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Our two Summer Teacher Institutes, sponsored by Annenberg Learner, were a resounding success! Participants in the novice and advanced “Primarily Digital: Teaching Media Literacy to Plugged-in Students” institutes learned about cutting-edge blended learning techniques in three days crammed with workshops, exhibit exploration, collaborative sharing and creative thinking.

The excitement was most evident on Twitter, where scores of tweets per hour appeared with hashtag #ANEW15. Forty-four educators – from as far away as Arizona, Florida and Massachusetts – attended the institutes in person, while dozens more followed virtually via social media, Google community and live-streaming.

The 2015  institute drew observers from Vanderbilt University, Library of Congress and The New York Times. In addition, alumni from our first institute last summer shared via Google Hangout how they have applied what they learned. In total, 36 hours of professional development were offered.

“The creativity was as hot as the D.C. summer air today inside our cool Newseum classroom.”

Janet Baker, novice institute participant

Participants incorporated new strategies and ideas from the institute and their peers into lesson plans for the coming school year. Many of the lessons use NewseumED materials, and teachers discovered our vast resources online that they will tap throughout the year. Several teachers already are planning class trips to the Newseum.

“I tweeted today!!  In addition to that I am very excited about what I learned from today's presentations and interactions with other teachers. ...  Being a part of this program is really helping me with my fear of ‘messing up’ my technology efforts.”

Nancy Konrath, novice institute participant

Did you miss out on the institutes? You can still find lots of lesson plans, handouts and videos from the institutes in Google Community. You can join one or both communities by clicking on the hyperlink: Novice or Advanced. In addition, you can find #ANEW15 tweets from all three days of the advanced institute in Storify and archived videos of the live-streaming on YouTube.

"Today's discussion on ethics in the media really ignited a fire.  It took me back to a few years ago when I was lucky enough to teach a Debate section.  I want to infuse that kind of thinking and discussion back into my classroom.  Why do I need an elective class to discuss ethics? This applies to ELA every single day!"

Gina Powers, advanced institute participant

 

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