Creating Land Forms in Geography Using Dough

Eighth grade has been studying geography this term. Here is a project they are doing to make 3 dimensional models of land forms. Here is Irving explaining the project.

Using Vocaroo for Blogging

Today we are going to add some audio to our blog. Blogger is notorious for being difficult to add audio to it. I ran into this website last year and found it works really well for adding audio to my blog. Here is a link to the page. I would give directions, but it is so simple I don't think I need to.

Comments4Kids for September 9, 2009

Today we will be visiting a new blog, RBS 4th Grade Blog. These fourth graders have written stories that we want to leave encouraging comments on. The comment section is in a different format than we are used to so you will need to pay attention to how to write the comments. We will again be going to Mrs. Guest's blog, Year 5 Adair and Guest, to read and comment on students' stories. Finally we are going to the Room 6 Cyber Kids blog and look at some student created animation

RBS 4th Grade

Year 5 Adair and Guest
Year 5 Adair and Guest Page 2

Room 6 Cyber Kids

Mr. Mayher's Wanted! (Posters)

Here is a video of Mr. Mayher, our junior high science teacher, explaining the students project where they made wanted posters for granite.

Below are a few close ups of some of the posters students created. Students did this project as a homework assignment and were allowed two days to complete it.

Our First Keyboarding Graduate!

Congratulations to Nathaniel, the first graduate of Mr. C's Keyboarding Class! Nathaniel will be spending the rest of the semester creating a personal blog and exploring media tools. I will link to his blog as soon as he gets it rolling!

#Comments4Kids for Wednesday, September 2

Today we have some great blog posts to comment on! We will start out with a blog that hasn't been part of #comments4kids before, Baily Rd Team 17. This blog is in Mt. Wellington, Auckland, New Zealand. We have been very fortunate to develop some great relationships with schools in New Zealand and Australia and are always ready to make room for more.

Today we will start out class listening to the reader's theater on the Bailey Rd blog. Next we will watch another video by Mr. Lamshed's class. If you haven't watched any of his videos of his students doing a haka you should! Then we have several sites that are worthy of comments.

Because we have many excellent blog posts this week, we will be breaking them up for my students to comment on. Remember to keep your comments positive and meaningful!

4th Hour Class
Baily Rd Team 17 Reader's Theater
Toi Mai and Haka
Room 5 The Magic Pond by Diamond

5th Hour Class
Mr. McClung's Class A Joyful Noise
Little Voices, Little Scholars Japati's Account of "The Little Red Riding Hood"!
Room 10 Paper Roller Coaster

6th Hour Class
East Dragon Den: Cal-Wood Animoto

Using Keyboarding to Introduce Important Documents and Literature

I am "teaching" keyboarding this year. Fortunately the program we use, Typing Pal Online, allows me to add my own content. As you can see below I have added some historical documents and some literature.

Obviously, I see this as a way to incorporate more into this class than just the skill of keyboarding. We also apply our skills on Wednesday and participate in #Comments4Kids, a twitter meme. What other ways can we make keyboarding more engaging to our students?

This post was inspired by my friend Hadass Eviatar, lionsima on Twitter. I was talking about how my students were asking what a Jabberwock was and she found me the picture included in Lewis Carrol'sThrough the Looking Glass. Here is a link to the poem Jabberwocky. Here is the picture she referred to:

Learning Can Take Place After School Too!

Here is Jacob playing around with BeFunky.com's filters. While he is obviously having fun changing his picture around, he is also making qualitative observations about what those filters do to his picture. The fact that he is sharing what he is doing with others in the class is a bonus.

Robert Talks About Comments4Kids

Here is Robert talking about Wednesday's Comments4Kids assignment. I think this sums up why I think commenting is so important.

How to Sign Up For a Grou.ps Account/Explanation of Grou.ps

Here is a screencast that shows you how to sign up for a Grou.ps account. Here is a link to a bigger size for this video.



Here is an explanation of how the Grou.ps site works. Here is a link to a bigger size for this video.



Here is the link for the 8th Grade group.

Comments4Kids Wednesday

It's that time again, Comments4Kids Wednesday! Below are links I would like you to go to. Read the post and leave a positive, meaningful comment. Here is a link to the blog post that started it all. You may wish to read it before you begin.

A New Bridge Built (with A LOT of heart) BY Maggie Gaughran

"How I See the World Around Me" Room Ten Photo Competition Winners

Dribble

Melville Intermediate School Singing Group

Calvin's Recount of the "Little Red Riding Hood"

Kapa Haka Week 2

Reflections on Typing

Below is the audio to my fifth hour keyboarding classes first attempt at reflection. As you can tell from the audio, they obviously are not used to reflecting (at least in a classroom setting.)

Because I know reflection is an incredibley powerful part of the learning experience, I know that I need to continue to help them develop this skill. Even in keyboarding I can help my students become better, more reflective learners.

Editing Pictures Using BeFunky

BeFunky.com is a picture editor that allows you to put "filters" on your picture. It is a pretty basic editing site for your pictures. Go to the site, upload your picture and try out the different filters. When you have decided on a picture or two, click save and choose download to the desktop.

Dale Gets It!

Here is a video starring Dale. Yes, he has been featured on the blog before, but he is here now because he gets "it". Assessment should be evaluative in nature and it should be used to help guide learning.

When you get your data back from your assessments, look at the results. What can you do to improve? What strengths did you find to build on? Will you use this information to help you become a better student?

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.

Here are two videos of students that explain what they want to do when they grow up. Notice they really had no idea how to get there from where they are now. Hopefully my questions will prompt them to think about what they need to do.

Beginning the Year With Recall

Here is Alan-Michael explaining a quick social studies project to help them recall where the states are in the continental United States.

Typing Pal Online

This year we are moving to keyboarding using Typing Pal Online. I have set my students' goal at 45 words per minute with a 95% accuracy. When they accomplish this goal, they will be using the rest of their semester creating content using tech and web tools.

I am looking forward to the enthusiasm that my students will bring to class when they realize that keyboarding class isn't a semester long sentence with no chance for parole!

Serendipity

Look what I found from last year!

Welcome Back!

Here is a video I made showing some snapshots of my first day back to school. I suspect these scenes repeat themselves throughout all districts on their first day back.

BTW the yellow stuff really is what you think! First day jitters I suppose...

Always Evolving, Always Changing

One of the best reasons to become more technologically literate is because technology is always changing.That of course requires us to continue to learn, adapt, and evolve. An active mind is a sharp mind. With that in mind, welcome to the next generation of content collection for Noel Elementary, Grou.ps.

The picture above shows a screen shot of the beginning of our eight grade group. The purpose of the group is two-fold. First, it is a place for students to display content they create using tech (and non-tech) tools. Second, it is a learning community where students can communicate with each other (and selected adults) so they can further their education. With this site, there are no barriers for learning other than computer/internet access.

So, if you will be an eighth grade student at Noel this year, sign up and get started. If you will be in grades 3-7, be patient. Your group is in the works. If you are a teacher and would like to join our community, email me.