Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The 14th Annual Bus Trip Across Georgia

Georgia Public Broadcasting joined educators, business, government and community leaders from around the state for the 14th Annual GPEE Bus Trip Across Georgia on Sept. 25-27 and Oct. 24-26. The Bus Trip is designed to both celebrate achievement and share best practices.

This year's trip visited 15 public schools and one technical college. Each school has a proven track-record of academic excellence, educational innovation and sustained performance. These top achieving schools were chosen from a nominated group of 119 schools around Georgia.

A thorough selection process narrowed the list down to a final group of top achieving schools before the routes and stops were selected. A diverse mix of schools were chosen - grades, charter, magnet and special programs - in order for participants to get a clear understanding of what the Georgia Public School System offers.

Schools on the northern route included North Mulberry Elementary School, Jackson (Butts County); International Community School, Decatur (DeKalb County); Lanier Technical College, Oakwood (Hall County); Mimosa Elementary School, Roswell (Fulton County); LaBelle Elementary School, Marietta (Cobb County); Woodstock Middle School (Cherokee County); Bremen High School, Bremen (Bremen City School System); Roopville Elementary School (Carroll County).

Eastern route schools include Maxwell Elementary School, Thomson (McDuffie County); Davidson Magnet School, Augusta (Richmond County); Mattie Lively Elementary School, Statesboro (Bulloch County); Richmond Hill Middle School (Bryan County); Oglethorpe Charter School, Savannah (Chatham County); Saxon Heights Elementary School, Dublin (Dublin City School System); and Dodge County High School, Eastman.

For more information about the Bus Trip, please visit www.gpee.org.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

GCSS and the Premiere of GPB Education's New Animated Short Film

GPB Education attended the Georgia Council for the Social Studies Annual State Conference on October 19-20, 2006 in Athens, Ga. and premiered the new animated short film The Green Tree Frog: How a Bill Becomes a Law.

More than 600 educators from all over the state of Georgia gathered at the Classic Center in Athens, Ga. for the GCSS Annual Conference. Featured at the conference were 90 concurrent educational sessions and over 50 exhibiters, including GPB Education.

Participants who attended GPB Education's presentation and stopped by the GPB Education booth received a free copy of The Green Tree Frog: How a Bill Becomes a Law. Educators who viewed the film were extremely enthusiastic about it. This animated short film is correlated to Georgia Performance Standards for the eighth grade but can also be used in elementary and high school social studies classes.

Inspired by the true story of how a Georgia fourth grade class proposed the green tree frog to become the Georgia state amphibian, The Green Tree Frog: How a Bill Becomes a Law was created and produced by Georgia Public Broadcasting.

To receive your free copy of The Green Tree Frog: How a Bill Becomes a Law, please e-mail education@gpb.org. Please include your full name, school name and school address.

Saturday, December 2, 2006

New Achieving Excellence: Inside Georgia Schools Episode

At the most basic level, social studies is the study of people. As an academic discipline, the primary purpose is to help young people develop into citizens who can make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good. As we have seen in our program on science and math, Georgia's social studies curriculum is also changing. How do educators and students adapt to these changes? That's where digital resources play a significant role in the new learning environments. When education goes digital, everything becomes a classroom. That is the focus this month on Achieving Excellence: Inside Georgia Schools.

During the show, Jane hosts a diverse panel of guests that includes Deborah Grayson, Education Project Manager for Social Studies at Georgia Public Broadcasting; William Cranshaw, Social Studies Program Manager for the Georgia Department of Education; Shaun Owen, 6th grade Social Studies teacher from Greenbriar Middle School in Columbia County; Dr. Jamil S. Zainaldin, the President of the Georgia Humanities Council; and Katherine Aiken, the Discovery Educator Network Manager for Georgia.

The focus of discussion is on digital resources, including the New Georgia Encyclopedia, Georgia Public Broadcasting's Georgia Stories, the Digital Library and the online resources provided to Georgia educators through a partnership with the Discovery Education Network. Changes in Georgia's Social Studies curriculum along with the Georgia Performance Standards and how to effectively engage students in learning in the classroom setting are also discussed.