Tag Archive

This past week in school was great.  Back to School night was a great success.  I’m so glad I met all of your parents.  I’m sure your parents were excited to hear about TeacherEase.

I’ve also posted a variety of 9/11 comparison projects for everyone to see.  Check them out at the project page.

For those of you involved with the Investor$.  Please check out the Investor$ page for information about the Stock Market Game.  The Game begins NOW (9/29/08)!!!

Looking ahead…we have a Unit Test to prepare for. I’ve decided to move the test from its original date of 10/3/08 to 10/7/08.  You get an extra weekend to prepare for it.

Here’s your schedule for the week…

Monday (September 29, 2008)

Finish Video – Neanderthal

Complete Venn Diagram in class. –> neanderthal-cromagnon-venn

Tuesday (September 30, 2008)

School is closed.

Wednesday (October 1, 2008)

HAPPY OCTOBER!!!

Read pages 33-40.

Complete Fact Sheet on Paleolithic Age. Download here –> Prehistoric_People_Fact_Sheet

Thursday (October 2, 2008)

Read pages 41-46

Complete Fact Sheet on Neolithic Age.

***Extra Credit*** – Watch the VP debate and write a 2 paragraph reaction paper.  (10 point assignment)

Friday (October 3, 2008)

Causes and Effects of the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age.

So, PACT testing comes to an end this week and that leaves us about 10 teaching days for the kids.  If you take away the last 2 days of school, that leaves 8.  Then, we need to take away 1 day for “Tiger Fest,” and that leaves 7.

Seven full days of school where the kids know that they are finished with the end of the year exam.

Seven full days of school where the kids are just itching to get out for the summer.

Seven full days of school where most teachers have given up and started planning “end of the year parties.” (with and without students)

I’ve decided to plan a project loosely related to the 8th grade curriculum, South Carolina History.  I’m hoping this will keep their attention and keep them involved and interested until the end of the school year.

What do you do during the last week of school?  How do you keep the students engaged?

So…slowly I’m gaining recognition in the “blogosphere.”

Recently, animoto.com contacted me about the projects that my classes produced. Nothing special…but they informed me of a classroom password that can give your classes a 3-month all access pass to animoto and everything it has to offer. Although the longer videos might be too much for some students to handle, it is nice to have that option.

As of last night, my request from donorschoose.org has been fulfilled. That was extremely exciting news! If anyone out there needs something for their classroom, but can’t afford it or doesn’t have the budget for it, you have to check out donorschoose.org. I wanted a classroom set of microphone headsets for various projects that required them, so I asked for 30. The total bill was almost $400. Last night donorschoose.org sent me an email informing me that my project had been funded. Awesome!! I can’t wait to get my shipment, it’ll be like Christmas!!

I’ve also been contacted by the people of Create South. They call themselves a “grassroots group of Grand Strand Bloggers.” Create South is having a conference here in sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Saturday, April 18th and they asked me to present during a session about blogging in the classroom. I’m honored!! That’s pretty neat!! I hope I don’t disappoint. I’m hoping that there will be some teachers in the audience since I can relate to them, but if they’re not in the audience, then maybe they know some teachers they can relay the information to. Regardless, this will be a great experience. I’m looking forward to it.

Ok. So I spent a few days in the Media Center, sans Cathy Nelson, and had my students complete a project using animoto.com. All things considered…it went really well!! The one major problem that I came across was that only one group was allowed to create a video at a time. That slowed the process down immensely. In fact, I still have a few groups that need to complete their slide show. Some of the videos came out really great. I’ll share a few with you below..

These are just three…there is no way that I can post 50+ of these videos.

After much consideration, I’ve decided to postpone the wiki-project.  I felt that there was a combination of my under-planning and a lack of interest with the students.  I’m a little upset that it didn’t take off like I expected.  I feel really bad for the few students that were really into the project.  I’m going to have to send that project to the shop for some re-tooling.  I hope to bring it out later on in the year with some revisions to the directions.  A sad, sad day. 

This week we start our wiki project.  I’m a little apprehensive about the entire thing.  I’m also excited to see how it turns out.  I’m placing all responsibility into the hands of the students.  All I’m showing them is how to work with the wiki website.  All research and editing is up to them.

Our project schedule is as follows:

This project should take no longer than 5 school days.

Monday: January 27,2008

“Wikis in Plain English”

Video from: http://www.commoncraft.com

The Rules of Wiki – The Warranty
Groups and Topics
Preliminary Research in Classroom.

Tuesday: January 28, 2008

(Media Center)

Research in Media Center
Pictures and Information with citations
Wednesday: January 29, 2008

(Media Center)
Edit text in MS word first, then copy and paste to Wiki
How to edit in Wiki.

Thursday: January 30, 2008

(Media Center)

Complete editing.
Touch-ups.

Friday: January 31, 2008

(Media Center if needed)

Any finishing touches

The long awaited VoiceThread projects are finally graded and posted for your viewing pleasure here. There were some very great ones and some that needed a little work. If I had to do it all over again, I would change some things.

Things I would change:

I would change the rubric for the project. I graded the kids on their pictures, the sentences they created for the pictures, their voice quality, creativity, and their use of class time. Next time I would add a category – Picture Relatedness. Some of the students turned their Revolution VoiceThread into a research project about their favorite topics and forgot completely that they had to show a change over time.

I would make sure students work with a partner – 4th block especially. When students worked together, they brainstormed about their revolution giving them two perspectives instead of one.

OK….so here are the links for the VoiceThreads. The kids had them set to private, so I hope these links still work. If they don’t, then I’ll have to set the VoiceThreads to public.

1st Block:

Sawyer and Derek – http://voicethread.com/share/26077/
Glenn and Xavier C. – http://voicethread.com/share/26082/
Jeffrey and Tyler – http://voicethread.com/share/26086/
Leah and Summer – http://voicethread.com/share/26096/
Cody and Seth – http://voicethread.com/share/26087/
April and Leslie – http://voicethread.com/share/26106/
Cameron, Brandon, and Darrell – http://voicethread.com/share/26097/
Sean, Michael, and Chrissy – http://voicethread.com/share/26127/
Xavier W, Xavier LT, and Pagrien – http://voicethread.com/share/26107/
Jarrell and Destiny – http://voicethread.com/share/26129/
Angel, Cierra, and Kadeja – http://voicethread.com/share/26130/

2nd Block

Jacob and Kyle – http://voicethread.com/share/26149/
Dylan and Brandye – http://voicethread.com/share/26147/
Kendrick, Javarius, and Orlando – http://voicethread.com/share/26161/
Grayden and GK – http://voicethread.com/share/26159/
Jamekee and Dana – http://voicethread.com/share/26166/
Maddie, Erica, and Alleah – http://voicethread.com/share/26163/
DJ, Charles, and Tre – http://voicethread.com/share/26175/
Haley and Gennifer – http://voicethread.com/share/26170/
Ashley, Elexis, and Jessica – http://voicethread.com/share/26167/

3rd Block

Annie, Jordan, and Mary-Hannah – http://voicethread.com/share/26185/
Kayla and Savannah – http://voicethread.com/share/26186/
Kirby and Christine – http://voicethread.com/share/26187/
Chelise and Chelsea – http://voicethread.com/share/26190/
Taylor and Chanan – http://voicethread.com/share/26188/
Dalton and Alyssa – http://voicethread.com/share/26195/
Bridgette and Maleek – http://voicethread.com/share/26191/
Sadie and Kylie – http://voicethread.com/share/26196/
Jenna and Gissel – http://voicethread.com/share/26199/
Josh and Jamie – http://voicethread.com/share/26204/
Linda and Jontecia – http://voicethread.com/share/26201/
Cain and Brianna – http://voicethread.com/share/26205/

4th Block

Tylen - http://voicethread.com/share/26232/
Thair – http://voicethread.com/share/26235/
Matt – http://voicethread.com/share/26233/
Hunter – http://voicethread.com/share/26236/
Skylar – http://voicethread.com/share/26238/
McCall – http://voicethread.com/share/26245/
Josh – http://voicethread.com/share/26244/
Shannon – http://voicethread.com/share/26253/
Katie – http://voicethread.com/share/26249/
Skottowe – http://voicethread.com/share/26260/
Brett – http://voicethread.com/share/26278/
Kaitlyn – http://voicethread.com/share/26295/
Marshall - http://voicethread.com/share/26296/
Olivia – http://voicethread.com/share/26298/
Kristen – http://voicethread.com/share/26299/
Henry – http://voicethread.com/share/26305/
Mykal – http://voicethread.com/share/26885/
Ryan – http://voicethread.com/share/26892/
Haley – http://voicethread.com/share/26891/
Sean – http://voicethread.com/share/26897/
Jess – http://voicethread.com/share/26896/
Trevon – http://voicethread.com/share/27938/
Tichina – http://voicethread.com/share/27938/
Mariah – http://voicethread.com/share/27943/
Avery – http://voicethread.com/share/27939/