Helping Colorado Educators and Students Discover the Treasures
of the Library of Congress

AAM-Colorado Newsletter • Edition 2 • January 2005

• AAM-Colorado Open House and Professional Development Day for Librarians — Bring a Teacher!
• AAM-Colorado Presents "The Other Voices of the New Deal" to Denver Public School Educators
• AAM-Colorado Fall Workshops Completed
• Spring 2005 Semester Workshops Beginning January 18th!
• Meet Chris Jennings — AAM-Colorado’s Workshop Supervisor
• What is the Digital Primary Resource Center?
• Metro State’s Teacher Education Program
• Using WebQuests with Primary Source Materials
• Metro State’s Board of Trustees Commend the AAM-Colorado Program Presentation

Workshop Participants Share Enthusiasm

"Wow! I never realized the scope of the Library of Congress collection."

"I will, without a doubt, be using this with my students."

"I found myself exploring well beyond the sources used in the workshops."

"There is something in the collections for everyone, at every grade level — parents, too."

"We can't always go in person to see these resources at the Library of Congress — but we can access them online."

Participants who have completed AAM-Colorado Primary Source Workshops and Metro State Teacher Education students completing EDT 3610, Application of Educational Technology are enthusiastic about the resources and technology they've discovered. Read more about the Workshops and Metro's EDT 3610 below!

<Back to top

AAM-Colorado Open House and Professional Development Day for Librarians — Bring a Teacher!
On Friday, March 4, 2005 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., AAM-Colorado will host a Librarian Day in conjunction with the Auraria Library, and an Open House from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. in its new Digital Primary Resource Center (DPRC) in Metro State's Central Classroom building (CN 101) on the Auraria Campus. The Open House will feature a presentation by AAM-Colorado Director Peggy O’Neill-Jones, a tour of the AAM-Colorado and Auraria Campus facilities, and a chance for participants to enter a drawing to win one of two NEC VT-470 projectors or a 72 inch SB580 Interactive SMART whiteboard and stand* for their school! The Open House will continue on Saturday, March 5, 2005 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and the drawing will be held at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday in the DPRC. * One entry per person and one winner per school. Winners need not be present to win. Equipment becomes property of the winner's school.

Librarians throughout the State of Colorado are invited to attend the Librarian Day with a teacher of their choice, and AAM-Colorado will provide substitutes for attending librarians and teachers for the day! Librarian Day participants will learn about the An Adventure of the American Mind program and local resources, and are invited to participate in presentations focusing on local resources such as the Colorado Digitization Program.

To learn more about Librarian Day and the AAM-Colorado Open House, call 303-352-4945, visit our Open House and Librarian Day Page, or e-mail aamcolorado@mscd.edu. Librarian Day will take place in Auraria Library 245.

<Back to top

The Librarian Day will feature a teleconference from 10:15 a.m. to 11:30 pm. with Dr. Derrick de Kerckhove, director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and professor in the Department of French at the University of Toronto. Dr. de Kerckhove currently holds the prestigious Papamarkou Chair in Education and Technology at the Library of Congress.

Dr. de Kerckhove will speak about the impact that the delivery of information via the Web and the extensive use of Web-based tools, such as the Library of Congress' American Memory project, will have on the development of the information processing skills of young people. The teleconference will be held in the Auraria Media Center on the lower level of the Auraria Library.

AAM-Colorado Presents "The Other Voices of the New Deal" to Denver Public School Educators
On December 1, 2004, AAM-Colorado Director Peggy O'Neill-Jones and Workshop Supervisor Chris Jennings presented The Other Voices of the New Deal to DPS educators, a project based on Library of Congress primary source collections that featured New Deal issues from the perspectives of minorities and disadvantaged Americans. Photographs, audio clips, propaganda, and poetry were among the primary sources incorporated to create a compelling glimpse into American history. The Other Voices of the New Deal presentation is available in HTML format, as well as PDF (2.05 MB) and PowerPoint (7.19 MB) formats.

<Back to top

AAM-Colorado Fall Workshop Series Completed
Almost 200 workshop participants plan technology additions as they complete AAM-Colorado Primary Source Workshops
An Adventure of the American Mind – Colorado has been extremely busy since the last newsletter posting. Our first group of 190 pre-service teachers at Metro State completed AAM-Colorado Workshops Series I and III in Fall of 2004, as part of Metro's Application of Education Technology class. In addition, in-service participants from Jefferson County and Sheridan School Districts Jeff Mayer (9th-12th grade Language Arts and Web Design, Sheridan High School), Kim Walter (8th grade Art, Summit Ridge Middle School in Jefferson County), and Brian VanVoorhees (8th grade Social Studies, Bell Middle School in Jefferson County) completed Workshop Series I, II, and III, and Melanie Fuqua (6th-8th Grade Science and Math, Sheridan Middle School) completed Workshop Series II and III at Metro's Center for Academic Technology (CAT) Lab in Fall 2004. Descriptions of the topics covered in the 18 AAM-Colorado workshops can be found on the Workshops pages.

In addition to the 190 pre-service teachers who completed Series I and III in their Teacher Education studies at Metro State in Fall of 2004, another group of 364 pre-service teachers are scheduled to begin Application of Educational Technology incorporating Series I and III in Spring 2005 semester, starting next week.

<Back to top

Spring 2005 Semester Workshops Beginning Soon!
Spring schedule is available online. 2005 workshops begin January 18th.
Over the holidays, AAM-Colorado was busily preparing the Blended Learning (online and face-to-face sessions) educator workshops that will launch in January 2005. Educators from the Archdiocese of Denver Schools, Cherry Creek School District, Denver Public Schools, Jefferson County School District, and Sheridan School District can participate in alternating online workshops (via WebCT and Horizon Wimba) with face-to-face sessions held by AAM-Colorado workshop presenters to complete AAM-Colorado Workshop Series I, II, and III.

Participants can earn graduate or recertification credit, American Memory Certification, eligibility to apply for Technology Acquisitions for their schools, and up to $450 each in Digital Resource Certificates. Saturday face-to-face workshops are also available for all participating districts.

AAM-Colorado 2005 workshops begin January 18th. Schedules are now online for the following schools:

• Archdiocese of Denver Schools
• Cherry Creek School District
• Denver Public Schools
• Jefferson County School District
• Sheridan School District

<Back to top

Blended Learning or Saturday Workshops
To accommodate those who wish to attend, educators from participating school districts can choose between blended (part online and part face-to-face) evening workshops, or face-to-face Saturday workshops. For more information about upcoming workshops, check the AAM-Colorado schedule page.

To find out how your Colorado school district can participate in the AAM-Colorado program, please visit the AAM-Colorado web site at http://aamcolorado.mscd.edu, e-mail aamcolorado@mscd.edu, or call 303-352-4945.

Meet Chris Jennings, AAM-Colorado’s Workshop Supervisor
Chris Jennings, workshop supervisor for AAM-Colorado, provides training to in-service participants on the use of primary sources in their teaching and the integration of digital technology in their respective schools.

“The participants’ reactions to the workshops are very positive,” says Jennings. In the workshops, participants go over activities step by step and take home class materials to reference later.

Chris and his team are busy gearing up for the Spring 2005 AAM-Colorado workshops and preparing the Digital Primary Resource Center for upcoming use by participants.

<Back to top

What is the Digital Primary Resource Center?
Jennings is also looking forward to the January 2005 opening of the new Digital Primary Resource Center (DPRC), in Metro State’s Central Classroom, CN 101. The DPRC offers technology resources that will enable AAM-Colorado participants to locate primary sources using high-speed Internet connections and to develop lesson tools from those sources. The DPRC equipment includes PC and Mac computers available for participants.

The DPRC facility offers hands-on learning. It's the educator's resource for primary source and digital classroom materials.

According to Workshop Supervisor Chris Jennings, the DPRC facility will have three main purposes: 1) to enable users to download primary sources, print materials, create presentations, and save digital materials to disc; 2) to provide a smaller facility for one-on-one training sessions, seminar refreshers, and personal coaching; 3) to provide a location for upcoming summer institutes where educators and experts collaborate and create learning content to be used in the participants' schools.

<Back to top

Metro State’s Teacher Education Program
Metro Teacher Education Professors Sue Joseph and Mark Trimble give high marks to AAM-Colorado. In fact, EDT 3610, Application of Educational Technology, uses Library of Congress (LOC) Collections Primary Sources as a high quality source of engaging materials.

The Teacher Education Professors say that pre-service Metro State students find the LOC material engaging and exciting. Visiting Assistant Professor Sue Joseph says, "Our students absolutely love it."

These professors are asking students if learning to use primary source material will help them later as in-service teachers. BOTH face-to-face classroom and online students are responding that primary sources training will help them to know the technology, know what they are looking for, and how to find the needed materials.

Metro State’s Teacher Education program has incorporated AAM-Colorado workshop material into its course EDT 3610, Application of Educational Technology. Visiting Assistant Professor Sue Joseph said that the students learn how to search for materials on the Library of Congress collections, the Colorado Digitization Program, and others to find sources in their content area, license area, and level of education. She feels that the use of primary sources helps students distinguish the [primary] sources from secondary [interpreted] sources and learn to analyze the primary sources to determine if, and why, they are valuable. Joseph has found that teaching the newly incorporated material takes a more structured approach.

<Back to top

“They [the students] learn to use the Library of Congress collections from the beginning and become very familiar with them. Then, we teach learning theory around that, and teach the students the technical skills. It all blends together,” says Joseph.

Visiting Assistant Professor Mark Trimble in Metro's Teacher Education Department integrates the material into the EDT 3610 existing curriculum by first looking at how to teach the technical aspects of using software applications, and second, by creating standards-based materials that are built around instructional anchors and focus on a central theme.

“In the past, some students chose Web, some software, some books. We didn't know what instructional anchor the students would choose, so it was difficult to prepare them to make use of it,” Trimble explains.

Trimble adds that using the Library of Congress primary source collections has given students a high quality source of materials that are engaging and relatively easy to access, download, and use. This significantly lowers students’ frustration levels in searching for materials. The primary sources are valuable for the perspective they provide and the way that each of the primary sources relates to the other sources in the collection.

"The Application of Educational Technology course can be one of the Teacher Education students’ first steps in learning how to create lesson plans," Trimble added. "The students learn tools in ways that are relevant to how they’ll use those tools when they are out of college and in the classroom."

<Back to top

Using WebQuests with Primary Source Materials
You know your students, their prior experiences and knowledge, the things that tend to interest them. Can Primary Sources improve your WebQuests?
WebQuests are a hot topic in education right now. In-service participants in AAM-Colorado workshops as well as pre-service Metro Teacher Education students are planning and creating WebQuests. They are thinking of ways to use WebQuests in their classrooms.

The curricula for both the AAM-Colorado Workshop series and Metro’s EDT 3610, Application of Educational Technology, incorporate the creation and use of WebQuests in the classroom.

Teachers learn to select and research a topic using primary source collections, and how to create the WebQuest pages incorporating the materials.

AAM-Colorado's WebQuest Template is available online, for teachers who wish to start with existing WebQuest pages and customize them with their own text and graphics.

<Back to top

Check out these Primary Source projects completed by Fall 2004 Workshop participants:

Brian VanVoorhees will use his Compromises of Slavery PowerPoint presentation in his 8th grade Social Studies classes at Jefferson County's Bell Middle School. Note: incorporates an audio clip that requires the free download RealPlayer.

Kim Walter of Jefferson County's Summit Ridge Middle School created her Why Do We Take Photographs? WebQuest to use in her 8th Grade Art classes.

Metro State’s Board of Trustees Commend the AAM-Colorado Program Presentation
October 2004 presentation highlights AAM promise for education
In October 2004, AAM-Colorado Director Peggy O’Neill-Jones presented highlights of the An Adventure of the American Mind – Colorado program to Metro State’s Board of Trustees. O’Neill-Jones introduced Board members to the AAM-Colorado and outlined the specific goals of the program. The presentation described projects managed by the program, the participants (pre-service and in-service educators) that will benefit from the program, and the outreach workshops that provide educators with training in working with LOC primary sources. Metro State, the ONLY Colorado college to receive the AAM grant, is ONE of only TEN higher education institutions in the U.S. to be awarded AAM program funding.

<Back to top

AAM-Colorado 2005 Workshops Begin January 18th!
Contact AAM-Colorado Director Peggy O’Neill-Jones at 303-352-4945 or aamcolorado@mscd.edu
for details about enrolling in AAM-Colorado Workshops.

Please do NOT respond to this e-mail. Instead, use the contact information below.

Peggy O’Neill-Jones, AAM-Colorado Director
Metropolitan State College of Denver
PO Box 173362, Campus Box 35
Denver, CO 80217

Phone 303-352-4945 • Fax 303-352-4987
E-mail aamcolorado@mscd.edu • Web http://aamcolorado.mscd.edu