Winter 1999 LInC Online Course: February 3 - May 5, 1999
Wednesday online class meetings 6-8 PM CST, 7-9 PM EST
No travel required

Summer 1999 Facilitators' Academy: June 28-30 or July 12-14
Face-to-face at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois

There is no charge for either course.
Optional 6 graduate credit hours in Education are available ($300).

Applications are due Wednesday, January 27, 1999 at midnight.

The Fermilab LInC program is an innovative approach to instruction designed to challenge teams of lead teachers, technology coordinators, staff developers and library media specialists to create engaged learning projects that incorporate the best uses of technology. In addition, the participants, as school/district leadership teams, will create a staff development plan for their school or district. After completing the online course and attending the LInC facilitators' academy, participants will team-teach a LInC course in their own region. Our goal is to create a network of educational leaders who effectively use technology to support engaged learning.

Selected projects from past LInC courses are available at "/lincon/". Approximately 140 educators from 50 school districts in 12 states have participated during the 9 semesters that LInC has been offered since November of 1994.

LInC course topics include: Investigating Engaged Learning, Exploring Effective Strategies for Using Telecommunications in Education, Finding Information on the Internet, Authoring Web Documents in HTML, Adding Graphics to Web Pages, Designing an Engaged Learning Curriculum Unit, and Writing a Staff Development Plan.

1999 LInC Project Commitment

• Your team will take the Winter 1999 full-online LInC course and implement the LInC project you create with students in your region.
• The entire team will take one of the three-day Summer 1999 LInC Facilitators' Academies at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois.
• Your team will team-teach a LInC course in Fall 1999 for educators in your region. The participants in your LInC course will try out their classroom projects during Spring 2000 and complete an evaluation form based on that instruction. You may choose between offering your LInC course in a face-to-face, partial-online, or full-online format.
• Your team and your LInC course participants will participate/cooperate in evaluation activities.

One of the main goals in the funding of this program is to scale-up professional development for technology-supported engaged learning. So developing educators with this expertise who will teach a LInC course in their own region is a key part of the program.

Teams from Urban Systemic Initiative districts must create projects that focus on Math or Science curriculum. The projects may be multidisciplinary and include other components such as English or Social Studies.

Costs and Incentives

The LInC Online course and Facilitators' Academy are sponsored by a grant, so there is no charge to participants. Optional graduate credit in Education is available from Aurora University, Aurora IL - for the LInC Online Course, 4.5 semester hours ($225 tuition), and for the Facilitators' Academy, 1.5 semester hours ($75 tuition).

Application Process

The application is available online from the prerequisites page - look for a link at the bottom of this page. The application is due Wednesday, January 27, 1998 at midnight. Each member of your team should submit an application. We will notify teams of their status by January 30.

Applications will be considered for teams from any state in the United States. Spaces are limited. Preference will be given to qualified teams from urban or rural regions, and teams that can take the Facilitators' Academy and teach a LInC course in their region.

• A full Internet connection with file transfer (FTP) privileges and e-mail at home and at school with a 28.8 Kb/s modem or better
• IBM-compatible PC with 486/25 or greater (Pentium preferred) OR
  MacOS-compatible computer with a 68040 CPU or greater (PowerPC preferred)
• A computer with 16 MB of RAM (32 MB preferred)
• An operating system: MacOS 7.1.2 or later (7.5.5 or later preferred) OR Windows95/98
• 50 to 100 MB of disk space for installing software and for your project work
• A CD-ROM drive
• Netscape 2.02 or greater OR Internet Explorer 3.0 or greater (4.x of both preferred)
• Mac users only: Stuffit Expander decompression software
• E-mail Software
• Adobe PageMill 2.0 or greater, which is a Web/HTML Editor (approx. $50 Educational Price)
• We will provide chat software free of charge to participants.

The Winter 1999 LInC course will be offered in a "full-online" format. There will be no face-to-face meetings, but there will be substantial interaction online. Participants will use online course materials and online discussions to communicate and collaborate with other participants and course facilitators. E-mail, mailing lists, discussion forum software, and chat software will be used. Participants will learn how to use all of these tools (except e-mail) as well as file transfer software and a Web/HTML Editor during the course.

This is not an introductory level course. Based on previous courses, we know participants have spent substantial time in order to design, implement, and publish their own engaged learning project on the Web. Participants who are most successful in this course have scheduled regular weekly blocks of time to work both individually and with their team. In order to benefit from participation in LInC Online you must have:

• 8 to 10 hours available per week for 13 weeks.
• Availability from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM CST (7:00 to 9:00 PM EST) on Wednesdays for online class meetings. These are the equivalent of weekly meetings in a face-to-face college course.
• Basic computer skills, Web browser skills, and e-mail skills.
• A willingness to participate in a "full-online" LInC course format and the motivation to keep up with course work in the absence of face-to-face meetings.
• A team of two to four educators from your school, district, or region.
• Administrative support for student participation in classroom Internet projects.
• Technical support in your region for connection, hardware, operating system, or e-mail problems.
• A letter of support from your team's principal, superintendent or supervisor.

The LInC Facilitators' Academy is for two- to four-member teams of educators who have completed the LInC course. The academy prepares a team to be instructors for a LInC course for educators in their own region. Your team may choose to teach your LInC course in a face-to-face, partial-online, or full-online format.

District/Regional Support Needed for Facilitator Academy Participants

• Transportation, hotel, and food expenses for three-day Summer 1999 Facilitators' Academy at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois - See sample travel expenses from last year.
• Incentives for participants and course facilitators (such as stipend, promotional credit, graduate credit, release time, recognition, computer equipment or Internet connections, . . . . )
• Facilities for team to conduct a LInC course in Fall 1999
• Classroom computer lab space with Internet-connected computers for each participant (if your course is offered in face-to-face or partial-online format)
• Participants who have Internet connections (preferably in their classrooms)
• Web server and FTP server - Facilitators must be able to add/modify their curriculum pages and participants must be able to add/modify their project pages.
• Mailing list server software
• Server software for online discussion forums
• Server software for online chats

Prerequisities, Application, and Contact Information

Please read these prerequisites, then fill out the online application (a link is on the prerequisites page):

Go to Prerequisites Page and Online Application

For full consideration, please apply by midnight on Wednesday, January 27, 1999.

For more information, contact:

Laura Mengel (lauram@fnal.gov), Fermilab Education Office, 630-840-8107