Calling All Teachers: Help us make Remembering Lincoln a valuable tool for educators

Editor’s Note: Applications are now closed. Ford’s announced Teacher Representatives in March 2014.

Ford’s Theatre is seeking Teacher Representatives to help shape the Remembering Lincoln digital project, ensuring that it is designed from the beginning with teachers and students in mind. Your role will be to make the site a useful resource for teachers nationwide. We need your input!

Remembering Lincoln is an online project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln’s assassination. It will be the place to discover the reactions of people who lived through the president’s murder and its aftermath. Ford’s Theatre and a range of partner institutions are working together to collect, digitize and share local responses (newspapers, letters, diaries, photos, objects) in an interactive website. Remembering Lincoln will serve as a resource for students, teachers, scholars, enthusiasts and everyone else to connect with this important event.

We are seeking 10 teachers (teaching Grades 5-12) from around the United States to serve on the committee. We hope the committee will represent a range of technological experience, time in the classroom, ethnicity (both of teachers and of students) and regions of the country.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Teacher Representatives will serve for the planning phase of the project, which runs through September 30, 2014. Pending award of grant funds, Teacher Representatives may be asked to serve on the implementation phase of the project, beginning October 1, 2014. During the process, each Teacher Representative will produce a lesson plan to launch on the Remembering Lincoln site. Teacher Representatives also will provide feedback and ideas on the Remembering Lincoln website via conference calls or video chats, and through an online discussion board hosted on the web platform Basecamp.

Timeline:

Mid-February: Video-conference in to share preliminary thoughts on how the Remembering Lincoln website could work for teachers (2 hours). Provide feedback via Basecamp on audience survey questions for teachers (1 hour)

Early March: Promote audience survey with fellow teachers (1 hour)

Mid-April: Look over educator and student portion of Project Definition Document, provide feedback via Basecamp (2 hours)

July or August: Provide feedback on prototype website via Basecamp and videoconference (3 hours)

September: Test prototype website with a class (3-4 hours)

Teacher Benefits

• Gain early access to the primary sources about the Lincoln assassination that Remembering Lincoln will bring together
• Meet and exchange ideas with teachers from around the country
• Help shape the Remembering Lincoln website to make it useful for you and fellow teachers
• Create lesson plans to be used by teachers around the country
• See the process of creating Remembering Lincoln, and learn how such a site is put together
• Receive a stipend for your time and credit on the website for your participation in the Remembering Lincoln planning process

Editor’s Note: Applications are now closed. Ford’s will announce our Teacher Representatives in March 2014.