Internet Training Institute for School Librarians and School Technologists

[About the Institute] [List of participants] [March 1998 curriculum] [June 1998 curriculum] [Evaluation of June Workshop] [October 1998 curriculum] [Photos of the October Workshop] [More Photos of the October Photos] [Internet Presentations by Participants] [Online Resources] [Photos of the June Workshop] [Press Release] [Final Evaluation]

Click on any of the pictures below to see a larger version.

	Annette and Sue		Bill and Carol
	Kristin and Deborah		Loretta and Angela
	Martha and Lynn		Mary and Danny
	Peggy and Holli		Sharon and Alice
	Sandra and Frank		Wanda and Janice
	Neva, Vicki, Sandra and Frank		Evelyn, Barb, and Bobbie
	Elizabeth, Carole, and Evelyn		Elizabeth, Carole, Evelyn, and Bobbie

Internet Institute Provides Hands-On Training

"Let's go surfin' now, everybody's learnin' how ..." was the battle cry of fifteen teams of public school librarians and school technologists as they rolled up their shirt sleeves and dived into Session Two of the Internet Training Institute at SILS in June. The institute gave participants hands-on advanced training in telecommunications, network management, Internet resources, and multimedia. The trainees, who came from elementary, middle, and high schools throughout urban and rural North Carolina, spent their three-day session building and then using mini-computer networks. On their last day, the class took a field trip to the technologically progressive Orange County School district, where they heard from teams of technologists and teachers who shared their classroom Internet experiences and discussed the problems and opportunities they have experienced. The institute is an attempt to connect the school technologist (a new position for many schools) and the librarian and to get both professionals working as a team to provide support throughout their public schools. Together, librarians and technologists train teachers and children in their districts in the use of the Internet. Often, in collaboration with teachers, school librarians develop lesson plans to insure that Internet use is coordinated with curriculum goals. "It's very clear that once you start pouring technology into schools someone must service and take care of it as well as teach and demonstrate it," SILS Professor Evelyn Daniel said. "If the school librarian becomes the technologist, then they've lost the school librarian, and that's a big problem." Daniel, who is coordinator of UNC-Chapel Hill's library media program, led the Internet Training Institute along with Director of Computing Scott Barker, Director of Instructional Technology Kristin Chaffin, and UNC-Chapel Hill's Director of Networking Systems Jim Gogan. More than one hundred persons applied to the institute. In order to qualify for selection, they were required to have used e-mail regularly, their schools had to be connected to the Internet, and their districts were expected to provide transportation and substitute teachers. The one-year pilot project, funded by an $81,987 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, will conclude in November, with a final segment concentrated on developing Internet lesson plans and examining unresolved problems.