Volume 1, Issue 3 

SCHOLASTIC CHESS UPDATE 12.11.01

By Bob Ferguson, Member of USCF Scholastic Council

Please note: An international chess and education conference is scheduled for this week in Dallas, Texas.  For details about the conference, visit http://www.geocities.com/chess_camp/workshops.html & http://www.geocities.com/chess_camp/george_koltanowski_memorial_conf.html.  

In this issue:

1)      New Scholastic Council members elected!

2)      Beta page for chess coach certification testing is now live online!

3)      Scholastic Council will meet in Dallas this Thursday, December 13.

4)      Thank you for contributing to the Coaches’ Corner.

Greetings to All Chess Folks,

Welcome to the third issue of the scholastic update.  One of the Scholastic Council’s goals is to improve communication among members of the scholastic community.  This e-Newsletter is the second step towards reaching this goal.  Our first step was the creation of a Scholastic Chess Website to communicate what the Scholastic Council is and what goals are being pursued.  For details, please visit www.chess.isgenius.com.

If you are not interested in scholastic chess, please click the reply button and type “remove” in the subject line.  If you know others who would like to receive this information, please forward the URL for the website to them.

1. New Scholastic Council members elected!

Welcome to Joe Ippolito and Ralph Bowman.  Both Ralph and Joe have been involved in scholastic chess for years.  They have also served as chair and co-chair of the Scholastic Committee in the past.  It is great to have such expertise on the Council. 

2. Beta page for chess coach certification testing is now live!

My main project for this month was to create beta testing for an “unapproved” level of the Coach Certification program.  The subcommittee decided not to offer an official certification at this level; therefore, I decided we could do some online beta testing to work out some of the bugs dealing with online testing.  Please visit http://www.geocities.com/chess_camp/coach_login.html and test the tests.  They are quite simple, but remember they are designed for an inexperienced entry level coach.  Please give suggestions for improving these tests and ideas for higher levels.

3. Scholastic Council will meet in Dallas this Thursday, December 13.

You’re invited to attend our first face-to-face council meeting for the 2001-2002 school term. The agenda is posted at http://www.geocities.com/chess_camp/agenda.html.  Please send your opinions at your earliest convenience to the entire scholastic council, so your thoughts can be discussed at the Dallas meeting.  The email addresses for the council members are as follows:

* Tom and Steve are ex-officio members. 

4. Thank you for contributing to the Coaches’ Corner.

Thanks to Bob Ciaffone, Mike Volpe, Jeff Wiewel, and others who contributed information for these important pages.  We eagerly look forward to all coach contributions. To visit the Coaches' Corner Home Page, go to http://www.geocities.com/chess_camp/coaches_corner_home.html.

Best wishes for this holiday season!

If you have an IDEA, STRATEGY, FORM, or LESSON to contribute to the web site, PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING FORMAT FOR YOUR SUBMISSION:

TITLE OF LESSON OR IDEA:

NAME:

SCHOOL:

CITY/STATE:

E-MAIL:

KEY WORDS:

GRADE RANGE:

SHORT 1-2 SENTENCE INTRODUCTION:

MATERIALS NEEDED:

STEP-BY-STEP METHODOLOGY (200-500 WORDS, simple enough that a teacher could print it out and follow it on his/her own):

PLEASE NOTE:  We prefer that all items be forwarded by email as an attachment in Word, FrontPage, or PDF. 

Send your submissions to [email protected]

The American Chess School funds this eNewsletter.  Please visit our sponsor’s website at www.amchess.org