Master Teachers to introduce IWitness at national educator conference

Graduates of the Institute’s Master Teacher Program will debut IWitness next week at the 2012 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Annual Conference, demonstrating how the award-winning website, now in beta, weaves together digital literacy development, online citizenship, and tolerance education based on the life stories of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.

Described as “the world’s largest and most comprehensive professional development conference,” the NCSS Annual Conference brings together thousands of educators from all grade levels. The conference will take place from November 16–18 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington.

Brandon Haas, a teacher at Freedom High School in Tampa, Florida, will detail his experiences using IWitness in “IWitness: Holocaust Education for the 21st Century Learner,” a presentation involving teachers and education experts from across the country.

IWitness provides online access to more than 1,000 video testimonies given by Holocaust survivors and in 2013 will expand to include eyewitnesses of genocide from Rwanda and other crimes against humanity. A team of teachers—Kelly Watson (Fishers Junior High, Fishers, Indiana) and Robert Hadley (Clackamas High School, Clackamas, Oregon)—have used IWitness to teach on the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide using survivor testimony they were given early access to. Watson and Hadley will share their resources in their presentation “USC Shoah Foundation and Using Testimony to Teach about Rwanda.”

IWitness will be on exhibit all weekend long at the Institute’s booth, where attendees are invited to demo the resource for themselves (booth #716, Hall 4 AB).