About the AAM Project

History of the Project

In 1999, Congressman Charles Taylor was successful in shepherding through the Congress a first-in-the-nation pilot program to instruct WNC's school teachers in how to use the resources of the Library of Congress' "American Memory Program," which now has digitized over seven million of our nation's most important historical documents and organized over 100 collections of digitized materials. This exciting project, which began in the spring of 2000, trains teachers to access and utilize these new resources using the latest technology to greatly enhance teaching and learning.

The project includes public, private and charter schools located in WNC, who will be on the leading edge of the development of a classroom technology program that will become a national model. Additional public, private, charter and home-based schools, as well as regional universities and community colleges, will be added. The project is coordinated through the education departments of Montreat College, Mars Hill College, Western Carolina University, Furman University, and Brevard College. These institutions are working with the region through investments in education and research to make this project a success for our region's students for years to come.

(adapted from an article on Rep. Taylor's website)

Goal of the Project

The goal of the An Adventure of the American Mind project is to provide pre-service and in-service teachers the tools and instructional skills necessary to integrate technology into the teaching and learning process.

Objectives

The following are the objectives for this project:

• Demonstrate the Library of Congress American Memory Fellows Program pilot program that teaches teachers how to utilize technology and primary resources in their classroom instruction.
• Train in-service and pre-service teachers to use primary resources in their classroom instruction.
• Help teachers and their students to be historians by being gatherers and sharers of local history.
• Further validate the American Memory Program with a broad group of teachers in local settings (K-12).
• Demonstrate and evaluate a training program that can be exportable to other communities.

Teacher Benefits

• Laptop Computer Program: Teachers are provided a laptop computer in order to apply new technology and instructional skills.
• Graduate Course at WCU: Teachers will enroll in a course that combines technology skills, American Memory primary resources, mentor training, and North Carolina ABC accountability student learning objectives.
• Internet access for Teachers: Teachers will be provided with access to the Internet.
• Summer Institute: Selected teachers have an opportunity to participate in a Summer Institute to further develop skills learned in the project.
• Follow-up Training: Teachers will be provided technology and American Memory follow-up training.

  Return to Top