Facing History's "Choosing to Participate" Online Workshop

From: Facing History and Ourselves [mailto:Facing_History_and_Ourselves@mail.vresp.com]
Subject: Join Us! Online Workshop: Choosing to Participate

Register Now for Facing History and Ourselves'

Choosing to Participate

FREE Online Workshop

You are invited to join Facing History and Ourselves' free Choosing to Participate online workshop (October 7 - 15) designed to introduce the resources and interactive features of Facing History's Choosing to Participate website. If you register for the online workshop today, we will send you a link to the redesigned website as soon as it launches—with many exciting new features!

Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves is a civic and educational initiative that seeks to be a catalyst for conversation about the importance of civic participation. The initiative encourages people of all ages and backgrounds to consider the choices they face in their lives, to think critically about issues of race and prejudice, and to understand that their decisions and actions matter to themselves, their communities, and future generations.

The website will present the stories of four individuals and communities from contemporary history whose stories illustrate the courage, initiative, and compassion that are needed to protect democracy and human rights. The website will also offer a variety of interactive tools and experiences that allow students to explore the themes of civic responsibility and democracy. Using state-of-the-art interactive graphics, audio, and video clips, the site allows young people to share their own responses about participation. The site can be used on its own, in your classroom, and/or to prepare or debrief a visit to the multimedia, interactive exhibition that is the centerpiece of the Choosing to Participate initiative. The exhibition will be on display in Cleveland, Ohio between October 2009 and February 2010.

Through facilitated online activities, educators participating in the online workshop will learn a variety of ways they can use this website with their students. The workshop will allow you to receive feedback, share lesson ideas and resources, and connect with other educators from around the globe.

This online workshop will be facilitated by Facing History staff who are experienced middle and high school educators. The format will consist of several ongoing online conversations and a guided investigation of the website. All educators are invited regardless of their computer use skill level.

By registering for this workshop, you are committing to logging on to the site and participating in the online discussion at least three times, for a time commitment of two-to-four hours during the duration of the online workshop.

APPLY TODAY TO OUR ONLINE WORKSHOP!!

Please contact Tanya at Tanya_Lubicz-Nawrocka@facing.org with any questions and forward this email to your friends and colleagues who may be interested in Facing History's "Choosing to Participate" online workshop.

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CISC March 09 Update

From: Gary Dei Rossi [mailto:gdeirossi@sjcoe.net]

CISC HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE

MARCH 2009 UPDATE

State History-Social Science Curriculum Framework and Evaluation Criteria Committee: The committee has had two meetings. So far the committee has reviewed the revised chapters on assessment, universal access, instructional support, and some of the course descriptions. Future meetings are: April 2-3, April 30 & May 1st, and June 4-5. Various county history-social science leaders are either on the committee and have been involved with the deliberations.

The History Summit: On April 20-21, the California History Social Science Project will be hosting “Summit III: How Merging Historical content, Instruction and Research Can Improve History Instruction.” Featured speakers are: Daniel Sergeant, UC Berkeley; Tom Torlakson, Assembly Education Member; Rebecca Valbuena, LA Teacher of the Year; Gloria Romero, Chair of the Senate Education Committee; Mary Schleppegrell, School of Education at University of Michigan; and Ross Dunn, History Professor at San Diego State University. For more information please contact Nancy McTygue at 530-752-0572 or http://csmp.ucop.edu/chssp.

US State Department Website: This site has a new feature that they might want share with your schools and students called “Ask the Secretary” where any student can ask her/his own question of Secretary of State Clinton as she makes her journeys.

LegiSchool Project: A very exciting opportunity for high school students and teachers throughout California is the LegiSchool Project's Annual Photo Contest, California Through My Eyes. How do you envision California? What represents California to you? Poverty? Wealth? Technology? Farms? Water? Mountains? Towns? People? Cities? Cars? Landscapes? These are just some of the images that students are invited to photograph for LegiSchool’s annual photo contest. The photo can be a person, place, or anything else – big or small. It must be an original 8 x 10 inch photo and can be in color or black and white. Students also need to include a 150-word or less essay explaining why the photo represents California. The first-place winner will receive $100 and four runners-up will receive $50 each. Entries must be postmarked by Friday, May 1, 2009. Please see the attached announcement for details and share it with your students. Additional fliers and/or entry forms are available at: http://www.csus.edu/legischool.

The LegiSchool Project is a civic education collaboration between California State University, Sacramento and the State Legislature, administered by the Center for California Studies. LegiSchool’s mission is to engage young people in matters of public policy and state government by creating opportunities for students and state leaders to meet and share ideas on issues affecting Californians and by developing free high-quality government-oriented curriculum materials for California educators to enhance and help improve the quality of state government-related curriculum in our schools.

For more information, or if you have any questions, please contact me at thorall@csus.edu or (916) 278-7563.

Megan Thorall, LegiSchool Coordinator, Center for California Studies, (916) 278-7563.

California History-Social Science Network: The National Council for the Social Studies ballots for 2009 have arrived. Michelle Herczog of LACOE, a Past-President of CCSS, is running for NCSS Board of Directors as a Member-At-Large. We need to support our California representation at the national level!

New Economics Education Website for K-12 Teachers

From: Bernard [mailto:bmauricia@csusb.edu]



We want to share a new economics education website for K-12 teachers and other economic educators. Please look over EconEdReviews (EER) at www.econedreviews.org. EER is supported by the Calvin Kazanjian Economics Foundation, with management assistance from the University of Nebraska Omaha Center for Economic Education and technical assistance from the National Council on Economic Education.

What EER will provide:
EER will index all of the free high quality economic education materials we can locate on the web, provide brief descriptions of each and, most importantly, provide reviews of the materials by K-12 teachers who have used them. The website purpose is for teachers to help other teachers find good economics materials for the classroom.

How to use the new website:
Teachers can search for lessons by grade level, concept, standard, or subject matter. When a list of lessons fitting the requirements is provided by the website search, a star system will reveal which were most liked by teachers, and the written reviews will give the details, including tips on how to best use the materials.

For teachers:
The lessons are there for all teachers to use. We ask and hope that teachers will return to EER after using materials to help other teachers by providing a review. The reviews are anonymous, unless you want to include your name. If you have used any teaching materials from the web recently, please come to www.econedreviews.com at any time to provide a review. It will only take a minute to help other teachers. Also, if you have used materials that we have not included on the website, please email ksosin@mail.unomaha.edu with the URL.

For NCEE-affiliated Councils and Centers for Economic Education:
Please examine the EER website and give us your reactions. If you agree that it will be very good for teachers looking for great materials, will you consider adding a link to www.econedreviews.org on your home page? We will also be very appreciative if you will show the website at your seminars and workshops.

Kim Sosin, Center Associate, University of Nebraska Omaha
Kevin Smith, NCEE Curriculum & Instructional Designer
Mary Lynn Reiser, Center Associate, University of Nebraska Omaha