Northwest

Since NCCE, I’ve had a bit of blog block.  Not because I have nothing to say, but that I have been in information overload.  Lots of cool things happening and I am learning tons.  So, what do I mine out to share with my DEN friends without giving you a huge list of links of things to try?  I’ll start here and see if starting helps stop the block. 

 Reading to students is one of the favorite things I get to do in the day.  It is often the only fiction reading I find time to do in my busy life.  I cherish this time, but sometimes it is good to mix things up and have a guest reader come in and share.  The more people kids can see enjoying books, the more likely, they themselves will become lifelong readers.  Storyline Online is a wonderful new way to share a story.  The site has a collection of beloved children’s picturebooks being read by a variety of celebrities.  The videos are well done.  Children not only get to see and hear a great story, they also see a great example of reading fluently and with expression.  This site is put together by the Screen Actors Guild.  In addition to the story videos, you can also download an activity guide to acompany the story.  Although the stories are geared to primary, this is a resource that could be used in a variety of ways at all levels.  How about using this a jumping point for older students to create their own StorylineOnline stories to share with younger students?  Since the video also includes the written words, this would also be a great tool to use with ELL students.  The vocabulary is rich, the reading is expresive and the stories are classic.  So, invite Al Gore or Melissa Gilbert to your next story hour and enjoy the possibilities.

We had a great time of sharing with the NorthWest DEN on Thursday night during the NCCE conference.  It was wonderful to meet DEN members face to face and share the wonders of the DEN with newbies. Thanks Kim, Mike, Scott,  Jennifer and Amy for making this a great event   More on NCCE soon.

A well loved tradition at NCCE is the Digitalkies competition. Each year students create videos in one of several categories including, “tell me a story”, music videos, animation and public service announcements. This year, the competition has gone online. All the entries were uploaded onto TeacherTube. And now you can go to the NCCE wiki to vote for your favorites. The online voting isn’t as slick as the online voting on the Irving Film Festival, but it is still pretty simple. You just leave a comment ranking the videos on the listed criteria. So, pop some popcorn, have a seat and go to the Digitalkies site and comment on the videos.

Jennifer Gingerich built an Assignment in Discovery Streaming based on the timely topic of Presidents. You can deliver great content to your students, and have your student respond via a writing prompt or quiz, by using the Discovery Streaming Builders found in the Teacher Center.

The assignment consists of videos, audio, photos, images, websites, and a writing prompt. Take a look, by clicking on the link below, at this presidential assignment.

http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/studentCenter/index.cfm?cdCode=T1E48-851B

Collaborative projects are a great way to introduce students to the power of networking they have available due to the wonders of Web 2.0. I am learning a lot about this process this year as I have created a series of collaborative math projects called Mathlincs. It has been exciting to make connections with teachers all over the world. I am learning what works and what doesn’t work when creating collaborative projects. (Sounds like a good blog for another day.) For now, I wanted to highlight two ready made projects in which you and your class are invited to participate. So please take a few minutes to help widen the world for students.

Put Math on the Map

Please join us in putting math on the map. As a part of our Mathlincs collaborative project, we are creating a GoogleEarth tour of local landmarks. At each local landmark, a measurement question is posed. See example. You can help by taking a photo in your area, creating a measurement question and sending this to me at t56linc@gmail.com. Please include your name or name of your school and your location. If you would like, you can also include a video, picture, screen capture, voice file, etc, of a student solving the problem. This is optional. We are hoping to hear and share with as many schools as possible. But we also welcome individuals as this will help make our tour more extensive. Please send your photos and questions by January 18. My class will then create the tour and post it for all to see.

Help Curious George

Curious George is curious about how your town got its name! Our third graders, in their community lesson, learn about the naming of our town, originally Jeffrey’s Creek and now Manchester-by-the-Sea.

If you would like to participate in this online project you only need to send us an email with your town’s name, state, how the town got its name and a digital image of an icon of your town.

We are going to pose Curious George at a place called Tuck’s Point. Please feel free to send a picture of any geographical site, monument, memorial, building, etc. that you feel invokes a feeling of pride in your town.

The following website will store all of the feedback we get from across the United States and have information about our town. http://www.memorial.mersd.org/curious/index.html

Please visit and share this information with anyone else. We are really excited about this project and will use the results in a variety of ways.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

We are,
Pat Fleming
Jane Foye
Lynne Stasiak
Paul Clark
Jenna Seymour
From the Manchester Memorial School, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts

Yesterday on Twitter, I read a New Years Resolution/ Challenge between two bloggers.  Their challenge was to take one good photo every day.  Well, this being January 2, I have already missed out on this challenge.  But it did get me thinking about ideas and implications for my classroom.  What if I challenged myself to take one photo a day to add to our daily blog?  I often do take photos and include them in our blog, but what if I challenged myself to try to think of a summarizing picture of the day?  This would force me to look at my teaching and the learning each day with new eyes.  Each day I would be reflecting on the unique learning moments that happened throughout the day.  This reminded of me of when I was teaching abroad and keeping a journal.  (Before blogs.)  I would often do things that I might not have done if I hadn’t been looking for a good journal entry.  Swimming with penguins, flying into Somalia on a UN Cargo jet and eating cui are far more interesting than the hum drum of daily life.  What if I looked at the learning in my classroom in the same way?  Not that my classroom should be a 3 ring circus, but that learning should be invigorating, engaging and challenging.  I could even set goals for myself, like, today, I am going to take a photo of students who are engaged or students who are making connections, etc.   

I then thought further, what if I challenged my students to be involved in the process.  Perhaps, one day a week we would look at the photos and as a class pick one photo that best represents our learning that week.  This could lead to a writing activity.  Or perhaps I could challenge my students to take a few minutes at the end of each day to reflect on their day by drawing a summarizing picture.  Students could create a visual journal to share their learning. I like the idea of focusing on new learning with this activity.  But you could also have students select one photo from the news each day, reflect on that and add that to a time line.

So many ideas.  Do you have more to share?  Would love to hear your comments.

As I was contemplating this idea, I thought of a few applications that could be used with this picture a day idea.

OurStory.com is a collaborative timeline project.  Students could add photos and text each day to create a class timeline of the year.

VoiceThread is another great application for sharing ideas with words and pictures.  Several students could comment on one picture.

Blurb.com whether you collect your photos in a blog, a timeline, VoiceThread or other, you can compile your year in photos into a bound, library quality book!

Elaine Plybon, blog coordinator for the Texas DEN Leadership Council, needs YOU! The Irving Independent School District in Irving, Texas, for which she works, has an annual Technology Media Fair. This year, the district has opened up several categories for online judging. The hope, above all, is that this will help keep district students excited about technology and about sharing their work with a global audience. This is where you come in. The contest is in need of judges. Anyone who has an interest in technology in education is qualified to be a judge. All the projects can be judged from now until January 7, 2008. There are six categories and levels from K through 12^th grade. Anyone who chooses to judge can judge as many or as few entries as they would like. Would you consider helping with this cause? You can do so by judging, obviously, but also by sharing the word with other education professionals through your own blogs, twitters, feeds, and other social networking venues. The district would love to see judging from all over the world, so let’s get this DEN machine rolling!

To judge the projects, go to http://www.irvingisd.net/mediafaironline and click on the judging link. When judging, please include your name and email address. Your email address will not be published. It will be used for security only. Please expect an email from our administrative staff confirming that the address listed next to your name is a valid email address.