Thank you for your interest in My Sky Tonight, a program for bringing the excitement of astronomy to 3- to 5-year old museum visitors. This is the application for the My Sky Tonight online workshop taking place October 12 - November 20, 2015. It has 16 questions and should take about 20 minutes to complete.

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* 1. Please provide your preferred contact information. List the street address where we should ship your Activity Toolkit. This should not be a P.O. box. List the email where you would like to receive messages related to the workshop.

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* 2. Do you have coworkers at your institution who are also applying for this workshop? If so, please list their name(s) below. We welcome and encourage pairs of participants from the same institution, though we will ship a single toolkit of materials for each institution.

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* 3. How would you categorize your institution?

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* 4. What is your job title, and how do you spend most of your time at your job?

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* 5. Do you:

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* 6. How did you hear about My Sky Tonight? (check all that apply)

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* 7. We are interested in working with educators with a range of experience. Please RATE your current comfort level in the following areas:

  1 (low comfort) 2 3 4 5 (high comfort)
Conducting activities and programs for 3- to 5-year-old children
Conducting activities and programs about astronomy
Conducting activities and programs for 3- to 5-year-old children about astronomy

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* 8. Please describe your programming for 3- to 5-year-old children. What sort of programs do you offer, and how often do you work with this age group?

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* 9. Please describe any astronomy programming your institution currently offers, including information about the audience for this programming. Current astronomy programming is not a requirement for participation in the workshop.

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* 10. By participating in the workshop, you agree to test out the My Sky Tonight materials with your young audiences in your museum, reporting on at least three events or interactions by February 1, 2016. How will you incorporate the My Sky Tonight activities into your programs? For example, will you use them in a camp, as part of regularly scheduled storytime activities, in a family workshop, on the exhibit floor during busy times?

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* 11. How will participating in the My Sky Tonight workshop benefit you and your institution?

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* 12. The workshop will take place over six weeks, and will require 3 - 4 hours of your time each week. Most of the workshop activities can be done on your own time as it fits best into your schedule, except for a one-hour webinar each week at a time TBA (see question 11 below). Are you able to commit 3 - 4 hours of your work time each week for the duration of the workshop, October 12 - November 20?

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* 13. Most of the workshop communication will take place through an online discussion forum. Each message that is posted in the forum will also be delivered to you via email. During the first week of the workshop, there may be about 10-15 messages per day as people post their introductions. In later weeks, this will vary from about 1 to about 10 messages per day depending on how active the discussions are. You can also read any of the message at any time by logging into the online forum, where they will be displayed in threads by topic.

What is your email delivery preference for forum messages?

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* 14. Before the start of the workshop, we would like to spend about 15 minutes with you on the phone and on our website for a "technical check-in" to make sure you are able to access and navigate our website and webinar program. These check-ins will take place September 28 - October 1, between 8:30am Pacific / 11:30am Eastern and 12:30pm Pacific / 3:30pm Eastern. You'll need to be on the phone and at a computer with internet access. Please suggest three times during this period when you would be available for this, and be sure to specify your time zone. If you are accepted to participate, we will contact you to confirm your time.

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* 15. During the workshop, you will complete most of the tasks on your own time as they fit best into your schedule, but we will have one live, scheduled webinar each week. Please indicate your availability for a weekly one-hour webinar during the period of October 12 to November 20. Select "sometimes" for times where you can attend some weeks but not others, or for times that are otherwise possible but not ideal. We will do our best to choose a time that accommodates the most people, and though they are best experienced live, we will also record the webinars so that you can watch them if you miss them. We'll announce the schedule by September 25.

  Yes Sometimes No
Wed. 11am PT / 2pm ET
Wed. noon PT / 3pm ET
Wed. 1pm PT / 4pm ET
Wed. 2pm PT / 5pm ET
Wed. 3pm PT / 6pm ET
Wed. 4pm PT / 7pm ET
Thu. 10am PT / 1pm ET
Thu. 11am PT / 2pm ET
Thu. noon PT / 3pm ET
Thu. 2pm PT / 5pm ET
Thu. 3pm PT / 6pm ET
Thu. 4pm PT / 7pm ET

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* 16. Select one category below which best identifies your racial/ethnic background (optional).

In order for your application to be considered complete, you need to return the Institutional Endorsement Form with the signature of your supervisor or director to certify your institution's support of your participation. You can send it in via mail, fax, or email - see instructions on the form.
Once you have completed your application, click the "done" button below to submit it to the selection committee. Thanks for your interest in My Sky Tonight!

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