Upcoming Webinars

Technology and Literacy in the K-12 Classroom 

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Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012 
Time: 4:00 PM EST 

Technology has a growing presence in our world, as well as in your classrooms. Tablets, interactive whiteboards, and classroom blogs are all ways you can use technology to teach literacy in all subjects.

Join Patti Kinney of NASSP, as well as Donna Rekau, Ph.D., and Shawn Schumacher, Ph.D., of DeVry University for a teacher webinar to find out how to enhance literacy lessons with technology and to effectively differentiate instruction for all your students.

Speakers:
Patti Kinney is the Associate Director of Middle Level Services for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. She has an extensive background of 33 years in public education, the last 17 spent as an administrator at Talent Middle School in southern Oregon. She was the NASSP/MetLife National Middle Level Principal of the Year in 2003, Oregon Middle Level Principal of the Year 2002, and Oregon Assistant Principal of the Year 1996. In 2007 she was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the Oregon Middle Level Association.

Donna Rekau, Ph.D., is the national dean for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at DeVry University. She is responsible for creating, developing, and implementing courses and curricula in liberal arts and sciences for the University’s national student population. She also oversees several cross-disciplinary library projects, including new initiatives, such as information literacy and research across the curriculum. A key thought leader in the development of DeVry University’s Master’s in Education degree program, Dr. Rekau approved the proposal and coursework, oversaw the curriculum development process, and participated in internal research both from an industry and gainful employment perspective. Additionally, Dr. Rekau trained business stakeholders, approved marketing materials and enrollment projections, and worked with DeVry University’s Academic Quality team to assess student success parameters.

Shawn Schumacher, Ph.D., is a senior Professor of English and Humanities at DeVry University. He co-authored the program proposal for DeVry University’s M.S.Ed. program and served as a Subject Matter Expert for several courses within the curriculum. In addition to his teaching duties at DeVry University, Dr. Schumacher serves as the Chicago Metro representative to the Faculty Advisory Council of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the Chair of the Private and Independent Colleges and Universities Caucus, and has taught as an adjunct instructor in the graduate program at the American College of Education. His research interests include curriculum and instruction, teacher education, faculty development, and leadership. 

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On Demand Webinars 

Assessing the Common Core

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Hear from three districts that are changing their assessments to prepare for the Common Core.

Speakers:
Dr. Pat Forgione, Executive Director of the K-12 Center at ETS and the former Austin ISD Superintendent

Cynthia Shields, Language Arts Supervisor for New Hanover County Schools in Wilmington, North Carolina

Erich Bolz, Assistant Superintendent of Response to Interventions and Special Programs for the Richland School District in Washington state

Shawn Parkhurst, K-2 principal of the 500-student Jerome Harrison school, located in North Branford, Connecticut.

Moderator:
Wayne D'Orio, Editor of Scholastic Administrator magazine

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Improve Student Attention While Reducing Costs With Classroom Management Software

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With educational budgets under increasing pressure, NetSupport School enables educators to deliver a higher level of instruction with increased student attention and engagement, while reducing overall costs and ensuring an unrivaled return on investment from the critical IT equipment in place.

During this one-hour webinar you will learn:

• How to keep students "on task"
• How to reduce problematic behavior among students
• How to increase engagement and collaboration with students
• How to minimize equipment downtime
• How to successfully control costs and increase your ROI

Speakers:
Marcus Kingsley is the CEO of NetSupport Inc., a leading desktop-management software developer since 1989. In his current role, he manages all aspects of sales, marketing, and corporate affairs for the U.S. Market, including the Education space through its portfolio of educational software applications. With 80 percent of the top 50 U.S. School Districts currently using a NetSupport solution, Kingsley indirectly influences the quality of instruction delivered to millions of students every day. 

Jim Fargione is the Lead Teacher for Instructional Technology, for the Three Village Central School District, Stony Brook, New York, where he helps teachers integrate technology into their curricula. Through the use of workshops, in-service courses after school, and one-on-one training sessions during the school day, the faculties of the Three Village Central School District are actively developing their technology use strategies. 

Daryl Kisosondi is Assistant Systems Engineer for Tyler ISD, Texas. Kisosondi's duties include VMware View administration-managing the virtual desktop environment for Tyler ISD. His duties also include deployment of NetSupport School as part of that virtual environment, as well as connectivity for normal computers. His team supports all the technology of TISD-related systems. 

Kenneth R. Cramer, Technology Purchasing Coordinator and Project Manager for Tyler Independent School District in Tyler, Texas

Moderator:
Ken Royal, Senior Editor, Technology and Products, Scholastic Professional Media

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Boosting Literacy With Effective Reading Comprehension

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What does it mean to understand what one reads? How can instruction be designed to systematically teach the skills, strategies, and knowledge necessary for reading comprehension? In this presentation, we will examine two repertoires related to reading comprehension:

• The intellectual skills and strategies necessary to comprehend text 
• Vocabulary knowledge

You will hear from Chad High, Principal, Cole Elementary School in Tennessee, who will share his success story on boosting student literacy with effective reading comprehension. We'll then discuss how these can serve as a foundation for designing effective strategy-based instruction for four major types of comprehension — factual or literal, inferential, main idea, and derived meaning-as well as word meanings. 

Speakers:
Dr. Marta Leon is the Director of Instructional Development for Headsprout. Dr. Leon has significantly contributed to the design and development of the Headsprout Reading Comprehension program and its accompanying materials. 

Dr. Joanne Robbins is the principal of Morningside Academy in Seattle, Washington and a cofounder and executive director of P.E.E.R. International. She has over 30 years of experience in program development, curriculum design, and teaching and supervision of programs for children and youth. Her experience has been in both educational and mental health settings. She has developed programs for Pre–K through the college level.

Mr. Chad High attended Lipscomb University, where he received his Bachelors and Master's degrees. He taught fifth grade at Donelson Middle School, before moving to Hattie Cotton Elementary School where he taught 3rd grade and 4th grade ELL. Chad is starting his 7th year at Cole Elementary. He was the assistant principal for three years, and this is his fourth year as the principal. 

Moderator: 
Wayne D'Orio, Executive Editor, Scholastic 

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Getting Started With a Professional Learning Community

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Timothy Ito of ASCD and Deborah L. Rickey, Ph.D. provides steps for starting a successful PLC at your school. 

Plus, participants will also receive a certificate for one hour of professional development per webinar. 

Speakers:
Deborah Rickey is the Office of Dissertations Director for the College of Doctoral Studies at Grand Canyon University. Her expertise in the education field is extensive and varied, holding positions as a teacher, college professor and administrator at various institutions both at the secondary and post-secondary levels. She also plays an active role in her community's educational development and promotes on-going professional growth for teachers. 

Tim Ito is currently the director of web site operations for ASCD, and manages ASCD EDge, the association's online professional learning community comprised of over 30,000 educators worldwide. Tim started his career in 1990 as an English teacher in Tokyo, Japan, eventually moving to become a reporter with U.S. News & World Report magazine and to other editorial roles at the Washington Post, AltaVista and AOL.

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Effective and Fun Test Prep

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Mary Rose and Phyllis Carbonaro take the pain out of test prep with effective tools to motivate and guide students. 

Plus, participants will also receive a certificate for one hour of professional development per webinar. 

Speakers:
Mary Rose was a teacher for 38 years and is the author of 11 professional books for educators. She has her Bachelors and Masters degrees from Marshall University and her Educational Leadership certification from Univ. Central Florida. Mary has worked on assessment projects for the following institutions: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), The New Standards Project on Alternative Assessment, Psychological Corp, and State of Florida FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) in writing and reading. She is also a national educational consultant.

Phyllis Carbonaro earned her BA in Elementary Education and her MA Ed in Special Education, both from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Phyllis began her career in education as a preschool owner/director. She then taught everything from elementary to art to middle school in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, NV, for 26 years. Since then she has worked as an instructional designer and curriculum developer, in addition to being lead faculty and area chair at the university level. 

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Safe Social Media in the Classroom

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Edmodo's Betsey Whalen, Erinn Ferris, MEd and Teacher Amy Flynn discuss safe ways to embrace social media in the classroom. 

Plus, participants will also receive a certificate for one hour of professional development per webinar. 

Speakers:
As Vice President of Community Engagement, Betsy Whalen is responsible for communications, marketing, social media and community events. She helps educators around the world connect with each other to share ideas and creative ways to integrate Edmodo into classroom curriculum. 

Erinn Ferris comes to Grand Canyon University from the Cave Creek Unified School District, where she was a certified English teacher and the Foundational Academic Mentoring coordinator. Additionally, she was an AIMS coordinator, faculty chair of NCA accreditation, successfully authored the school's A+ application, and served on the superintendent's steering committee. She is a K–12 certified administrator and an International Baccalaureate trained instructor.

After graduating with a BA in Elementary Education from Chestnut Hill College, Amy Flynn decided to become a 1st grade teacher. She runs in-services for the district on Smartboard Basics & Uses and Technology in the Classroom.

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Helping Struggling Readers

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Hear expert Jennifer Scoggins share strategies for building fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. 

Plus, participants will also receive a certificate for one hour of professional development per webinar. 

Speaker:
Jennifer Scoggin is a literacy consultant for LitLife, Inc as well as the creator of the teacher advocacy blog It's Not All Flowers and Sausages. Prior to working with teachers, Jennifer taught both first and second grades. She also holds a doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Earning Your Doctoral Degree

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This informative webinar will give you the key tools you need to pursue your doctoral degree. Our experts will share which steps to take as you embark on this exciting and challenging phase of your career in education. The webinar will cover:

• Why a doctoral degree? 
• 21st century innovations in doctoral education 
• How to identify which program and specialty is right for you 
• Professional and personal outcomes of earning a doctoral degree

Speakers:
Deborah L. Rockey, Ph.D., Director, Office of Dissertations, College of Doctoral Studies, Grand Canyon University 

Hector Leal, Associate Vice-President of Enrollment, College of Doctoral Studies, Grand Canyon University

Hank Radda, Ph.D., Dean and Senior Vice President, College of Doctoral Studies, Grand Canyon University

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Learning for All: Tools to Support Differentiation in the Classroom

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In this hour-long live webinar event, experts Sarah Armstrong, and Carlyn Ludlow will explore strategies for implementing sustainable differentiation in every classroom, K–6. They will touch upon the following topics and themes:

• Organizing and managing differentiated small group lessons and independent practice 
• How to implement sustainable differentiation and reduce preparation time 
• Examples of differentiated literacy centers/work stations 
• Tiered tasks in comprehension and word work designed with multiple levels of challenge 
• Linking small group lessons and independent practice to maximize the rate of student progress 
• Comprehension lessons designed with interactive formats and scaffolds that enable every student to verbalize their thinking and respond — making concepts accessible to low progress students 
• How to incorporate visual tools, such as picture-cued bookmarks that scaffold learning 
• Building synapses (new learning) 
• The brain perspective on why activating prior knowledge is essential for learning 
• Changing states of attention for optimal learning 
• Self-assessment tools: Partnering with colleagues to advance differentiation

Speakers: 
Dr. Sarah Armstrong, president of Leading and Learning Solutions, is a consultant on instructional improvement, including the application of brain research and effective differentiation in the classroom. Her wide-range of experience as an educator includes serving as a reading specialist, supervisor of gifted and reading, elementary principal and assistant superintendent. Sarah conducts workshops at national and state conferences and works regularly with administrators and teachers in school districts across the country. Her book, Teaching Smarter with the Brain in Focus, published by Scholastic is frequently used in many schools as a faculty book study.

Dr. Carlyn Ludlow is currently serving as the Assistant Dean in the College of Education at Grand Canyon University. As the Assistant Dean, Dr. Ludlow is responsible for Grand Canyon University's traditional campus faculty and students, and state-wide partnerships and outreach programs. Dr. Ludlow received her Doctorate in Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy from Pepperdine University, her Master's Degree from Chapman University, and her Bachelor's Degree from the University of Arizona. During her tenure in education, she has been a classroom teacher, a curriculum designer, a university faculty member and program chair, and a research/curriculum consultant for schools, businesses, and government agencies.

Moderator: 
Megan Kaesshaefer is Senior Associate Editor for Scholastic Professional Media.