Welcome to Resources for Teaching about the Americas (RetaNet), the Latin America Data Base's (LADB) web site for secondary educators. RetaNet is an on-line interactive learning community of teacher peers. RetaNet offers:

• Latin America News in the Classroom modules
• Lesson plans
• Photos
• Searchable curriculum materials data base

RetaNet covers Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the U.S.-Mexico border.

This site is funded by the U.S. Department of Education Office of International Research and Studies. RetaNet is an outreach project of the Latin American & Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico, a Dept. of Education Title VI funded regional studies center, and the institute’s Latin America Data Base on-line news service.

Tell us what you think, e-mail RetaNet. We'd love to hear from you.

• Project Description
• Resources
• Online Wisdom Community
• Background and Mission
• Contact Information

RetaNet supports secondary and pre-service teachers by providing resources and curriculum materials about Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the U.S. Southwest. RetaNet is an on-line community of peers, a place where teachers can find teaching support, professional development, and share their experiences and interest in teaching about Latin America.

• News in the Classroom Modules
  Links to LADB's current events articles (in English) with suggestions for classroom use; ·
• Photo Archive
  An archive of visual materials to enhance teaching (photos, maps, etc); ·
• Curriculum Materials Data Base
  A searchable database of curriculum materials and web resources about Latin America ; ·
• Lesson Plans
  A searchable data base of lesson plans written for and by secondary school teachers about Latin America, the largest collection of Latin American specific lesson plans in English on the web; ·
• Community Online dialogue areas
  A "laboratory" area where teachers can dialogue and collaborate on lesson plan development, and submit plans to the RetaNet lesson plan compilation; ·
• Online workshops
  Expert presenters and Q&As (real-time and archived). ·
• Free access to complete Latin America news coverage
  Password access for teachers to LADB’s full-text searchable archive of historical articles about the region dating from 1986, and complete versions of LADB’s three weekly news bulletins (see LADB web site) for teachers who register

• Learner centered
  Focusing on teachers' needs and questions, and adjusting content accordingly; ·
• Knowledge centered
  Introducing new information and techniques, while giving teachers the opportunity to undersand why, when, where and how it might be valuable to them; ·
• Assessment centered
  Giving teachers the opportunity to try things out in their classroom and receive feedback, and share experiences with each other; ·
• Community centered
  Providing continuing contact and support for teachers and peer interaction (including peer review of lesson plans on the site); Teachers that participate in RetaNet’s online wisdom community are encouraged to develop lesson plans about Latin America, to share them, and ultimately add them to the site. The project promotes peer interaction among teachers to encourage teaching about Latin America. RetaNet is designed to link teachers to one another in moderated discussion groups, online presentations and/or seminars, and frequently renewed source materials from the LADB news service combined with suggestions for incorportating the materials into actual classroom use.

In July 2002 the U.S. Department of Education International Research and Studies Program granted the Latin America Data Base at the University of New Mexico three-year funding to upgrade the RetaNet site from a static web site offering lesson plans and a curriculum materials data base, to an interactive learning community of teachers. The upgrade includes providing teachers with weekly access to new teaching ideas and materials culled from the Latin America Data Base’s (LADB) weekly electronic news publications about Mexico, Central America & the Caribbean, including Cuba and South America, and its searchable archive of over 26,000 news articles dating from 1986.

The project seeks to build a vital online interactive learning community, supported by the existing stream of high quality source materials about Latin America produced by RetaNet's host site, LADB, combined with curriculum guidance on how to make materials relevant to classroom teaching.

Teachers who visit the upgraded RetaNet site are encouraged to use LADB news materials and to engage with the RetaNet community of learning to share ideas, discuss the week's new posting of current events, review the existing 65 RetaNet lesson plans, and develop, critique and try out Latin America curriculum concepts among themselves.

We encourage you to contact:

RetaNet Online Learning Community
Latin America Data Base
Latin American and Iberian Institute
MSC02 1690
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

Telephone: 1-800-472-0888
(505) 277-6839 or 277-7047
e-mail: retanet@ladb.unm.edu