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Tips Tuesday: Online Treasure Hunt: ITVS Community Classroom

Elizabeth Travelslight

June 27th 2012

While summer is not a highly recommended time of year for sitting indoors in front of a screen computer or otherwise, it does provide an excellent opportunity to discover new resources that can spice up classroom curriculum for next year.  Independent Television Service (ITVS) supports the production of high-quality, independently-produced documentaries and dramas for public television and cable. Through their online Community Classroom, ITVS provides many FREE and thoughtfully developed online resources for high school educators working in classrooms as well as in  informal learning environments for youth.  The site provides short film modules drawn from ITVS's award-winning Independent Lens documentary series along with detailed curricula for grades 9-12.

Globally-minded educators looking to bring an international scope to their subject areas should check out these fascinating resources (and then go back outside and get some sun!):

•  Vol. 1 of their three part Women and Girls Lead series which highlights stories of women's leadership in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, and Brazil.

• Vote Democracy! includes some striking examples of democracy around the world, including some precious excerpts from Please Vote for Me by Weijun Chen and Don Edkins which documents the democratic process among a classroom of eight year-old in China.

• Sentenced Home explores the complex issues of human migration, citizenship, cultural assimilation, immigration and identity through the stories of two Cambodian refugees raised in Seattle, WA.