Fine Tech in the Classroom

I recently wrote a proposal to donorschoose.org to hopefully get funded the cost of 10 digital cameras.  My project will be called “Teach Me About My Past.”  I teach in Birmingham, which has a rich civil rights history, but many of those leaders of the 50’s and 60’s will no longer be with us.  I want my students to be able to talk and meet with the people and create a digital story about what they have learned.  Some will also have a choice of studying why the city was originally built where it is (iron ore, coal mines, etc.) 

This idea really came to me when I overheard a student in another teacher’s classroom who were doing black history month projects mention something.  She was so excited because she had talked with her aunt who mentioned that she had been alive when Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive.  Talk about making me feel old.  But this made me think about just how young they really are and how I have taken for granted the history that has happened during my lifetime - and I don’t consider myself that old:)

Other projects I would like to try in this same genre would be to interview the WWII vets.  They are quicky passing away and we are losing that oral history.

Even though I teach gifted to 4th grade students in 16 of our schools, I am also reponsible for consultative services for my schools.  This summer I plan to create assignments from Discovery Education that are based on our Alabama Course of Study.  I’m starting with the science objectives and will go from there.  I am thrilled to see all of the choices I had on my first objective - electricity.  I plan on sharing this with all the 4th grade teachers so they can use this resource (and be able to get them involved in Discovery Education).

Now that I have finished teaching summer school I can begin projects I want to complete before we get back to school in one month! Yikes!  One month!

My goals:

• Write another proposal for http://donorschoose.org
• Create a KMZ file (just learned about this courtesy of a webinair I participated in through Discovery Education) on my units of study - Time Trek and Endangered! Planet Earth.
• Create some great PPT’s for my lessons.
• As soon as I get my e-beam, I want to practice using this - it’s real cool.  I learned about it at the AETC Conference.
• I want to plan some inservice for my school and my district gifted teachers.  I really want them to get involved with APTPlus which includes Discovery Streaming, and also get them to use their blogs.