I am excited to announce that we have two webinars scheduled in February to honor Black History Month!!

Dr. Anthony Brown and Dr. Keffrelyn Brown, both of The University of Texas at Austin, will be addressing the issue of how race and racism is taught in the social studies classroom. Their presentations will stem both from their experiences as social studies educators at the elementary, secondary, and university level as well as research they have conducted around these issues during their time here at The University of Texas. A quick summary of their research as well as a short (2 minute) video clip of Dr(s). Brown discussing their work can be found by following the link below:

http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=15592

These webinars are designed to work as a two-part sequence, but attending one or the other is perfectly fine as they both function as stand-alone sessions as well.

Here is a brief rundown of the dates, times, and topics:
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Date: Thursday, February 10
Time: 7:00 – 8:00 pm (Central Time)
Topic: Dr. Anthony Brown, professor of Social Studies Education at The University of Texas at Austin, will be talking with us about how race and racism are typically portrayed in K-12 schooling. Dr. Brown will specifically be sharing some examples of how history textbooks and state curriculum standards address these issues. Dr. Brown’s session will help us unpack these issues, opening up new ways for us to present them to our students.

Date: Thursday, February 24
Time: 7:00 – 8:00 pm (Central Time)
Topic: Dr. Keffrelyn Brown, professor of Cultural Studies in Education at The University of Texas at Austin, will be discussing how teachers can address the components of race and racism that their textbooks and curriculum standards neglect. Dr. Brown will be focusing her session specifically on how this broader understanding of race and racism can be translated into classroom practice in ways that engage students.
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As always, we are able to offer one hour of professional development credit for attending a webinar session. It is a great way to earn some PD from the comfort of your own home!

We will be using a system called Adobe Connect to host the webinars and you can access them very easily through your web browser. You will be able to hear the audio of our speakers and view any photographs or text that they may display on the screen.

To register for the webinars, follow the link below:

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/visionawards/ptl/webinar/

I will be sending out another reminder email when we get closer to the date of the first webinar.

Also, please feel free to forward this email to any of your colleagues who you think might be interested in attending.

Thanks for your time. I hope to see many of you at the webinars on February 10th and 24th!

We are hosting the final webinar of the Fall 2010 Presidential Timeline Webinar Series this evening (Monday, November 22) from 7:00-8:00 pm Central time.

Our guest presenter will be Dr. Mark Lawrence, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Lawrence will be discussing the use of primary sources related to the decision to drop the atomic bomb during WWII. Dr. Lawrence will be sharing key documents, providing contextual information for the documents, and suggesting how teachers might use the documents with their students to enrich their understanding of this key moment in US History.

To sign up for tonight’s webinar, follow the link below and provide your email address. I will send you an email prior to the webinar that will have a link so you can enter the webinar room.

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/visionawards/ptl/webinar/

We can offer all teachers attending one hour of professional development credit. I hope to see many of you there!

–Presidential Timeline Project Team

We have 1 more webinar remaining in the Presidential Timeline Webinar Series for Spring 2010.

Information about the webinar and a link to the registration page is below. The webinar is free of charge and teachers can earn one hour of professional development credit for each webinar they attend.

Hope to see you at the webinar!

Monday, May 3rd from 7:00 – 8:00 pm CDT

The fifth Presidential Timeline webinar will feature Dr. Adam Friedman from Wake Forest University. Professor Friedman will discuss the implications of the explosion of primary source material available on the Internet. In the past, primary source documents were difficult, if not impossible, to incorporate into high school social studies instruction if a teacher or school did not own them. Today, tens of thousands of primary source documents are readily available on the Internet for social studies teachers to use. However, mere availability of these resources does not necessarily translate into effective use by students or teachers. This presentation will focus on specific strategies by which teachers and students can use both image and text-based primary source documents in the high school social studies classroom in order to augment students’ understanding of history.

Read more about Dr. Friedman on his Wake Forest homepage: http://www.wfu.edu/education/friedman.html

To register for any of the webinars, follow the link below. (You may still attend a webinar without registering. If you go to the registration page on the day of the webinar it will have a link to enter the webinar meeting room.)

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/visionawards/ptl/webinar/

Please email rcrowley@edb.utexas.edu if you have any questions.

Hope to see you at a webinar!

Thanks for your interest,

The Presidential Timeline Team

We have scheduled the next two webinars in the Presidential Timeline Webinar Series.

Monday, April 12th from 7:00 – 8:00 pm CDT

The third Presidential Timeline webinar will feature Sterling, KS high school social studies teacher Brian Richter talking about how he implements the VoiceThread technology in his classroom. Mr. Richter will talk about how he creates performance tasks for his students in which they are required to find primary sources about a specific time period or historical event and then create an accompanying narrative using VoiceThread. Mr. Richter will show several examples of his students’ work and take questions from other teachers in attendance.

Monday, April 19th from 7;00 – 8:00 pm CDT

The fourth Presidential Timeline webinar will feature Dr. Cheryl Mason Bolick from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Bolick’s session is titled “Digital History: Just Do It!” This discussion will present the vast array of resources housed within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Documenting the American South (docsouth.unc.edu). We will provide an overview of the historical projects and how they connect with teaching and learning in the social studies classroom. We will discuss how Web 2.0 tools (voicethread, audacity, vodcasts…) can augment student learning with digital primary sources. Dr. Bolick will also take questions from the teachers in attendance.

Registration link will be ready to go by tomorrow (Friday, April 2, 2010)

Thanks,

The Presidential Timeline Team

We’ll be hosting our third Presidential Timeline educators’ webinar on April 12 at 7 PM central time. We’re bringing back Brian Richter to share more of his creative work using digital primary sources with his students. Check back here for more details!

Greetings,

The Presidential Timeline Team will be hosting the second in a series of 5 webinars on utilizing technology and primary sources in the social studies classroom.

• Date: Monday, March 29th
• Time: 7:00 – 8:00 pm CDT
• Topic: Local Digital History and Online Historical Thinking
• Featured Scholar: Social Studies Education Professor John K. Lee from North Carolina State University

Dr. Lee works on a number of digital history projects and is a leading scholar in social studies education. Dr. Lee described his upcoming webinar talk as follows:

“New historical resources are made available online every day, yet we know little about how students should  use these resources. Learn how you can enhance your history curriculum using online resources and how to apply  new historical literacies and digital tools in the classroom. Also, hear about how your school can collaborate and share your community histories online.”

Find more about Dr. Lee on his homepage:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jklee/

To participate in the webinar, go to the following address prior to 6:45 pm CDT on Monday, March 29th:

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/visionawards/ptl/webinar/

You can sign up now or just go to the above link on Monday evening and enter the meeting room directly.

Our team can offer participating teachers 1 hour of Continuing Professional Education credit for attending. We will provide you with a certificate following the webinar.

Email rcrowley@edb.utexas.edu if you have any questions.

Hope to see you on the 29th!!!

Thanks for your interest,

The Presidential Timeline Project Team

The Presidential Timeline will be hosting the first in a series of webinars** on the use of digitized primary resources and web-based technologies.

Date: Monday, February 22, 2010

Time: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm CST.

Topic: Digitized Primary Sources and Web-based Technologies in the Social Studies Classroom

Anyone and everyone is invited to join in and participate!

Please check back soon to get the link that will take you into the meeting room for the webinar. We will be using Adobe Connect to host the webinar. Ideally, you will want to use a computer with a DSL/Cable connection although a Wi-Fi connection will work as well. You will also need speakers or headphones so you can hear the webinar. Please follow the instructions below in order to check your connection prior to the meeting.

Go to: http://www.utexas.edu/its/web-conferencing/

Scroll down to the “Want to attend a meeting?” section and click on “test your connection.” It will run a quick test to let you know if you need to install anything to make Adobe Connect run more smoothly.

Please email me at rcrowley@edb.utexas.edu if you have any questions. We hope you will come join us on February 22nd at 7:00 pm.

A post will be up with the address of the meeting by Friday, February 19th.

Thanks,

Ryan Crowley, Education Lead, Presidential Timeline Project Team

**Webinar: Short for Web-based seminar, it is a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web. A key feature of a Webinar is its interactive elements — the ability to give, receive and discuss information. This contrasts with Webcast, in which the data transmission is one way and does not allow interaction between the presenter and the audience.

The Presidential Timeline Project team will be hosting a 4-day teacher institute, July 9-12, 2009, on The University of Texas at Austin campus.  This year’s conference is titled The Social Studies Classroom: Presidential Decision Making, Historical Reasoning, and Digitized Primary Sources.  The conference will feature scholars from the fields of political science, social studies education, instructional technology, and digital archives.

Any interested secondary social studies teacher is welcome to apply.  Through federal funding, we are able to offer teachers a $100 daily stipend for each day of the 4-day conference and we have blocked off rooms right near campus at a very reasonable rate.  We will utilize the facilities of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and the Learning Technology Center, both located on the UT-Austin campus.  We feel this will be a great learning experience for all teachers that attend.  

We have created a website with information about the institute.  Click here to visit the site and be sure to click on “Registration Information” in the navigation menu on the left side to fill out our Teacher Application if you are interested in attending.  We will notify all teachers that apply by May 8th.

Thanks and we hope to hear from you!

The Presidential Timeline Project Team

All of our educational activities should be back to full functionality now, but we are having some trouble with the Gallery. We’re working on it as we speak and expect the problem to be resolved quickly.

We’re currently experiencing a problem with our educational activities not displaying properly in Internet Explorer. They are working fine in all other browsers that we have checked. We are working as we speak to resolve the problem.