Ned’s Keeper

It’s about that time of year were I start dreaming of next year. I have two big projects I intend to carry out next year, but I just need to do the lesson plans for them. So like all good teachers, I am procrastinating and writing in my blog. It sounded like the right thing to do to get the juices flowing.

We started meeting in January about Green 180 and are developing detailed lesson plans for each of the campuses that will be participating in the project. If you haven’t read anything about it, feel free to read up on it at http://www.green180.org. We have narrowed down most of the project details and hope to have the full plan on the site before schools end this year. It has been interesting deciding on how we are going to do this when our district didn’t have any standard way to use webcams set up or most of the programs opened up on the internet. I guess that is part of being a technology person wanting more than the regular setup. So far everyone has been very positive, supportive and open in our district to what we are doing. They are wonderful about that. When they can see the benefit to the student’s I think they are willing to work with you on anything. I think the combination of web 2.0 products with distance learning and a little bit of environmental benefit all comes together to make an interesting and kid-approved project.

The second project we will be doing will last the entire first semester of school next year and ought to be a lot of fun. This project is going to be through a wikispace: http://nedskeeper.wikispaces.com/. In order to encourage the use of bubble maps through kidspiration and then to promote the writing process, we will be writing about Ned’s Wild Adventures. We will also incorporate Google Earth into this project to track the travel’s of our dear Ned throughout the semester and on into the holidays. This group of lessons will hopefully easily lead into several book and movie making projects that will complete our year.

My kids have been doing all of these things in a less formal manner over the last few years, but I think this more concise method will allow the kids to really feel connected from start to finish and will really have something to be proud of at the end of the year. It is so affirming to send the kids home with finished products that they can enjoy and have with them forever. It really gives them a sense of accomplishment and is a huge confidence booster.  I hope that being so prepared for next year will alleviate some of the nerves I often have when school starts. I doubt it. A new group… even if it is the same old kids in new jeans… still makes me excited and nervous.