The Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Program's training paradigm and materials are aligned to the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for Teachers. View information about the MarcoPolo alignment and learn more about NETS for Teachers.

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Professional Development Report

As the Verizon Foundation works to fully integrate MarcoPolo under its philanthropic umbrella, the Professional Development program is being rigorously reviewed and revised, with a relaunch planned before the end of the current school year.

In the interim, the Foundation has suspended delivery of staff-led training sessions and fulfillment of orders for hard copy Teacher’s Guides. However, the Teacher’s Guide: Bringing Innovative Ideas Into Your Classroom, is available for download at no cost. Online resources for trainers are being updated and will continue to be available in the Trainer Resource Center (free registration is required).

New Differentiated Instruction courses for teachers and trainers will be available as face-to-face sessions at the time of the relaunch. Other exciting enhancements to the Professional Development Program are also planned. Check the Web site frequently for updates.

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The Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Program is a proud member of the ISTE 100 alliance, a select group of forward-thinking corporations and non-profits who share a commitment to improve teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in education.

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Trainer Recognition

Through the Trainer Recognition Program, the Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Program is proud to acknowledge the dedicated trainers who roll out the Professional Development Program. To be eligible for recognition, trainers must track their training activity. Click here for more information.

Field Trainers of the Month

Each month, the program recognizes exemplary Field Trainers who have trained at least 50 educators and earned training survey scores of at least 4.5 out of 5.0 as Field Trainers of the Month. Congratulations to the following:

June
Sheila Bennett (Alabama), Rise Santillo (New York) and Marti McCorkhill (New York)

August
Anthony Rich (New York)

Certified Trainers

Certified Trainers are highly skilled staff developers who are required to participate in advanced training sessions and demonstrate a high level of performance in order to earn and maintain certification. They are affiliated with Rollout Partner organizations.

The Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Program is proud to recognize the following newly-certified trainers:

Janet Taylor, who was trained through the Alabama-MarcoPolo Partnership; Terri Stice, Kentucky-MarcoPolo Partnership; Felicia Armetta, Marilyn Chiarello, Russell Clinton, Karen Mack and Donna Raczynski, all under the New York-MarcoPolo Partnership.

All MarcoPolo Certified Trainers are listed on the Web site.

Training Advisory Group

The Training Advisory Group (TAG) is comprised of outstanding Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo trainers who are invited to preview and review various aspects of the program, including educational resources, professional development and Web site design. The program is proud to recognize these dedicated volunteers on the TAG Recognition Page.

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Consortium Briefs

Digital Humanities Initiative

The National Endowment for the Humanities, Partner on EDSITEment, has launched a new digital humanities initiative aimed at supporting projects that utilize or study the impact of digital technology on the humanities, including those that explore the ways in which it changes how we read, write, think and learn. Read about projects that have already been funded, along with new opportunities.

Science NetLinks Redesigns Newsletter

Keep an eye out for the first issue of the redesigned Science NetLinks Newsletter, which will be released this fall. It is being redesigned to incorporate new ideas and a fresh look. Feedback from teachers and trainers is welcome. For more information and to subscribe, click here.

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Ask the Trainer

In this column, Staff Trainers and Trainer MarcoGram Editorial Board members answer questions on a variety of topics.

Q: The projector just died and I've got to wing it. What do I do?

A: This situation is not as bad as it seems. It takes more effort, but in the end it is not detrimental to the effectiveness of the training.

You can still walk your attendees through the Web site on their own computer screens. They'll have to rely solely on your verbal guidance, so be very clear as to where exactly on the screen they need to be in order to click on your intended destination. For example you may say, "Click 'Search MarcoPolo' on the top right of the screen, in the small tan rectangular box." Another alternative is to use an off-line resource such as the Teacher's Guide. Before the training, download the Teacher's Guide and print specific pages you would like to reference. (This is also handy when you need to stall if the Internet goes down.) For example, a review of the "Partner Site Scenarios" in the Teacher's Guide could foster a robust discussion about the variety of ways the resources can be used. This could be a springboard for brainstorming other creative and innovative strategies.

Do you have a training question? Send it in with “Ask the Trainer” in the subject line of your message.

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Did You Know...
about these great
training resources?

This section features top picks from members of the Trainer MarcoGram Editorial Board:

There are lots of little gems scattered throughout the Consortium Partner sites that you might like to share with your trainees. For example, you will find a link to document analysis worksheet templates in PDF format for evaluating written documents, photographs, cartoons, posters, maps, artifacts, motion pictures and sound recordings in EDSITEment’s Reference Shelf under Analyzing Primary Sources. These time-saving and straightforward worksheets were designed and developed by the Education Staff of the National Archives and Records Administration.

And the Web Resources in ReadWriteThink offer a wealth of external links that meet needs of students on all grade levels. Check out, for example, the Verizon Literacy Campus where you and your trainees will find free online courses, literacy resources and a discussion forum. You may even be moved to search a database to volunteer as a mentor/tutor in your local community or in a national organization.

Have a favorite gem? Please send it to us so we can share!

— Karen Mack
MarcoPolo Certified Trainer
MarcoPolo Web Coordinator
New York Institute of Technology, N.Y.

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MarcoPolo
E-Newsletters

MarcoPolo News is a quarterly e-newsletter that brings "big picture" program updates to members of the MarcoPolo Education Community. It's a great tool for trainers who often are asked general questions about the program and those who integrate program news into their training sessions. Trainers and trainees are encouraged to subscribe. All issues are archived online.

The MarcoGram is a monthly e-newsletter written especially for K-12 classroom teachers, principals and trainers that features themed activities to use in the classroom, along with links to MarcoPolo lesson plans and other resources. The MarcoGram is a great training tool, whether you copy and distribute it to trainees at your sessions or point them to the online archived editions. Remember to encourage your attendees to subscribe to this popular newsletter!

The Trainer MarcoGram is a quarterly newsletter that provides MarcoPolo Trainers with tips, activities, news and links to online resources. Permission is granted to reprint and distribute the Trainer MarcoGram for use in a training session or classroom, or on Web sites devoted to the fields of education or professional development. All Web addresses and links must be maintained in their original form as they appear in the published version.

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Trainers often find themselves with a short window of opportunity to present a training or awareness session for teachers, particularly at the start of the school year. Ron Harrison of Colorado, a Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Staff Trainer and professional development consultant who has delivered more than 150 training sessions over the past few years, offers the following suggestions to help make the most of the time and opportunities that you DO have:

• Request to speak about the program for a few minutes at the beginning of a faculty meeting. This is a good time to announce a schedule of professional development activities that have been planned for the upcoming semester or school year.
  
  
• Obtain permission to email helpful instructional tips to teachers and do so on a regular basis.
  
  
• Post information and a link to the Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Web site in the "teacher resources" section of the school or district Web site.
  
  
• Develop a series of training "shorts," which are sessions that last about 15 to 20 minutes (or the time it takes to eat a sandwich). Conduct these sessions during lunch, immediately after school, in the mornings before school, etc. Session 1 may be an introductory overview, Session 2 may cover the power of the Search Engine, Session 3 may focus on specific features such as the MarcoPolo and Consortium Partner calendars, and so on. This structure would provide schedule flexibility while allowing for coverage of the highlights of the program.
  
  
• When you do have an opportunity to deliver a session, especially if time is short, opt to make it structured and hands-on whenever possible. Save "free exploration" for lengthier training sessions, or make it an extension activity that attendees can do on their own, in pairs or small groups after the session.

Quick Hooks

Ron likes to use one or more items from the following list to generate an "ah-ha moment" from the audience. Each resource can be introduced in a minute — but definitely expect your trainees to spend more time on them!

• Access information on historic events and related lessons and resources for every day of the year on the MarcoPolo Calendar.

  The MarcoPolo Calendar offers a great way to integrate MarcoPolo lessons and resources with historic dates. The calendar not only discusses an historic event but also provides direct links to resources that support teaching about that event.
  
  
• MarcoGrams — e-newsletters that are ideal for showing teachers where to find Consortium Partner resources based on thematic topics. Show educators the archive as well as the current issue.
  
  
• The interactive Student Materials Index allows easy access to a browsable list of available interactive student resources. The list can be sorted by date of release, Consortium Partner, title or grade-range.
  
  
• The Search Engine is a great tool to help answer the question, "What differentiates MarcoPolo from other educational resources?" Demonstrate a quick comparison search using MarcoPolo and Yahoo and/or Google. Make

  The Search Engine is a great resource to help trainees understand what differentiates MarcoPolo from other educational resources.

  sure you have "pre-searched" so you can effectively speak to the results of the comparative search and point out that the resources you locate through the MarcoPolo search are all authoritative, standards-based, educationally-sound and commercial-free. For effectiveness, use a common educational term like Martin Luther King, fractions, weather, etc.

Another of Ron's recommendations is to download and distribute information on a lesson or resource to support your presentation to teachers. For example, show a printed map from Xpeditions or a student E-sheet from Science NetLlinks. Try using screen captures to show the results of the comparative search between MarcoPolo and Yahoo or Google that is suggested above. You can also distribute a handout from the Trainer Resource Center that discusses the features of the Search Engine.

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The student interactive, Fractured Fairy Tales, provides a sample of a story that changes elements of a common fairy tale and and allows students the opportunity to write their own.

Whether it's The Princess and the Rutabaga or Big Blue Riding Hood, invite trainees to turn familiar fairy tales upside down and inside out while they have fun learning about student interactive resources with Fractured Fairy Tales.

Designed for grades 3-8, this tool gives users a choice of three fairy tales to read. Next, they are guided to choose a variety of changes, which they use to compose a fractured fairy tale to print off and illustrate.

Useful for teaching point of view, setting and plot — as well as fairy tale conventions such as they lived happily ever after — this tool encourages students to use their imaginations and the writing process at the same time. Follow this introduction to the tool, and to ReadWriteThink, with one or more of the related lessons below.

In the lesson Once Upon a Fairy Tale: Teaching Revision as a Concept for grades 6-8, students use fractured fairy tales to enhance understanding and then practice revision and editing as separate activities when they write their own versions of other fairy tales. Enchanting Readers with Revisionist Fairy Tales, another lesson for grades 6-8, asks students to examine three examples of revisionist fairy tales — a book, a graphic novel and a poem — in which female characters act in empowered roles rather than behaving in helpless and submissive ways, which is often the case in traditional folk or fairy tales.

For grades 3-5, consider Fairy Tales from Life, through which students read and analyze fairy tales from several cultural backgrounds, identifying common elements. Behind the Scenes With Cinderella, also for grades 3-5, invites students to explore different versions of the well-known fairy tale Cinderella and to make connections between story background elements like setting and cross-curricular topics like geography and weather.

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Weather is one of those high-interest topics that appeal to all audiences. Now that we're well into hurricane season (which officially begins on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30), the following resources from Science NetLinks that support teaching and learning about hurricanes are sure to be well-received by all audiences.

The Animated Guide — Hurricanes, a student tool produced by BBC News and reviewed by Science NetLinks, helps students understand  how hurricanes form and why they are so destructive.

Hurricanes 1: The Science of Hurricanes for grades 3-5 introduces students to the science of hurricanes in an effort to highlight how forces change the speed and direction of motion. With Hurricanes 2: Tracking Hurricanes, also for grades 3-5, students examine the role of technology in identifying and tracking hurricanes.

Animated Guide: Hurricanes, an interactive that can be used to illustrate the concepts of motion and the transfer of heat energy, provides a simulated environment in which students can follow the development of a hurricane. This student resource is intended for grade bands 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

The Hurricanes — Science Update for grades 6-8 and 9-12 looks at how the path of hurricanes can shift over time and what that means for the United States. Additional resources and background can be found at the Partner-reviewed site How Hurricanes Work from How Stuff Works.

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The interactive site, Gift of the Indus: The Arts and Culture of Pakistan, designed for ages 13-18, tells the story of this South Asian nation through its music, theatre, dance and visual arts.

ARTSEDGE has announced the launch of a new Web site, Gift of the Indus: The Arts and Culture of Pakistan.

The site is designed for young people (especially teens ages 13-18) in the United States, Pakistan and around the world to learn more about the arts and culture of this South Asian nation. It is the result of a unique partnership between The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Pakistan National Council of the Arts.

The site is divided into three main areas:

• The Arts of Pakistan, where visitors can learn about music, theater, dance and visual arts
  
  
• The Nation, which focuses on the land and people of this diverse country
  
  
• Culture and Daily Life, which is about life at home and public life — family, friends, school and cultural traditions

Each section is filled with information as well as audio and video clips, text and images that bring the arts and culture of Pakistan to life. In addition, there are areas throughout the site to help visitors learn more about the Pakistani language and culture.

A special blog called Mehfil (the Urdu word for a gathering place) has been set up for students to converse about the arts and culture of Pakistan and the United States. With guest moderators in the U.S. and Pakistan, this online space will promote and provide opportunities for cultural exchange and awareness between students — specifically teenagers living in those countries or those with a deep interest in the arts of South Asia. The goals include giving space to the exchange of ideas and information about each culture and its arts, as well as to encourage bi-cultural students living abroad to share their perspectives.

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Do you and your audience have access to an interactive whiteboard? If so, Michael Russo, Technology Facilitator at Williamsville Central School District in New York and a Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Certified Trainer, recommends using it during your training sessions.

With the interactive tool, Geometric Solids, students can manipulate and color each shape to explore the number of faces, edges and vertices.

"Interactive whiteboards and the multitude of student interactives found in the Consortium Partner Web sites are a PERFECT match!" he says.

"For example, demonstrate the Geometric Solids student interactive from Illuminations on the board. Not only does the power of the activity come through, but when the audience sees how students can physically manipulate the shapes, it really makes an impression."

See the Student Materials Index for a list of more than 500 interactive resources that can be filtered by Partner, title, grade band and date of release. Try some of them out the next time you are training with a whiteboard and let us know how it goes.

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Several grants, stipends and professional development opportunities for teachers and schools are available from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Partner on EDSITEment. For example, Grants for Teaching and Learning Resources and Curriculum Development support projects that improve specific areas of humanities education and serve as national models of excellence.

Projects must draw upon scholarship in the humanities and use scholars and teachers as advisers. Those that offer solutions to problems frequently encountered by teachers are of special interest.

Check the Professional Opportunities page on EDSITEment regularly to see what's available.

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This fall, the Verizon Foundation is sponsoring two major educational projects that include live Webcasts for educators and students.

Literacy Summit

The National Literacy Summit.2 Live Webcast is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 30 from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Literacy providers, corporate sponsors, government representatives and academic institutions will meet on site and via Webcast to identify what works in literacy across the lifespan. They will cover the science, strategies and practices that effect positive outcomes. Timothy Shanahan, President of the International Reading Association, Partner on ReadWriteThink, is the keynote speaker. Keep an eye on the Features section of the Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo homepage for details on how to join the Webcast.

Exploration, cultural diversity and democracy are among the focus areas for the national teach-in, Jamestown Live: Experience the Journey that Changed the World.

Teach-In on Jamestown

On Thursday, Nov. 9, students from all 50 states and across the globe will gather at Jamestown to participate in the National Teach-In Webcast, JAMESTOWN LIVE: Experience the Journey that Changed the World, which is scheduled from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern. This event will bring to life the important history and legacy of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, through creative programming geared to a nationwide online audience of students in grades 4 -11. The focus will be on exploration, cultural diversity and democracy and their importance to our future. Visit the Jamestown Journey Web site for more information and to sign up for the National Teach-In.

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The Verizon Foundation MarcoPolo Program extends special thanks to the members of the Trainer MarcoGram Editorial Board, a group of exemplary trainers who contribute their expertise and guidance to this publication.

Members include Stevie Ash, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Education, Ala.; Darlene Cardillo, Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, N.Y.; Camilla Gagliolo, Arlington Public Schools, Va.; Amanda Hammes, San Antonio Urban Systemic Program, Texas; Beth Klineman, Independent Trainer, Va.; Susan Lancaster, Bellarmine University School of Education, Ky.; Karen Mack, New York Institute of Technology, N.Y.; Kay Rewerts, Grant Wood Area Education Agency, Iowa; Michael Russo, Williamsville Central School District/Heim Middle School, N.Y.; Lydia Shipley, College Station ISD, Texas; and Sherry Thomas, Christian County School District, Ky. Jennifer Fritschi, MarcoPolo Program Officer for Professional Development, is the editorial consultant to the Trainer MarcoGram.

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