable Planet: A Systems Approach to Environmental Science-A Special Collection from Annenberg Learner
For 9-12th grade teachers | 45 Hours | Syllabus | Sign Up
This course helps to provide a background for understanding and discussing the different Earth systems: geophysical systems, the atmosphere, the oceans, and natural ecosystems. Examine the unique characteristics that make our planet habitable and investigate the effects of human activity on different natural systems.

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Curriculum for Ken Burns’ THE DUST BOWL

This Sunday and Monday, November 18 and 19, at 8pm WGBY airs THE DUST BOWL, Ken Burns’s latest film that chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, documenting its causes, impact, and lessons as well as the personal stories of survival and human endurance.

Curriculum for THE DUST BOWL explores these subjects through a wide range of classroom activities exploring history, public policy, economics and ecology.  Carefully selected video segments from the series are integrated into the lesson activities to highlight subject matter themes and enhance student understanding of the historical period. Lesson plans, developed for grades 7-12 and adaptable to other grade levels, are written in standard PBS lesson format, complete with:   teacher information (goals, standards, and background), opening or warm up activity(s), featured activity(s) with short video clips (5 to 15 minutes) and discussion questions, culminating activities with authentic assessment, evaluation rubrics, extension activities, and resources.

Because the film is so rich in educational themes and teachers have a limited amount of time, a series of quick, adaptable Whirlwind Activities have also been adapted for classroom use. Each “whirlwind” contains a brief overview along with activity ideas you can use to create lessons tailored to your individual class curriculum and teaching style.

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Teaching Channel Presents

Are you anxious to try some new and innovative techniques this year to engage your students and prepare them for the 21^st century?  In October, Teaching Channel Presents and PBS LearningMedia invite the educational community in our region to observe master teachers do just that.  You can learn how to incorporate digital literacy, the common core standards, the arts, and science technology into your classroom.  (Season 2 premieres on WGBY World on Sunday, September 23 at 5:00a.m.)

Now in its second season, Teaching Channel Presents is a groundbreaking series showcasing inspired teaching in America’s K-12 classrooms. Each weekly one-hour episode focuses on a compelling issue facing education today, a wide variety of topics including the New Teacher Experience, Bullying, The Common Core State Standards, Digital Literacy, and the Arts.  For more information and a free online library of more than 500 videos featuring real teachers in real classrooms,  please visit http://www/teachingchannel.org.

For now, check out one of their videos on teaching the Common Core Standards in Elementary School.

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Civil War Units and Lesson Plans from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

At least one critic noted that the new American Experience documentary by Ric Burns’, Death and the Civil War, which recently premiered on WGBY, is neither morbid nor solemn.  Based on Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust’s 2008 book, “This Republic of Suffering,” the film is divided into sections: “Dying,” “Burying,” “Naming,” “Honoring,” “Believing and Doubting,” “Accounting,” and “Remembering.”  (If you missed the film or want another look, you should soon find it on the American Experience website along with many other recent broadcasts.)

You’ll definitely want to explore American Experience‘s vast educator resources, among them a Teacher’s Guide and innumerable lesson plans under units such as the following:

Life in the North and South 1847-1861: Before Brother Fought Brother

The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America: A House Dividing

The American Civil War: A “Terrible Swift Sword”

The American Civil War: A “Terrible Swift Sword”

Abraham Lincoln on the American Union: “A Word Fitly Spoken”

From Courage to Freedom: Frederick Douglass’s 1845 Autobiography

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PBS TeacherLine Professional Development for Fall

As busy as the start of the school year can be, reflective teachers often realize what they need to learn to be even better at what they do.  With time and cost a factor for most people, online courses are meeting the needs of a growing number of younger and older students.  As evidence mounts for just how effective high-quality online learning can be, more people are turning to their computers to log into class.

PBS TeacherLine has been a trusted professional development source for thousands in our region and may serve your professional learning plans this year.   Starting September 19th and October 24th, PBS TeacherLine is offering 45+ courses that span grade levels and curriculum, most of which are available for graduate credit.

Among courses open for enrollment, starting September 19th:

K-6
Children’s Authors on the Web: Online Sites That Motivate Students to Write (RDLA125), 30 hours

K-8
An Introduction to Underlying Principles and Research for Effective Literacy Instruction (RDLA152), 45 hours

K-12
Fundamentals of Virtual K-12 Teaching (TECH570), 45 hours

Among those open for enrollment, starting October 24th:

PreK-3
Teaching Phonemic Awareness and Phonics (RDLA157), 45 hours

K-12
Searching and Researching on the Internet (TECH325), 30 hours

4-6
Improving Reading Comprehension (RDLA192), 45 hours

If you have any questions about PBS TeacherLine or a particular course, please contact me at 413.781.2801, ext. 292.

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Teaching to the Common Core with High-Interest Multimedia

Are you aligning your teaching to the Common Core Standards? Here are just some of the correlated PBS LearningMedia resources that will add high-interest multimedia on nonfiction and English/Language Arts topics:

An Egg is Quiet (Grades PreK-1) Use this video illustrated story to practice text comprehension and encourage students’ language and vocabulary development.  (Includes NCTE-IRA Standards for ELA; Common Core State Standards Initiative)

Garden Spiders  (Grades 3-6) Introduce your class to six varieties of spiders in a busy garden ecosystem. Ask each student to take brief notes and evaluate the information. (With Teaching Tips)

A Different Kind of Fuel  (Grades 6-12) Interpreting Data, Facts and Ideas from Informational Texts: Use the specialized vocabulary presented in this video clip to help your students build proficiency while learning about the massive energy source that is the sun. (With Teaching Tips)

What’s the Author’s Purpose? Animal Shelter  (Grades 4-6) This lesson plan explores the role of animal shelters. Use the video clips and informational text with your students to explore the impact of words and the writer’s point of view.

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Lessons for Asian American Heritage Month

The PBS site for Ancestors in the Americas leads to rich resources for you and students to celebrate Asian American Heritage Month in May.  You can find Asian American curricula resources such as the Asia Society’s AskAsia site, an on-line source for K-12 Asian and Asian American studies. The site provides access to classroom-tested resources and activities, relevant links and a virtual community of educators, with engaging elementary lesson plans such as the following:

The Golden Rule of Reciprocity:  Students learn about the Golden Rule by comparing quotations from the major world religions. Students then create bumper stickers with their own sayings.

Twice Upon a Time:  Multi-Cultural Cinderella:  Teach Cinderella stories from around the world — in an interdisciplinary way.

Animals Tale Travels Around the World:  This lesson introduces a well-known folk tale with renditions from India, the United States and West Africa. After analyzing the versions, students write their own didactic stories based on the formula but focused on contemporary settings.

Among  secondary lesson plans are:

Water is Life:  Water security is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century. This lesson helps students understand issues and take action.

Comparative Religious Teachings:  Students analyze translated texts from Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu and other religious books.

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PBS TeacherLine Spring Professional Development

In addition to robins and warming temperatures, another harbinger of spring are PBS TeacherLine‘s online courses, starting March 28. Classes range from 15-45 hours and span the PreK-12 curriculum.  You also have the opportunity to earn graduate credit, CEUs, or professional development points.  The online course catalog allows you to view and download syllabi that contain many of the resources within courses. You can also see which courses are aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

Among the many courses open for enrollment now are:

Reading Language Arts

• RDLA340 Teaching Reading in the Content Areas, Grades 3-12 (CCSS aligned)
• RDLA120 Teaching Reading in Science, Grades 3-12 (CCSS aligned)
• RDLA152 An Introduction to Underlying Principles and Research for Effective Literacy Instruction, Grades K-8

Instructional Technology

• TECH145 Teaching with WebQuests, Grades K-12
• TECH325 Searching & Researching on the Internet, Grades K-12
• NEW! TECH570 Fundamentals of Virtual K-12 Teaching, Grades K-12

Science & Mathematics

• STEM412 Global Climate Change Education for Middle School, Grades 5-8 and STEM417 Global Climate Change Education for High School, Grades 9-12 (Both CCSS aligned)
• MATH440 Seeing Math: Transformations of Quadratic Functions, Grades 6-12 (CCSS aligned)
• SCIE560 Teaching Earth & Space Science, Grades 5-12
• SCIE520 Teaching High School Biology, Grades 9-12

Instructional Strategies

• INST120Creating Units to Support Differing Learning Styles, Grades K-12
• INST325Using Assessment and Evaluation, Grades K-12

For more information you can contact Bess Kapetanis, PBS TeacherLine Coordinator at bkapetanis@wgby.org / 413.781.2801 x 292.

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