North Carolina DEN

If you ever wanted to interview an astronaut, you need to check out NASA Do It Yourself Podcasts.

NASA is providing video and audio clips and encouraging students to remix their own podcasts. Right now, students can create podcasts on Lab Safety, Newton’s Laws, and Spacesuits.

NASA also publishes a blog devoted to these podcasts.

I know you all have had the experience of discovering an interesting web link that leads to another link that leads… well, before you know it you’ve spent several hours and unearthed all sorts of resources you can’t wait to use.  My latest copy of Infinite Thinking Machine arrived Friday with that kind of link.
The newsletter  included a link to an online video editor, PrimaryAccess, which provides space and tools for students to create original movies online. The site was developed by  the Center for Technology & Teacher Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia and is quite a excellent classroom resource. If you care to read more about the project, you’ll find background material at the Center for Technolgy & Teacher Education. The PrimaryAccess site has all the information needed to get started on a project. 
I  would have been fine with this site, except that the article in Infinite Thinking Machine also included a link to the K-12 Online Conference session where those responsible for the site discuss the tool, demonstrate its use and look at reseach data on the success of the tool when compared to other project tools student used. I won’t go into how long I spent at these sites, but it was a great Friday night! If you have any interest in  digital storytelling resouces, you’ll want to set aside some time to explore these resources.

This past week, our 6th grade teachers spent several hours during their common planning brainstorming and learning how to use their student’s wiki. My brain was fried from working on all the technical issues and updating laptops. So, I decided to share the training manual we used as my post this time. I searched DE Screaming’s videos for ideas to use with this training and found the “The Underground Railroad: Escape from Slavery” title. It has black line masters ready to download. However, due to budget constraints coupled with research, our teachers know that worksheets don’t build dendrites.  Here are the minutes from my PD sessions.

Essential Question: How can student wiki pages be for informal assessments?

Activating:
Pair-share the essential question with a partner.

[Participants navigated to the student wiki, logged in, and walked through the process of creating a new wiki page, copying and pasting test, adding tags, and titles, and saving their page.]

Description
In this lesson, teachers will learn how to facilitate students creating short answers and comments about the Underground Railroad using their Apple student wiki pages and blogs.
Teachers will practice using the student wikis.
Ingredients (Resources)
Scholastics Online activity: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/index.htm

Blog and wikis needed:

1. On the Plantation. Using your favorite reading strategies for the online content, students will become familiar with “On the Plantation” passages. Wiki pages and the Blog feature. In this part of the lesson, students will comment on the questions linked in the blog post. The instructions are on the blog post at: [link deleted, it is on our Intranet and is password protected]
2. ESCAPE! is the second part of the Scholastic online activity?  Please have your students use the online activity.  http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/index.htm
3. Reaching Safety:  [link deleted, it is on our Intranet and is password protected]
4. Reaching Freedom: Use the online activity found on Scholastic’s page. It is super! http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/almost_free.htm
5. Tell the Story, the last part. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/almost_free.htm In this activity, use the student wiki page to record student work. [link deleted, it is on our Intranet and is password protected]

Instructions:

Part 1: On the Plantation - Guided Practice-Writing Activity:
In Fannie’s Shoes students will:

Use the prompt: “Now imagine yourself in Fannie’s shoes when she was a child. Post their answers to these questions on the blog post as COMMENTS!!!”

Use this Blog on the student wiki: [link deleted, it is on our Intranet and is password protected]
Part 2: Escape - Students, you will read and complete the letter writing activity where you are an agent on the Underground Railroad writing to a stationmaster in Philadelphia. <follow steps online>

Part 3:  Reaching Safety - The Underground Railroad - escape from slavery

[link deleted, it is on our Intranet and is password protected]

Post a Comment to answer these questions.

STEPS:

1. Follow the link to the website. Find the correct answer to the questions.
2. Copy the question to use in your comment.
3. To Post a COMMENT, scroll down to find the word “comment” and click on this.
4. Save your comment. It will not show up immediately.
5. THEN continue this process until you correctly answer all questions on this blog.

Part 4: Reaching Freedom - use the online resources for this part, they are super!!

Part 5: Tell the Story - students create their own wiki page to answer questions.

1. Tell the Story - Students will use this blog: [link deleted, it is on our Intranet and is password protected]
2. Select and Copy the text of all the questions below.
3. Click on the + icon to create a new wiki page
4. Enter the name of your new wiki page. Give the page a name like Nikki’s Telling the Story Wiki. Click the Create word to open the new page.
5. Click on the pencil icon so you can edit your new page.
6. Paste the text with all the questions below into your new wiki page.
7. Save the wiki page by clicking on save.
8. Tag your wiki page with your name. You may want to bookmark your new wiki page so you can find it easier. Tip: use another New Window to open both your new wiki page.
9. Read the questions and click on the links to navigate to the online resource.
10. Read the material linked to and look for the best answer to the question. Read carefully!!!
11. Navigate back to your new Telling the Story wiki page and click the pencil icon to edit.
12. Type in your answers.
13. MAKE SURE YOUR FULL NAME IS ON THE WIKI PAGE [this helps searching for student work]
14. Add Tags to your new wiki page with your name and another tag Tell the Story
15. View “The Underground Railroad: Escape From Slavery” on DE Streaming.

Assessment:

Informal question and answer while students are reading and listening to the content online as you move around monitoring students.

* Teacher created rubric for writing projects.
* Peer-assessments to evaluate each other’s writing.
* Use North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s supplied writing rubric.
* Exit slips to check daily progress.
* Teacher created K-W-L or other graphic organizer.

Integration of Technology/21st Century Skills

* Information literacy
* Effective written communication
* Technology using wiki and online resources

Integration of Other Academic Areas

* Communication Skills
* Social Studies

Differentiations

* Auditory learners use headphone
* K-W-L for visual learners
* Modification for EC - fewer questions, learning pairs to create common wiki page.

Tech Facilitator Reflections:

For students that had not used our student wiki prior to this activity, the learning curve was steep. However, many of our students have been using their student wiki on a daily basis to post comments, photos, videos, music, and writing assignments. A positive experience that a teacher shared with me was when a teacher was telling the students about how to create a new wiki page. The teacher made a mistake and several of her teachers were quick to point out that she had made told them the incorrect procedure. The teacher made the transition from “sage on the stage” to coach on the side. Students have an opportunity to serve as mentors, peer tutors, and tech experts when there is one teacher and 27 laptops or computers in a lab setting. I tried to talk to the students that the teacher told me were their experts. I could not catch up with them so I pulled up their wiki page and left a positive comment and asked our principal to leave a comment of their pages.

Mastering how to create wiki pages requires several sessions. Teachers have their own teacher wiki pages. However, it is different when they are trying to tell middle school students how to use them. Having setup the student wikis as a social network and encouraging them to share photos and things that they like for example- dogs, hunting, baseball, books, vacation trips, and even trips to the D.C. This usage let them explore the wiki environment. We posted tutorials and FAQs for students to use as they learned how to use the wiki. Teachers on the other hand commented that they just did not have enough time to learn how to use the wiki. They would find it hard to believe that some of their students comment on their classmate’s wiki posts after 1:00 AM and as early as 5:30 AM - and these are middle school students!

Should our student’s wiki be public or remain private. In my humble opinion, no. I was surprised at the number of our 6th graders that bragged about having their own MySpace page. One Friday, our content filter device died and our school filter was inactive. I was in a classroom when the students discovered the hole in our filter. As I walked around that particular classroom, about 1/3 showed me their pages. All of them had password protected their profiles and all knew about the dangers of MySpace. By having our entire student wiki behind our firewall and password protected, the students generally approved of this arrangement. 7th and 8th graders do not have laptops this year and the student wiki is most populated by 6th grade students. I have had one student complain about using the wiki to post his assignments. His complaint is well founded. He complained that if he posted an assignment on the wiki, that anyone can change it. To combat this issue, students are instructed to post their documents in a pdf format. Also, students can post their presentations as movies. Keynote and PowerPoint documents can be exported as movies. Students can post movies with their names in the titles and credits. This seems to slow down copycats and vandals. So, private wikis have a place in our program, even if students are not exposed to “a larger audience”. Maybe after using the private wiki in grade 6, they will be ready to move to a live blog and wiki environment next year.

Being a computer nerd, Valentine’s day was never one of my favorite holidays. Now that I am married with kids it is starting to grow on me. For the record, I ordered their presents from amazon on my iPod Touch.

This week would be perfect to have a Valentine’s day post, but I am not going to do it. Instead I am going to write about Chocolate.

On Hershey’s Making Chocolate site you will find a video tour of the chocolate making process and they also have a print version. I have been lucky enough to see the tour live in Hershey PA, thanks Mom.

Search for “chocolate” on Discovery Streaming and you can find…
24 full videos
50 video segments
17 articles
6 images
2 quizzes
2 songs
2 writing prompts

Still need more ideas, check out Mrs. McGowan’s site for Chocolate Integration Tips. Be sure to check out the Name the Candy Bar Quiz.

Special thanks to Donna Rudisill (an awesome tech facilitator in Catawba County) for this post.

Picture Citation
Chocolate. Jupiterimages Corporation. 2006.
Discovery Education. 9 February 2009

Here’s a cross-post from the DEN National Blog:
THIS IS AWESOME!!!!

Australia, South Africa, and China + 9 DEN STARs + 36 DEN STAR Students + Your Dream Come True = A Discovery Student Adventure!

It’s the ultimate equation for DEN STARs and definitely our dream come true for you! We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Discovery Student Adventure Program.

What’s a Discovery Student Adventure you ask?!? Well, imagine being able to sign up and take your students to one of 8 amazing trips to the Arctic, Australia, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador/Galapagos Islands, Italy/Greece, New Zealand/Fiji, and South Africa. These trips are free to the educators and are of cost to their students. These inaugural trips will launch during the summer of 2010.

But that’s 2010… what about 2009?!?! Can I get a virtual drum roll please….

Let me introduce to you the opportunity of a lifetime….. The Discovery Student Adventure Pilot Program. In order to gather marketing materials and test run the incredible itineraries….. Discovery will be sending 9 DEN STARs to one of 3 locations (Australia, China, and South Africa) But that’s not all… it gets better… each of these DEN STARs will be able to bring 4 of their students at NO COST! That’s right DEN STARs… these trips are free for you and your students! (Note: We are looking for 5th-12th grade teachers and students ages 10-17)

I have seen the itineraries…. and all I can say is be prepared to be blown away.

What do you need to do to participate?!? Stay tuned as we will be posting a link to the application on the DEN National Blog in the coming weeks.

Here’s some of the official wording…

In 2010, Discovery Education will launch Discovery Student Adventures, education-based international trips for students to eight destinations including: Arctic, Australia, China, Cost Rica, Ecuador/Galapagos Islands, Italy/Greece, New Zealand/Fiji Islands, and South Africa.

To effectively integrate educator feedback into these inaugural trips, a select group of educators will have the opportunity to travel with Discovery in the summer of 2009 as part of a one-time special opportunity to pilot a Discovery Student Adventure trip.

Educators will serve as chaperones to a group of students, and will also be an integral part of selecting the students for these pilot trips. Travel program will be at no cost to the selected educators and students. We are looking for students ages 10 through 17 and educators that teach 5th through 12th grade.

The three pilot trip destinations are Australia, China and South Africa. Trips will provide for a variety of enriching and experiential activities from cultural exchanges, to community service, to science and exploration, to physically engaging adventure activities.

So what do you think?!? Do you want to join us for a Discovery Student Adventure?!?

Post - http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2009/02/10/want-to-go-on-a-discovery-student-adventure/

“I view [education] as the most important subject which we as people can be engaged in.”

–Abraham Lincoln

February 12th will mark Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday.  On lincolnbicentennial.gov, you can find out about the plans for celebrations all over the country.  I didn’t see any celebration planned in North Carolina, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a celebration in your classroom.  On this site, you can find lesson plans, an Honest Abe Quiz, coloring pages, podcast, and a whole lot more.

Then go check out Discovery Streaming and find…

• 47 full videos
• 115 video segments
• 40 images (including the one in this post)
• 5 writing prompts
• 1 song

If you still need more, check out these sites.

Whitehouse.gov Biography Here you will find a quick biography of Lincoln.

Lincoln / net Here you will find historical materials from Lincoln’s years in Illinois (1830-1861).  Included are Lincoln’s writings and speeches.

Library of Congress Here you will find over 20,000 documents.  There are special sections for the Emancipation Proclamation and his Assassination.

Picture Citation

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States. IRC. 2005.
Discovery Education. 9 February 2009
<http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/>

 If you haven’t had the opportunity to see the Palm Breeze Café link…. then you must take a look. They have simplified finding some great resources by putting links in one location. In the hot links section you will find Wordle, Zamzar and my favorite Bubble Comment. You’ll also like the links under hot stuff, where one can find Google Earth Files. Palm Breeze Cafe has also submitted a resource link to Discovery Education called 360 Google Earth. Be sure to take a look at the 360 degree views of specific areas around the world.  It will “wow” you.  

 Star member Jason Parker also shared a great link. I have added this one to my school blogroll and my students love it.  The Radio links you to music from the 1950’s -present day. My students love to  listen to music from the Era of history they are studying. Students have even found some of the songs of Woody Guthrie from the 1940’s. What a fun site! Thanks Jason keep sharing.