Commitment Letter #1

June 16, 1996

Brenda Bullet
Techgate Branch
Techgate Metropolitan Library
1061 West Town Street
Capital City, Ohio 43223

Dear Brenda:

I am delighted to hear about the project you and the other members of the Children's Activity Committee of the Techgate 1797-1997 Bicentennial Committee are undertaking; that is, the creation of a "Techgate History and Heritage" booklet and workshop geared toward children and lower literacy adults.

I understand that you are applying for a Union Humanities Mini-Grant through the Union Humanities Council to help fund the booklet and workshop. This letter is meant to advise you and your prospective funder that U-Save will be happy to do anything we can to help advertise and promote the booklet and workshop.

As you know, among other things U-Save publishes the Techgate News, a free monthly twelve-page community newspaper. We print 11,000 copies of the Techgate News each month: 9,300 are hand-delivered to every household in Techgate and the Southwest community; 1000 are mailed around the city and across the country; and 700 are distributed out of neighborhood schools, agencies, and businesses. We will be happy to promote the booklet and workshop in the Techgate News, as well as through any other community distribution channels available to us (community bulletin board postings here and at other community social services agencies, direct flyer distribution to the hundreds of children and adults we work with each month, etc.).

Please advise me if there is anything else we can do to be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Kevin Kole, Vice President

Process Objectives

Through structured activities and experiences, the district will identify those real and percieved barriers to the retention of teachers of color as effective and fulfilled classroom teachers.

Members of the staff will visit five sites around the state in order to view models of instruction for cooperative learning.

Think About:

How might you reconstruct these process objectives?

In an Information Age, students have more access to primary source material than any previous generation. A primary source can be current or historical. It might include newspaper stories, videoclips, sound recordings, documents, photographs, posters, diaries, and other artifacts that happened at the time of an event or through an eyewitness account. The Internet provides portals to many digitized materials such as the Ohio Historical Society, California Heritage Collection, Denver Public Library, American Memory at The Library of Congress, and the National Archives.

A secondary source is created by someone either not present when the event took place or removed by time from the event. Examples of secondary sources include textbooks, journal/magazine articles, histories, and encyclopedias.

Many of the artifacts on the Internet are in raw format without any supporting information. Since primary sources are fragmentary, students may not relate to these bits and pieces. This is when interrogation techniques can be employed where students ask questions on their own terms and begin to make sense of the artifacts.

There is also a dark side to primary sources that may be offensive. Many lyrics in sheet music of the past depict individuals in stereotypical ways. Documents may contain racial slurs. Photographs can tell biased stories. Examine the examples below. click on the images to see a larger view. Click on the underlined words to view the entire record of the primary source.

From the above illustrations, one can see that primary sources are potential minefields in the K-12 classroom. Many would argue regardless of the source, this kind of material should be off limits to school children. On the other hand, we want students to learn from historical documents. Carefully crafted discussion and analysis are a way to effectively use "difficult" primary resources. Teachers need to teach in context and help students demystify what they see. This is where literacy skills come into play. When students learn to read images and text with a critical eye, they will begin to see other, sometimes-extreme, viewpoints (Jacobson, F. F. (2000). The dark side of primary sources. Knowledge Quest, 29, 35-37.)

As a teacher, you will need to guide this process with your students. There are tools available to assist you in this task.

Discovering American Memory - Library of Congress

Discovering American Memory shows you how to use the American Memory collections, provides activities for understanding primary sources, and offers several analysis guides.

Document Analysis Worksheets - National Archives

The National Archives has developed a series of worksheets to use when studying primary sources such as posters, motion pictures, and written documents.

Assignment:

Select a primary source from one of the sites below. You can choose from a variety of items such as photographs, posters, sound recordings, documents, and motion pictures. Develop a lesson you could use with students in your own class. Follow this lesson plan format: Topic, Grade level, Objective(s), Resources, Process, and Evaluation. You can create your lesson in a word processing document such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Works. Note: Macintosh users need to type a . (period) and the extension like doc for a Microsoft Word document. The filename should be 8 characters or less plus the extension, ex. filename.doc. Post your lesson (file) and the artifact (file) you used under the Log Entries.

California Heritage Collection
Denver Public Library
Library of Congress
National Archives
Ohio Historical Society

What do we mean by "ethics?" Responsibility? Acceptable Use?

Teachers and parents alike have a great deal of concern over what their children and students encounter on the Internet.

Assignment:

After you examine some of the material we have provided you in the links below, we would like you to write an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for your classroom. Please post your AUP in Log Entries with any references to sites or information you used or adapted. Give a short rationale for the AUP you wrote.

We will evaluate your AUP on its inclusiveness of critical issues and your rationale. Remember, part of Internet ethics is NOT to copy from a Web source!

Everything on the Net is public domain. Right? Read "The 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained" by Brad Templeton and you will soon have a different perspective. Another thought provoking article is David Rothman's "Copyright and K-12: Who Pays in the Network Era?" His premise is that with current law, children must pay the ultimate price because inadequate budgets will not allow schools to pay licensing fees. Several issues are presented: what networks mean to teachers and students, how copyright may affect K-12 networking, attitudes of educators, and options for a solution. For information about preventing, detecting, and tracking down plagarism on the Web, go to Cut and Paste Plagarism. If you want a cool Web-based tool for your students to use to create bibliographies from email citations to Web sites, check out NoodleTools.

For basic copyright information, current legislation, and international agreements go to the United States Copyright Office. The Copyright Clearance Center is a not-for-profit organization created to help organizations comply with U.S. copyright law. With over 1.75 million titles, it provides authorized users with a lawful means to make photocopies. For guidelines on what you may copy as a teacher, read "Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians" at the Library of congress. A more recent document, "Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia," adopted by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property in September 1996 can be found at the Consortium for College and University Media Centers, Indiana University.

Read about copyright by visiting the sites below and answer these questions. What is copyright? What is fair use? What are the tests for determining fair use? Are there limits to the amount of material that you can use?

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained
Copyright and K-12: Who Pays in the Network Era?
Copyright Management Center
Copyright Web site
Cut and Paste Plagarism 
Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Media
NoodleTools
U. S. Copyright Office

Assignment:

1. View the Ask CyberBee animation. Create a short copyright lesson to use with students. Post it in the Log Entries.
2. Using the Promenade, assign writing assignments for parts of the Tour Guide for Safe Surfing on the Internet publication (final project).