The mission of the Wilson Education Center is to provide quality services that include professional development, technology support, supplemental educational service, cooperative purchasing; and related services that are delivered effectively, efficiently, and equitably to member school districts.

WEC Audit Report: Wilson Education Center has just completed its biannual audit by the Indiana State of Board of Accounts. You may view the entire audit by clicking the link. Please note that the examination disclosed no material items that warrant comment at this time.

What's New at the Wilson Center

K-6 Reading Professional Development: Sponsored by - American College of Education/Wilson Education Center
The Wilson Education Center (WEC) in cooperation with American College of Education (ACE) will offer an online K-6 reading professional development program starting in April. We offered the program (a sequence of three courses) in the fall of 2012 for 200 teachers with great success. Many of them said they would like more teachers at their schools to have the same opportunity. Thus we have found a way to offer it again.

We have free seats available in the program for the first 55 applicants! After the first 55 seats are filled, you can still participant in this program at a tuition cost of $399/course. Participants will learn about the principles of Scientifically Based Reading Instruction (SBRI), the foundation of the Indiana K-6 Reading Framework, in 15 weeks. There are three courses in the sequence, and each course is 5 weeks in length and worth 30 PGPs, for a total of 90 PGPs for the program. For more information, click here, or contact Dr. Phil Partenheimer or Linda Mullins at the Center.

ON-LINE Mini-Courses    Click Here to Register for a Class
The Wilson Education Center is pleased to announce they have expanded their offering of online mini-courses valued at 30 hours of professional development units at a cost of $199 per Mini-Course.  Professional Growth Points are used for recertification of teachers licenses.   A teacher may choose to complete 90 hours in one (1) course area or take 90 hours in a combination of three (3) areas to complete the 90 hour requirement for re-certification.  Click here for more information.

These courses are taught by Professional Development Facilitators.  The subjects have been chosen to keep teacher skills current and to increase student achievement in the classroom.  No textbooks are required for these courses.  Teachers will be able to complete these web based courses in their spare time and in the convenience of their home. For more information, contact Dr. Phil Partenheimer or Linda Mullins at the Cent

Wilson Scholars Program
The Wilson Education Center is proud to announce a partnership with American College of Education. American College of Education is located in Indianapolis and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. With more than 5000 graduates across 40 states, the already affordable, online, and relevant degree programs are now more affordable with the Wilson Scholars Program. Wilson is proud to support applied professional degree programs designed for working professionals.

To qualify, applicants must be new students and meet all admissions requirements for a degree program. Once admitted to the October 8th or November 26th term, the grant will be applied to the student’s tuition balance. Students may participate in payment plans offered by the college including pay in full before the first course or pay by course each term. A total of twelve (12) payments will be made throughout the 18 month program. The grant will be evenly distributed and applied to each payment.  This grant cannot be combined with any other promotions and is not valid for any other terms.

For more information, click here. To apply for the scholarship, click on the button below.

The Dr. Louisa Moats LETRS Conference is now available online. A short promotional video gives an overview of the Moats program.

CBT Nuggets
The Wilson Education Service Center is offering special pricing to the CBT nuggets warehouse of resources, (http://cbtnuggets.com/) leveraging the cooperative purchasing power of our Service Center members. It is recommended that these online training accounts be utilized at a 10:1 ratio for concurrent users. The Wilson Education Center will make every effort to maintain a 5:1 ratio so that our members have access. All for a special price of $275.00 per person, per account. Schools can purchase multiple accounts.  Contact Jeff Renschler (ext. 202) at the Center for more information

Wilson Education Center Tutoring/Supplemental Education Services
The Wilson Education Center (WEC) is one of nine Educational Service Centers in the state of Indiana striving to meet the academic needs of students through a partnership with public school districts. The WEC has 32 years of experience working with Southeastern Indiana Schools. Our program is based on the top rated tutoring program in the state that was developed by the Central Indiana Education Service Center that yields the following results: 13% increase in Reading skills and 28% growth in Math after participating in 44 hours of tutoring.

Let our experience in education make a difference in your student’s academic performance today by contacting Melissa Branham at the Wilson Education Center at 1-800-326-5467 (ext. 210) or locally at 812-256-8000.

Great Explorations in Math and Science® (GEMS®)
The Wilson Education Center now has GEMS Kits available for check-out. GEMS Kits® are a leading resource for innovative science and mathematics education. Developed at the Lawrence Hall of Science, the public science education center at the University of California at Berkeley, and tested in thousands of classrooms nationwide, over 70 GEMS Teacher’s Guides® and handbooks offer a wide range of supplementary learning experiences for preschool through 8th grade. For more information on the GEMS Kits, contact Melissa Branham at 1-800-326-5467 (ext. 210) or click here; to check out the kits, contact Dorece Romans (ext. 213).

Center for Cultural Resources (CCR)
The Wilson Education is pleased to announce its partnership with the Center for Cultural Resources. The CCR is located in the Indiana University Southeast Library and provides a collection of resource kits, each organized to teach a core of 12 universal themes on unity and diversity. The kits provide instructional resources and lesson plans designed for thematic, interactive and realistic learning and are available after attending an orientation. For more information, register for orientation and check out kits, click here.

Wilson Education Center Selects Learn360
On July 1, 2009, the Indiana Association of Educational Service Centers (IAESC), that Wilson Education Center is a member of, selected Learn360 as the service provider for streaming video.  Learn360 was selected because their content of nearly 8500 videos plus video clips, audio files and still pictures met the needs of the majority of teachers.  Coupled with their easy to use interface searchable by standards, grade levels, as well as subjects plus excellent service were important factors. 

Learn360 offers K-12 digital content delivered in an online environment. Users can access thousands of resources from a wide variety of content partners including Sunburst Media, A&E. The History Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Goldhill Educational, Standard Deviants and others. Formats include: full videos, video clips, audio and images. Learn360 is available to students and teachers from home or at school and supports Flash, Windows Media Player or QuickTime. A unique feature in Learn360 is the ability to create slideshows. Learn360 includes a strong keyword search and the ability to search for titles by Indiana state standards. It also allows users the ability to import videos and clips into Power Point presentations and movie making software such as Windows Movie Maker and iMovie. Click here for printable information on Learn360.

For more information on purchasing the Learn360 subscription, contact Jeff Renschler at 1-800-326-5467 (ext. 202) or locally at 812-256-8000. Click here for printable purchasing forms.

Delivery Schedule - Delivery and pick-ups of AV equipment are scheduled by request only.  To schedule a pick-up for your building, or if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to call the Center at 1-800-326-5467 option 3.

FOSS Kits, GEM Kits and Starlab will be delivered as scheduled. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Dorece Romans at 1-800-326-5467 ext. 213.

WEC Newsletter - The Wilson Education Center newsletter is now available online (click here) and via email.  If you wish to receive it by email, click here to sign up for the Newsletter Distribution List.

Upcoming Events

RISE Training Series for Primary & Secondary Evaluators – Fall 2013 – Any person who will be serving as a Primary or Secondary Evaluator and who will utilize the RISE Evaluation Tool MUST be trained on RISE. Schools modifying RISE must also be trained. Audience: Superintendents, Administrators, Primary and Secondary Evaluators, and Teacher Leaders. This three-day series will include: Module I Classroom Observation Part 1; Module II Student Learning Objectives Step 1; Module III Classroom Observations Part 2 and Communication With Teachers; Module IV; Student Learning Objectives Steps 2-5; RISE Summative Scoring; and Conferencing/Giving Feedback.
 Location & Dates: Aurora - September 4, October 2, and November 5, 2013

STARLAB Portable Planetarium Training – STARLAB is a powerful educational tool in the field of astronomy and can act as a spark plug for young children. It can be used in any school; usually in the gym, stage, cafeteria, or any room with a 10-11' ceiling height. The Wilson Education Center circulates three STARLAB Portable Planetarium units to member schools. Each unit is scheduled for a full week and will be delivered and picked up by WEC van drivers. To access the STARLAB, teachers must attend a training prior to scheduling. Participants should wear casual attire. For more information on the STARLAB Portable Planetarium go to www.starlab.com
 Date: September 12, 2013

Professional Development to Support the RISE Teacher Effectiveness Rubric – Fall 2013– This series of half-day sessions is intended for teachers, who have been identified as “Ineffective” or “Improvement Necessary” in specific areas of Planning or Instruction. Information in these sessions will focus on “best practice” strategies in specific planning or instructional areas and will include “take away” assignments, which can be turned into corporation or building evaluators.
 Location & Dates: Charlestown - September 13, 2013 (morning and afternoon); September 18, 2013 (morning and afternoon); and September 25, 2013 (morning and afternoon)

IAESC Procurement and GovPro Trainings - click here
 The Wilson Education Center has scheduled trainings (both on site and via webex) on the first Thursday of most months to demonstrate the ease of ordering products and supplies on-line through the IAESC and GovPro Procurement Systems. Member school corporations should register with IAESC Procurement (On Site or Webex). Libraries, municipalities and other governmental entities should register with GovPro. There is no fee for this training, however pre-registration is required. Class size is limited! To register and view available trainings, click here.  Need a refresher course using the system and can't get away? We would be happy to come to your site or setup a webinar to demonstrate the Procurement Systems. For more information, contact the Center.
Dates: June 6, 2013

 InDIana Destination ImagiNation
The world's largest creative problem-solving program for kids, each year all Challenges are connected and aligned to the educational learning standards. Connecting the Standards show how each of the learning standards are met in our Challenges. We are preparing young people for life. For more information, click on InDIana Destination ImagiNation.

Other Professional Development Opportunities - click here

Professional Development Cancellation Policies and Weather Related Information