21st Century "Logo"

While I was attempting (and not really succeeding) with Xtranormal - it dawned on me that this was actually a programing piece of software! We were programming the figures to speak and move in various ways. I started laughing when I realized this. Memories of Logo, Hypercard and Hyperstudio came to mind. I realized that to create an Xtranormal video, it would take much more time than I had just put into it.

My Attempt at Voicethread

Here's my first attempt at VoiceThread.

Where There's a Will, There's a Way!

Curriculum night was fast approaching and part of my presentation to the parents involved the live webcam at the Panama Canal. The cameras were down. I searched the website high and low to find a way to ask about the problem. Finally, I was able to find an email address of the webmaster. I wrote that the website was an important part of a presentation and asked if it was going to be back up and running soon. Much to my surprise, I received an email back that yes, it had been down and would be up over the weekend. Unfortunately, it didn't go back up in time for me to share it with the parents, but I did with my students. There are so many times we send emails and they are never responded to, I was amazed!

Online High Schools

Online High Schools

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125374569191035579.html
This is an article on online high schools and whether it really works for students. I found it interesting that while there was a great appeal for those who wanted to study more in depth, according to the article, students missed the personal face to face contact with others.

"She enjoyed the academics but eventually found she was lonely. She missed the human connection of proms, football games and in-person, rather than online, gossip. The digital clubs for fashion, books and cooking involved Web cams and blogs and felt more like work than fun. Last winter, Ms. Ray left the online school and enrolled at a local community college for a semester."

Differentiated Instruction

"I love the way we can learn and still have fun."

"It was neat to do all different kinds of activities."

"Lots of fun yet we still learned."

Thanks to Sally, who was really my first year mentor here at SMS, my students are able to review their prior knowledge and have fun while they're doing it. Sally introduced me to the world of "stations."

I have 12 stations set up around the room - everything from creating with playdough, identifying landforms and water features from a Powerpoint, putting together paper puzzles, and sketching. Students work with a partner and rotate at the sound of the bell. They record their answers, then check them right at that station. This provides immediate feedback. Students collaborate on their answers and talk about geography. It's fun to watch and exciting to see!

The only downfall of this set of activities is the time it takes to create, set-up and maintain. Provisioning at its best!

Minds on Fire post

I had read this article last week and wrote sticky notes, but the only place I could find what I noted was through diigo. This is why I copied and pasted it here. Don't know if this is the right way to post.

Minds on Fire

Simple Middle Advanced

10 Oct 09

Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0 (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE

Writing/analyzing for an audience makes output/research more authentic and therefore encourages the author to articulate thoughts/ideas more carefully. It makes sense that working with real scientists would make students more invested in their learning.

www.educause.edu/...162420

#i3cs21

• The Internet has also fostered a new culture of sharing, one in which content is freely contributed and distributed with few restrictions or costs.
• The project’s website includes reports of how students, under the guidance of professional astronomers, are using the Faulkes telescopes to make small but meaningful contributions to astronomy.

Wordle

I just played with Wordle - found out that if you add a tilde (~) between words, it keeps the words together! Also read that word size was directly related to the number of times it is written! We are headed to Australia for our first continent of study. So here are the territories and capitals along with the states and capitals.