MPTraining

=Millennium Project Training Opportunities=

Wednesday Twilight Seminar, March 16, 2011 4 PM - 7 PM **The “Read/Write” Web: Free Web 2.0 Tools to Enhance Teaching and Learning**
The “read only” Web has been replaced with the “read/write” Web and with it have come some amazing Web-based technology tools. Known as Web 2.0 tools, they provide educators with free or low cost instructional resources that open up a whole new world for teaching and learning. Spend three hours exploring such tools as Animoto to create online presentations, Delicious to create online bookmarks and share them with colleagues and students, Google Docs to create online forms, Picnik to edit photos online, Wordle to design beautiful word clouds, Wall Wisher to create a bulletin board for electronic post-it notes, and more. You’ll be amazed at the possibilities!
 * Brief Bio: Jane Cook** has worked as a Staff Development/Literacy and Educational Technology Specialist for EASTCONN for the past 25 years and serves as the CT Writing Project Technology Program Leader. She uses Web 2.0 tools regularly to engage teachers and students in learning.

Saturday Seminar, April 9, 2011 9 AM - 12 Noon **Getting Smart with SMART Boards**
SMART Boards have changed chalkboards into interactive white boards that provide students with digital manipulatives that promote collaboration and higher order thinking as well as transform teaching and learning. Teachers and students can write on the board with their “magic pens” and turn their writing into digital text. Teachers will explore the resources available on the Web and in the SMART Notebook software including lesson plans and galleries of learning tools. Bring your lesson planning ideas and learn how to create engaging lessons that integrate technology across the curriculum.
 * Brief Bio: Rebecca Pilver** has worked as a Staff Development/Literacy and Educational Technology Specialist for EASTCONN for 11 years. She is currently a 4th grade teacher at Hall Memorial School in Willington. She loves using technology tools to support her teaching and her students' learning.

Saturday Seminar, May 14, 2011 9 AM - 12 Noon **Productivity Tools to Support Writing: Collaborating and Communicating with MS Word and Google Docs Word Processor**
”The word processor is the writer’s dishwasher: it liberates you from a chore that drains your energy” (William Zinsser, __On Writing Well__). MS Word, the world’s foremost word processor, is a powerful tool for communication and collaboration. Become a “power user” by learning how to use some of MS Word’s advanced features such as using Track Changes to comment on a student’s work, comparing documents side by side, running mail merges, creating a Table of Contents in a long document, inserting section breaks and changing page layouts throughout a document, as well as mastering bullets and numbered lists. Explore Google Docs, an online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool, which allows multiple users to collaborate on the same document simultaneously. Bring your ideas and materials for projects so you can spend your time creating instructional materials and resources for your students.
 * Brief Bio: Jane Cook** has worked as a Staff Development/Literacy and Educational Technology Specialist for EASTCONN for the past 25 years and serves as the CT Writing Project Technology Program Leader. She became addicted to computers when she met a word processor thirty years ago and believes that if computers could do nothing but word process they would be still worth their weight in gold.