LEARN NC

Fall conference 2009

2 Conference agenda

Morning sessions will be offered only for face-to-face participants, while afternoon sessions will be offered for both face-to-face and virtual participants. See below for full session descriptions.

Morning face-to-face sessions

8:00 am

Arrival and check-in

Coffee and snacks will be provided.
8:45 am: Session one

Classroom assessment by the minute: Teaching students to monitor their own learning

Bobby Hobgood
The pressure of covering the curriculum while preparing for EOCs or EOGs often prevents us from integrating formative assessment strategies that lead to higher quality learning. The secret to overcoming those external pressures lies in how we think about assessment opportunities minute-by-minute. During this interactive session, we will rethink the roles of teacher and student as we explore easy-to-use strategies for preparing students to monitor their own learning. Participants will leave with simple strategies to help their students see ongoing, formative assessment as an essential learning tool for learning.
10:15 am

Break

10:30 am: Session two

Technology integration with Instructify and LEARN NC

Bill Ferris, Jason Don Forsythe, Ross White
Come and play with the latest free online teaching and productivity tools so you can teach better, smarter, faster. The folks behind LEARN NC’s Instructify blog will guide you through a hands-on look at social networking platforms, smart-phone apps, organizational tactics, time savers, and more. You’ll get to work with each tool, and we’ll discuss what it is, what it does, and how you can use it in class.
12:00 pm

Lunch

Afternoon interactive sessions

1:00 pm

Welcome and setting the stage

LEARN NC Executive Director Melissa Thibault

Opening remarks

School of Education Dean Bill McDiarmid
1:10 pm

LEARN NC: Discovering, teaching, and sharing state-wide

Melissa Thibault, Dan Lewandowski
LEARN NC has always championed free resources, sharing, and open-source development. These days, everyone is beginning to speak our language! Join LEARN NC, our coordinators, our partners, and our evangelists for a day of discovering, teaching, and sharing… state-wide!
1:30 pm

Assemble your own professional development plan with eLearning for Educators

Ross White, David Barger
With the new North Carolina standards in place for teachers, educators from across the state are wondering how to create a individualized professional development plan. But you don’t have to wait for your school to bring the professional development to you — with online courses, you can get personalized professional development from home, from school, or from anywhere you have internet access. We’ll look briefly at the new teacher evaluation instrument and give you tips for selecting online courses from e-Learning for Educators that will help you grow as an education professional.
1:45 pm

COLT: Addressing online teaching challenges

Ross White
This session will provide an overview of best practices in online teaching as covered in the Carolina Online Teacher Program (COLT). We will also discuss how the COLT curriculum addresses some of the most common challenges teachers face in the online environment.
2:00 pm

Teaching science through project-based learning

Kelley Yonce, David Walbert
Featuring Wake County biology teacher Kelley Yonce, this session will show you ways to engage students in meaningful exploration of scientific concepts and how to find project-based learning resources.
2:30 pm

Break

2:40 pm

Using LEARN NC resources to impact teacher working conditions in your school

Keri Church, Phil Kaufman
Drawing on the findings of the 2008 Teacher Working Conditions survey, you can identify resources and information on the LEARN NC website to respond to the needs of your school and your students. Start a new conversation on improving the conditions in your school before the 2010 survey.
3:00 pm

Technology integration with Instructify

Bill Ferris, Jason Don Forsythe
Wondering where to find the latest free online teaching and productivity tools? LEARN NC’s Instructify blog brings you the latest and greatest web apps with ideas to help you use them… next period!
3:20 pm

Break

3:30 pm

Reaching every student with blended learning

Bobby Hobgood
Learning in the Knowledge Age takes place in a broader range of settings than most of us knew as students. Technological advances coupled with a deeper understanding of how people learn have shown us how to create new learning environments. This session explores the concept of blended learning and how it merges traditional and contemporary pedagogies to meet the needs of today’s learners.
4:00 pm

Be the hero! Great professional development offerings in minutes using LEARN NC’s workshop tools

Melissa Thibault, Dan Lewandowski
Why reinvent the wheel? LEARN NC’s workshop tools provide the handouts, instructional videos, and presentation guides you need for your next teacher workshop or to meet the principal’s request for a 10-minute tech training at this afternoon’s faculty meeting. We’ll show you how.
4:15 pm

Reaching and teaching the digital native

Phil Kaufman, Dan Kelo
Students who have never known a world without digital information, virtual collaboration, and constant online communication don’t fit very well in their desks and don’t quite know what to do with the tools they find there. What tools and techniques can you employ to meet them where they are?
4:30 pm

Synthesis, discussion, Q & A, and next steps

Melissa Thibault and staff
During this time, presenters will be available to answer any questions that weren’t addressed during the sessions. The staff will also discuss where LEARN will go in the coming year. Participant input is welcomed and encouraged!