Hi folks,

Thanks for checking out the newsletter.  We have some wonderful opportunities, and we're always working on improving our program.  Please check the articles below and contact me if you have any questions. 

We're starting to run low on grant money; we have a little over $15,000 remaining to spend on grants. If you have an idea for a mini-grant, conference grant, or other type of grant, please let me know fairly soon.

If you ever have any questions or ideas, feel free to call or email.  Our office phone is 716-376-8381.

Thanks,

Tim Houseknecht

Director

Teacher Center - BOCES Tech Connect Partnership Update

The Tech Connect partnership that was started with BOCES this year has been a great success.  To date, we've placed over 80 projectors in over half of our member districts.  The best part about the program is that teachers didn't just get free stuff; they got valuable instruction on how to utilize the equipment for effective classroom instruction. 

Collaboration between the Teacher Center and BOCES has been a big part of this program's success.  We hope to keep working together to use our funds in the best way possible. The program has been such a hit, it might continue after the initial round of projectors is distributed. We've spent over $40,000 on the equipment, which is a lot.  But the end result has been well worth the price.

If you have never checked out the quality courses available from PBS TeacherLine, you really should.
We can give a grant to help you pay for a course.  You should check with your individual district to see if taking one would count toward your professional development hours.  Considering the quality of these courses, we feel that it should, but that's a district decision.

A few teachers in the area have taken advantage of the TeacherLine courses, including Pam Dominsky, a science teacher at Portville.  We covered the cost of the course. Pam tells me that the course was demanding, but well worth the effort.  If you would like us to help you pay for a course, please email me.

Here is a little promo email that the TeacherLine folks sent out:

The beginning of the New Year is a great time for building the skills and content knowledge of many teachers. The winter enrollment period for PBS TeacherLine NY has begun for selected online courses.  Six courses will start on February 4^th. 

INST300: Curriculum Mapping I by Heidi Hayes Jacobs

INST320: Connecting Family, Community and School s

RDLA340: Teaching Reading in the Content Areas

SCIE125: Fostering Cooperative Learning, Inquiry, and Critical Thinking in Elementary Science (Gr 1-4)

TECH195: Teaching and Learning with Graphic Organizers: Featuring Inspiration

TECH300: The Computer for Personal Productivity

To receive more information on these classes or to view other course offerings, go to www.thinkbright.org/teacherline.

NYSUT Courses Available Soon

Franklinville's Kim Whitling, a NYSUT certified instructor, has asked me to share some info concerning some courses she's teaching this spring.  Kim is a great instructor, so it would be worth your while if you're looking for something.

Here's what Kim will be teaching:

Reading Comprehension (online)

Reading Strategies (online)

EDC 679 - Middle Level Education: Foundations for Middle Years

For the flyers, please go to our events and announcements blog.  Click on the NYSUT link at the right.

Staff Development Materials Grants Going Strong

In an effort to make our grant money available to as many teachers as possible, we've creating a new spin on the mini-grant, our new staff development materials grant.  With this grant, you can purchase up to $500 in professional development materials (CD's, videos, training books, etc.).   One stipulation will be that the materials become the property of your district's professional development library.  This way, we can help you build a good library of materials that you can use, now and in the future.  Click here to see the grant form.  It is also available on our downloads page.

Below is a report from Heather Ferris, a Portville Elementary School teacher.  If you would like to inquire about one of these grants, please email or call. 

A goal at Portville Central School is to support teachers in developing their professional teaching skills and strategies.  In building a professional library, the teachers will have the opportunity at their fingertips to explore the most successful, as well as current research and development that pertain to

Bringing It Back To Your District: Focus on Katie Clouse at West Valley

At the end of November, we brought "Box Cars and One-Eyed Jacks" to St. Bonaventure. It's a program that teaches math skills in a fun way using cards and dice. Katie Clouse from West Valley was one of the participants along with several other West Valley Teachers. 

After the event, Katie contacted me to see if she could train other teachers at her school in the program.  She wrote a grant for buying the same kits that registrants at the original workshop received.   She will now teach 10 of her fellow West Valley teachers in the program at an after school workshop.

In my view, this is a great use of some of our grant money.  Katie loved the workshop because she got something she could use the next day.  Now she's bringing that knowledge back to her colleagues.  We need more success stories like this one.

5 stars for Katie!

Check Out ASCD's SmartBrief

If you want to keep up to date on education news and issues, ASCD has a great current news site and email service. Click here for the SmartBrief site: SmartBrief

I have found the email service to be very handy.  Check it out; I think you will too.

Interesting Stuff from ASCD SmartBrief:

 

Report: N.Y. offers best schools, D.C. worst
New York schools are the best in the U.S., followed closely by Massachusetts and Maryland, while the D.C. school system ranks as the country's worst, and was one of six systems nationwide to earn a D-plus in Education Week's 2008 Quality Counts report. The report's grading system weighs various factors such as student-achievement, state standards and school finance. Education Week (premium article access compliments of Edweek.org) (1/10) , The Washington Post (1/9)

 

Better organizational skills may improve boys' academic performance
Tutor Ana Homayoun helps teens -- especially adolescent boys -- learn and maintain key organizational skills vital to their educational success. Boys may have more difficulty than girls in terms of organizing and multitasking as the demands on students to take responsibility for homework and studying grow in junior high and high school, education experts say. International Herald Tribune (1/1)

Colorado District Abolishes Valedictorian Title

Beginning with the Class of 2010, the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado will no longer award graduating seniors with valedictorian titles, because miniscule grade-point variations separating the award recipients from other top students prompted complaints. Education Week (premium article access compliments of Edweek.org)/Associated Press (11/14)

Odds & Ends:

You might want to think about having another event other than a tug of war:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14374881/detail.html

Check out Tolerance.org's "Mix It Up" program: http://www.tolerance.org/teens/about.jsp. You can even apply for a $500 grant from the organization to get a program going in your school.

Check Out This Free Software

Google Docs and Spreadsheets  This is an online word processor and spreadsheet tool provided by the geniuses at Google.

EduBlogs:   I recently started a blog to discuss items with one of our committees.  It has turned out to be very handy because everyone's responses are right there on the comments page.  I can also post documents for people to review.  I highly recommend this tool for you or your students.  In fact, I like it so much, I might change our Teacher Center website to a blog.  If that happens, we'd have a new address, so I'll keep you posted.  Go to www.edublogs.org to find out more.

Here's a recent opinion article from ASCD about blogs:
Opinion: Requiring students to blog improves writing
When students know their writing is posted for the world to see, their work improves markedly, composition instructor Mark Franek said. In addition to showcasing student essays and stories on their blogs, Franek used Internet scavenger hunts to bring alive the classroom and assignments. The Christian Science Monitor (9/10)  

Irfanview:   This is my favorite image editor, (1) because it's free for educators and students, and (2) because it works great.  It does all of what I need in an image editor, like cropping, resizing and file type.  Check it out at www.irfanview.com.

A New Center Offering - ASCD Online Courses

Our policy board recently voted to try giving grants for online courses from ASCD.  If you're not familiar with ASCD, it's a great resource for professional development materials.  They offer some excellent self-paced courses for $99.  We will pay the fee for you and give you a $50 stipend for finishing it.  That's not a big amount of money for the hours involved, but we felt we should give something for it.  Once again, local professional development or salary credit is a district decision.  You need to contact me before signing up.  Just go to their site, pick out the course you want to take, and then contact me.  You will need to pay for it with a credit card.  You will be reimbursed after completion of the course.

You can check out all offerings at the link here:  ASCD Online Courses

Email or call the Teacher Center office with any questions.  The office phone number is 716-376-8381.

A Great Curriculum Opportunity for Business & Economics Teachers

WISE (Working in Support of Education), a not-for-profit organization in New York City, has developed a financial literacy curriculum and assessment to supplement the NYS grade 12 Economics core curriculum.  This curriculum focuses on the finance section of the core curriculum and includes an assessment option.  WISE offers the curriculum, assessment, and staff development opportunities free-of -charge to participating school districts.  So far, over 23,000 students and 71 schools have participated in the greater New York City area over the past 4 years.  The assessment, offered twice each school year, consists of 50 multiple choice questions based on the content in the core curriculum. The results are only reported to the contact person for participating districts.

See the full details on our New Opportunities page. 

We Now Have Over 100 Computer Tutorials

We've surpassed the 100 mark in our tutorials section. The initial reviews have been very positive, so my board is allowing me to make more of them.  

Do you have an announcement that you'd like to post? 
Send it along and we'll do our best to get it into the newsletter.

Check our calendar page for upcoming workshops and other good stuff.

Are there some resources you would like linked from this site?  Please email us and we'll do our best to get them in our Links section. 

Messages From State Ed

Go to www.nysed.gov for the State Education Department's current news (right on their home page).  The home page includes links to Regents exam schedules.

If there are any other worthwhile announcements pages that we should link to from here, please let us know.  The link(s) could be part of every newsletter.

Professional Development Opportunities:

Click on our Calendar or our New Opportunities pages.

Funding:

E School News Funding Page

Education News Links:

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