NFTE – the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship – is piloting its new online resource for educators, called NFTE Connect. This digital platform is intended to “provide the resource materials and collaborative tools that create a clear pathway for educators everywhere to engage in entrepreneurship education.” NFTE’s aim is to share its approach to developing basic business skills with an entirely new group of educators, as well as provide additional resources to NFTE’s corps of certified entrepreneurship teachers.
The site will feature NFTE’s existing library of curriculum, teaching aids, and research, as well as new material specifically designed for it. By assembling these in a single, easily accessed location, NFTE makes it much more convenient for a broad continuum of educators – from entrepreneurship education newcomers to experienced NFTE Certified Entrepreneurship Teachers – to easily access useful information for their classrooms and to connect with fellow entrepreneurship teachers.
NFTE partnered with Pearson Foundation to design and develop the site over the past year and launched NFTE Connect on a limited basis to NFTE-certified teachers in late September 2011. The developers emphasize that the site still is very much in the pilot phase, as NFTE and Pearson continue to test both content and functionality over the next several months.
Once completed, the site will offer:
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An introduction to NFTE’s approach to entrepreneurship education;
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Free, introductory, online materials for teachers new to NFTE;
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Pathways to enroll in NFTE University or other teacher training workshops;
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Opportunities for professional development, on demand;
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Registration options for NFTE University, Exploring Careers, & Bizbuilder trainings; and
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A means to communicate with other NFTE teachers and build a community of entrepreneurship teachers.
Additional content will be added, including brief videos documenting lessons taught by three master NFTE teachers, the ability to generate online lesson plans, and case-study resources from other Web sources. Also, NFTE will work with Pearson to expand access by non-NFTE teachers over the next year and will solicit feedback from users.
The Burton D. Morgan Foundation awarded NFTE a grant of $50,000 in June 2011 toward the development of the online platform and to help market the new resource to non-NFTE educators.
For more information, visit www.nfte.com or www.nfteconnect.org.
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