Online Classes Offered Through U of Rhode Island

Registration deadline, January 16, 2009
EDC 920:  USING THE INTERNET FOR TEACHING, LEARNING, & PRACTICAL APPLICATION (3) grad credits.
Registration cost: $500.00*
(If you have never taken a course at URI before, the course cost is $535.00 which includes a onetime transcript fee charge of $35.00)

Students will learn how to find relevant information among the abundance of raw data found online, evaluate its worth and credibility, and effectively use it to solve an issue or problem. Students will also learn “Information Literacy Skills” (how to develop their own ‘research and evaluation’ skills) and transfer this knowledge to the students in their classrooms. This will occur by continuously integrating practical application, real research projects for their individual classrooms, and discipline specific lesson plans. Appropriate for grades K-12.  This is an online, asynchronous course with no classroom meetings. There is no designated time that you have to be on line.  Each week’s lesson is posted on line and participants have 7 days to complete and post their assignments. Students will interact completely through a blog, as well as learn what a blog is, how to use one, and how to access educational blogs from teachers around the world. All lessons will be completely downloadable and, therefore, reusable in your own classrooms.

Course Instructor: Dave Fontaine, NBCT
Registration Contact:  Christine P. Dolan at Christine@uri.edu
Class Meeting Dates:  January 19, 2009-May 1, 2009

EDC 921: USING BLOGS AND WIKIS TO FOSTER LITERACY (3) Graduate Credits  Registration cost:$500.00*
(If you have never taken a course at URI before, the course cost is $535.00 which includes a onetime transcript fee charge of $35.00.)

This course focuses on the pragmatism of using Web 2.0 (interactive tools) in education. Participants will learn how to use interactive, online tools to: foster literacy in and out of school; Differentiate Instruction; deepen learning and increase student achievement; create opportunities to bring these technologies to the larger school community; and identify assessment tools that measure the effectiveness of Interactive Web technologies in their personal practice as well as with their students. Appropriate for grades K-12. This is an online, asynchronous course with no classroom meetings. There is no designated time that you have to be on line.  Each week’s lesson is posted on line and participants have 7 days to complete and post their assignments. All lessons will be completely downloadable and, therefore, reusable in your own classrooms.

Course Instructor: Dave Fontaine, NBCT
Registration Contact:  Christine P. Dolan at Christine@uri.edu
Class Meeting Dates:  January 19, 2009-May 1, 2009

EDC 922: Online Texts in the 21st Century Classroom (3) Graduate Credits  Registration cost:$500.00*
(If you have never taken a course at URI before, the course cost is $535.00 which includes a onetime transcript fee charge of $35.00.)

In the 21st century, teachers and students are finding traditional textbooks less useful.  Most are out-of-date before they reach the classroom. Teachers only use a fraction of the material, and the costs have skyrocketed; even the smallest districts spend over $100,000/year on textbooks!  More and more teachers are beginning to access online resources like: interactive tutorials, videos, edu-games, and podcasts to supplement their instruction. In this economic climate, and with the proliferation of free, quality content on the Internet, is it possible to create your own digital textbooks? The answer is yes and the movement is already underway!  Some of the greatest minds are banding together to harness their Collective Intelligence. They are collaboratively writing textbooks and giving them away for free for the common-good through a non-profit organization called CK-12.  Learn about this movement, share your own knowledge, and let your district benefit from the generosity of others. Save and retain each week’s lesson in its entirety so that you may review it repeatedly and manipulate it for your own classroom use.  Learn about Creative Commons Licensing and how it allows you to keep, modify, and share each week’s lesson. Participants will explore and use collaborative, online tools like wikis to improve instruction, as well as create digital textbooks from Open Source material. They will also contribute, and gain access, to unlimited amounts of free digital textbooks that can be used in their classrooms, schools, and districts and create an Open Source chapter/subsection that will be shared with the world!  This is an online, asynchronous course with no classroom meetings. There is no designated time that you have to be online.  Each week’s lesson is posted online and participants have 7 days to complete and post their assignments. Students will interact completely through a blog.  This is a 3-credit, graduate level course offered through the University of Rhode Island.

Course Instructor: Dave Fontaine, NBCT
Registration Contact:  Christine P. Dolan at Christine@uri.edu

Class Meeting Dates:  January 19, 2009-May 1, 2009

Registration deadline, January 16, 2009

 

The ISLMA wiki

Have you visited the ISLMA wiki lately? Go to http://illinoisschoollibraries.wikispaces.com/ and see what has changed!  Use the navigation bar on the left-hand side to visit pages about the Illinois Book Awards or to see a listing of school library blogs.  Don’t forget that you can make changes to the wiki, too!  A special shout out to Erin Wyatt from Highland Middle School Learning Center for creating the wiki!