New Format for Echoes and Reflections and IWitness Webinars

USC Shoah Foundation is hosting new webinars for educators that aim to provide a more in-depth and interactive approach to learning how to teach with testimony.

Echoes and Reflections and IWitness draw on testimony from USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive to engage students in learning about the Holocaust, genocide and tolerance.

Echoes and Reflections webinars will be held the first Wednesday of every month, and are open to invited educators who have already participated in training on the new Echoes and Reflections Teacher’s Resource Guide. The IWitness webinars, on the third Thursday of every month at 4 p.m. PST, are open to anyone. Sign up information will be posted on IWitness.

Both types of webinars are led by Lesly Culp, senior education specialist and trainer at USC Shoah Foundation.

The hour-long webinars are designed to be more specific and hands-on than they have been in the past. Each webinar will be dedicated to a specific topic as opposed to a general overview, and will focus on building educators’ skills within IWitness and Echoes and Reflections.

The Echoes and Reflections webinar on June 3 is about IWitness intersections with Echoes and Reflections. On June 17, the IWitness webinar will focus on the Watch page and how to search for clip segments.

Future webinars will cover new website features, how to customize lessons and activities, challenges of using primary sources in the classroom, and more. Each session will include time for participants to chat with Culp or her co-moderator, one of USC Shoah Foundation’s regional consultants. Culp will also guide them through an exploration of the actual IWitness site.

The webinars will provide advice and insight about Echoes and Reflections and IWitness that educators might not discover on their own, Culp said. Many users simply scratch the surface of what each program is capable of – only using the clips they can find on IWitness’s Watch page, or using materials from Echoes and Reflections without really customizing it, for example. The webinars may also be particularly useful for educators who aren’t able to attend an in-person workshop or training session.