Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Building Bridges With The Press

Julie Blair says, "let the press in." and she is absolutely right! Her book, Building Bridges with the Press (A Guide for Educators) is a great resource for schools.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Coming soon

Teach like a reporter
The Concept

Award winning newsperson and teacher Amy Bowllan has teamed with teacher, librarian and award winning mystery author Marianna Heusler to write Teach As A Reporter. This book will instruct teachers on how to take the traditional methods of lesson planning and integrate them with technology. The authors will produce a guide for teachers filled with activities that can be used with students on grade levels K -12.

Behavioral Objectives

Sadly, methods teachers were taught years ago no long work. Instructors must learn how to use the vast amount of information coming from the news media and the internet to enhance their lessons.


Teach Like A Reporter will assist teachers in how to access the internet, how to research information, and the book will give step by step instructions to those who are not comfortable using these techniques.

The book is divided into 12 weeks of the school semester with activities for the teacher in order to work with students. Each chapter will take approximately 45 minutes of class time and range from primary, middle, and upper school as well as activities for high school students.

Specific Learning Activities

Every chapter will provide activities to inspire and motivate both students and teachers. Learning activities will include:

Connecting students to current news stories
Showing students how to research digitally
Reports on Emmy winning teachers
Putting students on videotape
Using YouTube in the classroom
Employing blogs as a teaching tool
Drawing on the media to teach geography
How to use online text books
Teaching students the best way to give digital presentations
Teaming up with an educational reporter
Joining listserves for teachers
Using PBS with your students
Turning your classroom into a newsroom


The Market

Teach As A Reporter has been written to comply with most state standards. Teachers will learn how to convey information to students in the same way that reporters use media to inform the public. The students will work on acquiring, interpreting, applying and transmitting information. The potential market for this curriculum based book is enormous.

The Competition
While workbooks for teachers abound, this will be the first one which actually gives instructors concrete information on how to take their classrooms into the new digital arena. As Emmy award winning teacher Bowllan and children’s writer Heusler can attest to, students today learn differently and this book will teach instructors how to meet all of their needs.

Credentials
Amy Bowllan began her career as a Television Investigative Producer and Reporter for WCBS-TV NY and KNXV in Phoenix, AZ. She also snagged two Emmy awards for Broadcast Journalism and several Associated Press awards. She now is the Director of Communications and Educational Technology at The Hewitt School in NYC and is responsible for integrating technological resources into staff and students day to day programs. Amy is also the writer for Bowllan’s Blog at the School Library Journal online magazine.

Marianna Heusler is a published writer with more than fifty short stories in print. She has published five novels, four of them for children. She has visited over one hundred schools, teaching children and teachers how to write a mystery. She has been a teacher and a school librarian. She is currently a third grade teacher at The Hewitt School.


Marketing

The authors both live in New York City, the media capital of the country and both are accustomed to making public appearances in schools, on radio and television, and in other public venues. They will both be available for any such appearances and to present workshops at any educational conferences where the book might be shown.


Delivery of the Book
The book will be ready by spring of 2008