2016-2017: Here We Come!

Welcome back! Or if you are new to Teaching Montana History, welcome. I hope everyone had a good summer. The first post of the school year is always business, so let's get started.

Montana History Conference Scholarships

Don’t forget: We have travel scholarships available to teachers wishing to attend the 42nd Annual Montana History Conference (held this year in Hamilton and Stevensville) September 22-24. Scholarship applications are due by 11:59 p.m. September 9, 2015. Awards will be announced the following week.  You can find the conference program and the quick-and-easy scholarship application information here. If you can't attend the entire conference, consider just joining us for the Thursday educator workshop ($20, lunch included, 6 OPI Renewal Units.)

Montana: Stories of the Land Companion Website and the MHS Educator Resources Page

I hope most of you are already using the Montana history and Indian Education for All resources posted on our sites. If so, would you help us out? Please email mkohl@mt.gov if you find any broken links or other problems. We can usually fix things quickly--but only if we know about them.

New This Year: The Teaching Montana History Online PLC

With the help of OPI, we’ve set up a 7-part course that includes an online meeting and Learning Hub course.  The online meetings will be held on the second Monday of every month, September through November and January through April, from 4:00-4:30. You may complete individual sections of this course for 1 renewal unit each or complete all 7 parts for a total of 7 renewal units.

Each month we’ll focus on a different topic, beginning with “The Big Picture: Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings.” The sessions will be recorded, so if you can’t join us live, you’ll still be able to learn from your colleagues and contribute—in writing—to the conversation.

Some boilerplate for signing up and enrolling in courses:

The Hub is an online learning platform dedicated to providing free, high quality professional learning for all K-12 educators across Montana.  It aims to minimize the time teachers spend away from their classrooms to attend training, as well as save school districts money on professional learning.

Get started by creating an account or browsing through the course offerings. 

For full access to courses you'll need to take a minute to create a new account for yourself. Each of the individual courses may also have a one-time "enrollment key", which you won't need until later. Here are the steps:
1.      Fill out the New Account form with your details.
2.      An email will be immediately sent to your email address.
3.      Read your email, and click on the web link it contains.
4.      Your account will be confirmed and you will be logged in.
5.      Now, select the course you want to participate in.
6.      If you are prompted for an "enrollment key" - use the one that your teacher has given you. This will "enroll" you in the course.
7.      You can now access the full course. From now on you will only need to enter your personal username and password (in the form on this page) to log in and access any course you have enrolled in.

After you have created your account, enroll in the Teaching Montana History Online PLC by going directly to the course.

Questions--about the HUB course, the textbook or something else? Please ask!