A life long interest in history, 28 years as a classroom teacher including the past three years as department chairman. I am an instructor at Montgomery College in Archaeology, the College of Jewish Studies in Holocaust Studies, and a Volunteer in the National Park Service at Antietam, Harpers Ferry and Richmond National Battlefield Sites. Author of a: Civil War Tour: September 1862--The Maryland Campaign, Archaeology in the Classroom --Museum of National History-Anthro Notes, and Great Homes of Britain-Smithsonian Advisor. National teacher trainer for the International Baccalaureate Program and Assistant Examiner, documents in the classroom advisor for Montgomery County Public Schools and the National Archives. Guest lecturer in grades 4th through college level on Archaeology and Civil War living history programs. Extensive field research and laboratory artifact analysis, in prehistoric-Native American sites, 19th century grist mills, Civil War camp sites, and Afro-American free and slave communities for the National Park Service and the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission.


John L. Day
Instructional Specialist, Social Studies, Montgomery Co. Public Schools
Rockville, MD
Link to Team Portfolio

While I am presently an Instructional Specialist for Social Studies, working in our central office, for most of my 27 year career I taught economics and history (American, European, and world), to high schools students in Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. For 17 of those years I was also department chair at Richard Montgomery High School, named for the American general, killed in 1775, for whom our county is named. There also I helped in the creation of a very successful International Baccalaureate program for which I also taught an interdisciplinary course called Theory of Knowledge.

Part of my present job has involved the creation of a Social Studies home page for the school system. I have trained teachers in the county (and across the state) in the use of the Internet with social studies classes from grade 3 to 12. As ours is a large school system, over 120,000 students in 181 schools, we are beginning to use the Internet as a means of publishing and updating curriculum, linking our curricular materials to web sites with appropriate social studies content.

Bob Hines and I are looking forward to welcoming American Memory fellows from across the U.S. to the nations capitol, which for us, is our back yard.

Bill Fernekes
Supervisor of Social Studies, Hunterdon Central Regional HS
Flemington, NJ
Link to Team Portfolio

I strongly believe in expanding student interest and use of the building blocks of history and the social sciences, and have long employed primary sources in my teaching. More recently, the advent of the Internet has broadened our collective capacity (adults and students) to learn from an incredibly wide range of resources, no longer restricted to the United States. Additionally, the use of online communication via email has facilitated direct linkages between my students and experts, scholars and other people with first-hand testimonies about history and contemporary social issues. I bring to the American Memory project these interests, and a commitment to help make the LOC resources applicable to a broad range of subject fields, as well as to all students, irrespective of ability level or educational history.

As a teaching supervisor, I lead a department of 17 professionals and teach every day. We are working within a block schedule and this year I have taught 4 different courses, one each quarter. Our block schedule contains 4 blocks per day, each of 84 minutes in duration. The use of the Internet for teaching is facilitated in the block, as students have ample time to search, refine, study and print, as well as collaborate on common projects. I have also begun having students evaluate Internet sites to develop their critical thinking skills when encountering online resources, given the lack of consistent editorial control on the Internet.

Just a little bit about me--I have taught for 23 years at Hunterdon Central, and have been supervisor of the social studies department for 9 years. I taught Spanish as well for 8 years, and have advised a variety of clubs, including Model UN, Debate and Forensics, and currently Amnesty International, which I founded with some students approximately 10 years ago, and which continues strong at our school. I am an avid musician, and I play trombone in NJ's oldest concert band, the Blawenburg Band, which this year celebrates its 107th year of continuous performance. My wife Sheila runs her own public relations and advertising business, and our cat Zoe is a philosopher of independent spirit. I look forward to meeting everyone in July!


Harlene Z. Rosenberg
Supervisor, Instructional Media Center, Hunterdon Central Regional High
Flemington, NJ
Link to Team Portfolio

As the Media Specialist member of the team, my interests lean toward gathering information and materials which will add to and enhance our school's curriculum. The greatest users of our Instructional Media Center's (IMC) resources are classes from the Social Studies Department, where the use of primary source material is actively encouraged.

I am currently on sabbatical, learning more about the newer technologies of multimedia production and the Internet. Currently I am attending classes and visiting school to develop a better understanding of what is available and how these resources are being utilized. I feel my participation in the American Memory Fellows Program will enhance my sabbatical project as well as provide the opportunity to assist in the creation and dissemination of lessons for students and teachers.

Hunterdon Central has approximately 2000 students in grades 9-12. Classes may sign up to use our IMC for full or half periods, for one or more days. Students also use the IMC independently before, during or after school. Our 72 acre campus has been networked for several years, providing students and staff access to our electronic resources both from their classrooms and homes.

I have had the pleasure of speaking at conferences and workshops at the national, state and local levels. Most recently, I spoke about The Impact of Block Scheduling on the Library Media Program, at the American Association of School Librarian's national conference. I have also given several presentations and have written an article on the use of CD-ROM resources. In 1995, the Educational Media Association of New Jersey presented me with their Outstanding Educational Media Specialist Award for Exemplary Leadership in School Library/Media Service.


Geri M. Appel
Librarian/Advisor, Central Park East Secondary School
New York, NY
Link to Team Portfolio

For more than twenty-five years I've been a classroom teacher, district coordinator, library/media specialist, mentor and advisor. I've taught or worked with students in every grade from pre kindergarten through senior high school. I've been a library/media specialist in elementary, junior and senior high schools for the last 8 years. I've also worked closely with teachers to develop curriculum in a number of areas. Most recently these included slavery in the United States, the Harlem Renaissance and World War II, especially the dropping of the first atomic bombs and the internment of Japanese Americans. I've also worked as a consultant helping to write science curriculum for the middle grades. I am currently mentoring a 7th/8th grade Humanities teacher as part of the School Based Teacher Education Program sponsored by the Center for Collaborative Education's Center for Inquiry in Teaching and Learning. I am also a member of the Annenberg Institute's National School Reform Faculty of Library Media Specialists.

My personal interests include the study of Native American history and culture, architecture and zoology. I am a member of the Smithsonian's New York City Museum of the American Indian, and have traveled to Pueblos in New Mexico and to ancient tribal locations in the Pacific Northwest. I studied art at New York's Fiorella LaGuardia School of the Arts at Lincoln Center and still enjoy creating architectural renderings. I am interested in animals of all sorts and my husband and I currently share our home with one cat and two rabbits.


Patrice E. Wagner
Humanities Teacher/Advisor, Central Park East Secondary School
New York, NY
Link to Team Portfolio

I've been a teacher and advisor at CPESS for the past nine years. I have also taught students who left school before graduating in a program jointly funded by the New York City Board of Education, the Department of Employment and the Division for Youth. I am a teacher of both literature and history and I have a particular interest in the relationship between history and culture. Some of the classes I have taught include slavery, the Harlem Renaissance, the Cold War, the War in Indochina, and the Sixties with an emphasis on the Civil Rights movement. In literature, my interests include the plays of August Wilson, the novels of Toni Morrison, autobiographical literature and the literature of the Harlem Renaissance. I am particularly interested in providing access to technology to those who have been left behind in the technology revolution -- African Americans, Latinos and poor students. My personal interests include creative and journalistic writing. I have had short stories and articles in anthologies published by Viking and Doubleday. I have also worked as a journalist at the Village Voice, and coordinated a students produced newspaper. I was a Revson Fellow on the Future of the City of New York, and I'm a board member of the Institute for Research and Reform in Education.


Monica Edinger
4th Grade Teacher
The Dalton School
New York, NY
Link to Team Portfolio

I am a first generation American. My parents are Germans who immigrated to this country because of the Holocaust. I still have relatives and close family friends in Germany, have lived and school there, and go there regularly. My father is a political scientist and historian and has been very influential in my life.

I did my undergraduate work at Barnard College in the visual arts. Upon graduation I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Sierra Leone teaching art and working on curriculum. Subsequently I came to New York and began teaching in independent schools. I have now been a teacher for over twenty years. The bulk of my teaching has been as a classroom teacher in grades 3-8. I have also taught computer programming to graduate students and consult in writing and computers, and literature.

I have two advanced degrees from Teachers College Columbia University. The first is in International Education and Education Technology and the second is in Computers and Education.

Over the years I have received a number of fellowships and awards. I particularly enjoyed NEH Summer Seminars at Princeton University for children's literature, the University of Rochester for "Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast" and the Bank Street College of Education for Folklore. I publish and present fairly often. My first book, "Fantasy Literature in the Classroom" was published by Scholastic in 1995 and my second, "Far Away and Long Ago: Young Historians in the Classroom" is due out from Stenhouse this fall. I also have published articles on reading and writing, notably, "Empowering Young Writers with Teachnology" in the April 1994 Educational Leadership. This past fall I presented a paper on my work with fourth graders and history at the National Council of Teachers of English Convention.

For many years I have been involved with Scholastic Network. I was their first Language Arts Moderator and, for the past two years, have run Book Talk projects. This year I did one on Cinderella and am currently running one on Fantasy and the Imagination. I also am active in the Child_lit mailing list.


Cory Brandt
Director of Information and Library Services
The Dalton School
New York, NY
Link to Team Portfolio

I graduated from Oberlin College in 1990 with a BA in History. Following College, I spent a year and a half teaching second grade at the Blue Valley School in San Jose, Costa Rica. I subsequently worked as reference assistant at the Loeb Design Library, Harvard University, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michgan, and Public Health Library, University of Michigan. Requirements for the Master of Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan School of Information were completed in August 1996. Graduate coursework focused on the application of new technologies to problems in archives and records management. My studies culminated in the creation of a system for the functional appraisal of e-mail communications within the Internet Public Library. This paper was presented at the ASIS Conference in May 1996. While working toward my Master degree I processed archival collections at the Bentley Historical Library and served as Information Services Coordinator at the Industrial Technology Institute. In my current position as Director of Libraries and Information Services at the Dalton School I am coordinating a multi-year project to redefine the role and scope of information services within the school.


Eva L. Abbamonte
Social Studies Teacher, Hunter College High School
New York, NY
Link to Team Portfolio

I am currently a social studies teacher at Hunter College High School, a school for intellectually gifted students in New York City. I have taught courses in both the middle and high school covering topics as broad in range as introduction to economics, global studies, American history, and Advanced Placement European History. As an educator, I am particularly interested in student-based learning and in applying cooperative models in the social studies classroom. I have also advised many student activities including the Model United Nations Society, the AFS Exchange Club, and am currently senior class advisor.

I received a B.A. in European History from Barnard College and an master's degree in the same field from Columbia University. My master's thesis focused on French cultural imperialism in the Middle East at the turn of the twentieth century. I have also done extensive coursework in the theory and practice of gifted education.

Recently, I have become fascinated by the many opportunities presented by computer-based technologies in the social studies classroom. While still a novice, I am eager to utilize this technology in curriculum that I am currently designing for use in Advanced Placement European History and for seventh grade students in economics and political science. I look forward to participating in the American Fellows Program so I can further pursue this new interest.

Besides my passion for European and American history, I enjoy cooking, gardening, and visiting museums. My main preoccupation, however, is enjoying my two year old son, Elliott, and seeing the world anew through his eyes. Fortunately, Washington, D.C. is one of his favorite places and he is looking forward to joining me at the end of the institute to see "Bill Clinton's house."


Della Barr Brooks
Instructor, Program in Social Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University
New York, NY
Link to Team Portfolio

I am currently an instructor and doctoral student in the Program in Social Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. I have taught middle and high school in private and public schools in Philadelphia and New York, and have worked in museum education at Ellis Island/ The Statue of Liberty (where I met Eva), The Hudson River Museum, Historic Hudson Valley, and Philipse Manor Hall.

I double-majored in English and History as an undergraduate and then earned a M.S. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. Being a perpetual student, I also hold a M.A. in American History from N.Y.U.

My doctoral research at Teachers College focuses on object-based education and its application in schools, museums, and on the World Wide Web. This interest in utilizing new technologies for teaching has led me into designing internet sites and curricula and writing about the implications for teaching critical thinking skills through web resources. By working with Eva in the American Fellows Program I hope to explore more applications of this technology in the classroom.

When I'm not teaching, studying or surfing the net I can be found in museums, the theater, antique stores, or Dylan and Phoebe's elementary school, and whenever I get the chance I travel; I'm looking forward both to this summer's trip to Washington and to exploring the world through the eyes of the World's Transportation Commission collection at the Library of Congress.