Teach As A Reporter

TEACH AS A REPORTER

PROPOSAL


The Concept

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

Behavioral Objectives

Sadly, the old methods which educators 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 As A Reporter will show educators how to access the internet, how to research information, and 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 to stimulate students. Each chapter will take approximately 45 minutes of class time and will include lesson plans which will range from primary, middle and high school.

Specific Learning Activities

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 manner 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 books for teachers abound, this will be the first one which actually gives instructors concrete information on how to bring their classrooms into the new digital arena. As Emmy award winning teacher Bowllan and children’s writer Heusler clearly know, students today learn differently and Teach As A Reporter will show 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 mysteries. She has been a teacher at all grade levels and 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 appearances and also available to present workshops at educational conferences where the book might be shown.


Delivery of the Book

The book will be ready by spring of 2008