A copy of the seminar assignment is included in the seminar reader that you will be provided with. In addition to attendance at and active participation in every session, you are expected to complete three tasks.

1. Exchanging ideas via the discussion forum. Substantative posts are the norm. In evaluating websites (minimum of 5, about 50 words each), provide details on who created the resource, what are its particular strengths and weaknesses, and how might it be used by teachers. In reviewing films (minimum of 1, about 150 words), summarize the story and focus on how teachers could use it to teach about Asia. What issues does it explore? Is it an accurate representation of a particular time and place? In discussing seminar readings or presentations, feel free to raise questions, offer interpretations, and brainstorm on classroom applications for the materials or concepts. For example, how can these primary sources be used to develop student skills?

Remember to post website evaluations and film reviews to the Asia in My Classroom forum. Put seminar-specific posts in this forum. Please put AsiaMedia (http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu) and Asia Pacific Arts (http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu) posts in the appropriate public forum. General discussion of Asia Institute articles or things you see in the newspaper should go in the Asia On My Mind forum.

2. Create a website for use either with your students or your fellow teachers. You may combine this assignment with the curriculum development task. Your website should have a minimum of three different pages. Be sure to check your spelling and grammar and to properly credit your sources of information and images. You may post your website to our web server (your URL will be http://www.asia.ucla.edu/lessons/yourfirstinitialyourlastname -- be sure to name your homepage "index.html") or elsewhere (your school site, your ISP, or on a free website host such as Teacher Web or GeoCities). Please include your email address on the website so that interested colleagues may contact you. You can see what others have done by visiting the lesson plan section of our site (http://www.asia.ucla.edu/asiak12.asp) or by looking at the lists of earlier participants and clicking on their sites (http://www.asia.ucla.edu/ncta/utla).

3. Develop a set of lesson plans covering two - five days. These lessons should be appropriate for the students you have in class everyday. These plans should be fully developed with discussion questions, handouts, vocabulary lists, and so forth. Alternatively, you may write an essay discussing how you will bring ideas and resources from the seminar into your classes and to your colleagues.

Download and print out a copy of the assignment. Try to meet the discussion forum requirement by the end of the year. Start working on your webpages right away (while the techniques are fresh in your mind). And begin thinking about your curriculum project right now. Everything must be satisfactorily completed and submitted by July 31, 2006.

Hi Folks,

Click here to download a copy of our guide to using the forum. A hard copy is included in your seminar reader.

It includes a section on why forums work better than email discussion lists for some tasks, plus information on how to post your ideas and how to respond to others.

A couple of quick notes:
1. Put seminar specific comments/questions in this forum. These include discussions of presentations and your projects.

2. Put more general comments/questions that other teachers would be interested in in the Asia in My Classroom forum or one of the other forums.

3. Rather than starting a new thread (topic) with your post, please try to put your post into an existing thread. This is much easier for readers. So to post something to the film festival thread, go inside that thread and click on the "reply" button. If your subject is different, change the subject line. This will make it easy for readers to scan.

The guide is in "pdf" format. You'll need a copy of the free Acrobat reader (you probably already have it on your computer) to read it. Try clicking on the icon and see what happens. If the file opens, or you are asked if you want to open it using Acrobat, you're all set. If not, you'll need to download and install Acrobat. It's pretty easy to do. Just go to:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Acrobat is handy and works on Windows, Linux, and Mac computers. Because it preserves formatting and is a standard, the US government (e.g., the IRS) uses it to distribute documents.

Hi Folks,
A copy of the seminar schedule with tentative topics is attached.

Several members of this group need to make up for missed sessions. In completing make-up assignments, please understand that the intention of the assignment is to immerse you in an East Asian topic and to ask that you think creatively about how you teach about it or how you could use a particular resource with students.

There are three make-up options:
1. attend and participate in the missed session at another seminar site, note that there are variations in the topics and speakers at these different sites, no seminar is identical to another
(Hard now that the term is over, but sessions will be held at UCLA July 31-August 8.)

Contribute a 200-250 post on the session to the seminar discussion forum. I recommend focusing on the documents for the session and discussing how they could be adapted for class use.

2. attend an East Asia-focused lecture at UCLA or another facility
Learn about these presentations via the Asia in SoCal website:
http://international.ucla.edu/asia/events.asp?

Contribute a 200-250 post on the presentation to the Asia in My Classroom discussion forum. Summarize the content of the presentation and discuss how you might incorporate the ideas into your own lessons.

3. visit an East Asia-focused museum exhibition
Learn about these presentations via the Asia in SoCal website:
http://international.ucla.edu/asia/events.asp?

Contribute a 200-250 post on the exhibition to the Asia in My Classroom discussion forum. Summarize the content of the exhibition and discuss how you might incorporate the ideas into your own lessons.