Dear
Teachers,
Thank you
for registering for the U.S. Embassy School Election Project 2020! As
the school year winds down – probably in a different way than anticipated just
some months ago – we are preparing for the launch of our school project after
the summer break. At this time, we would like to inform you of the next steps
in the school project:
- The Moodle course and the project curriculum are being finalized right now. A preview demo will be made available by the end of next week. You can use this demo course to review the projects’ materials and task formats as well as Moodle functionalities.
- Many of you have participated in our online seminars – thank you for your interest! We encourage you to review the recordings of these sessions and our speakers’ presentation materials – or make them part of your classes, as some colleagues have already suggested. All these contents can be found in our online seminar section: https://www.teachaboutus.org/mod/page/view.php?id=38827&forceview=1
- Upcoming online seminar on July 1, 4-6 PM (Central European Summer Time): In this final event of our online series, we will introduce the election project and the project curriculum in more detail. We will walk you through the different Moodle course sections and introduce exemplary activities. This seminar will also allow more time for your questions. We have also invited project partners and previous project participants to share their hands-on experiences of the project. Please join us for this event. You can sign up using the link above. A recording will be made available afterwards.
- This online seminar will also introduce the results of the ‘State Lottery’, i.e. your assigned states for the school project. Again, these results will be posted on our website afterwards. Right now, we have over 150 registrations for the project, so the 50 states will be assigned more than once.
- Finally, our web-administrator Katja Krüger (CC) will create your Moodle courses in due time and send you the course access information (i.e., the course name) and the enrollment key that your students will need to enter the course. We are aware that many of you are just being informed what courses they will be teaching next school year. If you have any updates or would like to participate with more than one course and haven’t indicated this in your registration, please notify Katja Krüger.
- As you can probably imagine, such an online course can never be ‘final’, especially with such a dynamic election campaign that we are seeing right now. Course updates, extension materials, notifications etc. will be posted throughout the fall in a meta-course, the ‘Virtual Town Hall’, which is accessible to all project participants. Check this frequently once you begin your project to receive the latest teaching tips and updates. We also ask you to share materials, tasks, and ideas that you come across in preparation of the project. Do you have to make adjustments for younger or less proficient learners? Please share these ideas with us and your colleagues. (A ‘teachers’ corner’ will be set up in the Virtual Town Hall.)
- The active project phase will last throughout the late summer/early fall until the end of October. The deadline to submit the predictions and entries for the school competition will be roughly one week prior to Election Day (tbd). I also would like to direct your attention to the U.S. Embassy’s and Consulates’ MeetUS Program that could accompany your project participation.
Thank you
for your interest and your patience. We look forward to welcoming you again
next Wednesday (July 1) or in the fall on www.teachaboutus.org
We look forward to an exciting school project with you and your students!
All the best from Lüneburg and Berlin
Dr. Martina Kohl,
Katja Krüger, Joannis Kaliampos
___
Joannis Kaliampos
Projekt Teach About U.S.
Institute of English Studies
Leuphana Universität
Universitätsallee 1
21335 Lüneburg
Fon. 04131.677-1662
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