PBS & CR20: Early Childhood Literacy: Resources & Strategies

RECORDINGS:
Elluminate recording: https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2009-07-09.0835.M.C7019E4E4FF762E6585A112B534140.vcr
Audio: http://audio.edtechlive.com/cr20/earlychildhood.mp3
Chat: http://audio.edtechlive.com/cr20/earlychildhood.rtf
Portable Video: http://audio.edtechlive.com/cr20/earlychildhood.mp4

Date: Thursday, July 9th, 2009
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Location: In Elluminate. http://tinyurl.com/pbscr20 If you haven't used Elluminate before, you can make sure your computer is configured correctly to enter the room by going to http://www.elluminate.com/support.

PBS Teachers and Classroom 2.0 are delighted to have PBS KIDS producers and educators join us to share a wide array of content and strategies designed to help teachers of young children improve their students' literacy skills. Scott Cameron, Director of Education and Research at the Sesame Workshop, will discuss the educational goals of the new Electric Company and how the on-air and online resources can be used in the classroom.

Educational consultant Julie Wood will focus on best practices in reading and language arts instruction in 1st-4th grades, discuss her involvement with PBS KIDS' Raising Readers initiative and share ideas for using Raising Readers on-air and online educational resources. They will be joined by Heather Dzikiy, a teacher who has demonstrated innovative and effective use of PBS KIDS content in educational settings, and Jennifer Rodriguez of the PBS KIDS team who will present PBS KIDS Island, an innovative website that serves kids, parents, caregivers and teachers.

About Our Guest Speakers

Scott Cameron oversees the educational integrity of new projects in development at Sesame Workshop. This includes The Electric Company project, which encompasses the TV show, Broadband games, the magazine and outreach activities. A former English teacher, Scott has worked in children's educational media as a curriculum specialist, researcher and writer. In the mid-1990s, he was part of the team that developed the Israeli-Palestinian Sesame Street co-production. He also worked on the Mexican, Canadian, Polish and Japanese versions of Sesame Street and was the Director of Content for the series Sesame English, which combined classic Sesame Street segments with new narrative material to teach English to non-native speakers.

A national educational consultant, Julie M. Wood, Ed.D. served as a faculty member and former Director of the Jeanne Chall Reading Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Wood's writing has been featured in Instructor Magazine, Scholastic Administrator, Harvard Education Publishing Group, Teacher Radio (on www.Scholastic.com) and the journal, Language Arts.

Heather Dzikiy is in her fifth year of teaching at Sykesville Elementary School, a National Blue Ribbon Award winner in DuBois, Pennsylvania. She has taught third, fourth and a multi-age class of both grades. In addition to teaching in her district, she also serves as a mentor teacher and teacher trainer in the areas of technology integration, differentiated instruction, and data interpretation.

Jennifer Rodriguez is the editor of the Between the Lions, SUPER WHY!, Sesame Street, Martha Speaks, and WordWorld websites on PBS KIDS.org.