Cocoa Cafe

Over the course of the next month we will be learning about the different forms of poetry through a webquest entitled The Cocoa Café. Each student will be required to submit a poetry portfolio as a final project on March 15th. I would like each student to decide on a portfolio type that matches his or her individual style. For example, if a student enjoys scrapbooking, he or she may want to make a portfolio “scrapbook”. If a student has a love of sports or animals, I would like for him or her to have the option to write a themed portfolio and possibly make a shaped book representing the theme. Of course a simple organized folder or binder is completely acceptable as long as it is inclusive of the outlined assignment. The evaluation webpage will help as a general guideline as to how to assemble the portfolio. Students may work on the webquest at home as well as in class. I will be going over EACH poem type and writing an example WITH the class. The final individual poems are up to each student to create for his or her portfolio. As a culminating activity for this unit, we have been given private use of Flesor’s Candy Kitchen to gather for a live poetry reading on Wednesday, March 24th! The reading usually lasts 30 minutes. You will have an opportunity to purchase ice cream and/or candy before and after the show! If you have any questions, please email me at ssmith@tuscola.k12.il.us.

About Me

Wow. Aaron Iba has just sold Etherpad to Google for an estimated $10 million. We used Etherpad earlier this year for an online collaborative assignment within the computer lab. It is a "real time" online notepad that allows multiple users to collaborate. In real time. Did I mention real time? That is HUGE. Google Docs tried to do this...and they were close. They made collaborative documents with chat areas and when the page refreshed, the changes by all collaborators were visible. But it still wasn't real time. How do I know this? I know this because I have been using Google Docs with my students for the past three years. And it isn't in real time.

So why the Wow? I mean really. I know I am probably one of the only geeks in a 5 county area that cares about this transaction. But I have just had some serious validation. Kids want to use tech. Some of them, like Aaron Iba, need to use tech to learn and be engaged and NOT BORED.

Please take a moment to read his "About Me" page on his personal website. Seriously...it is worth the read! And if you know me and what I stand for...you will understand my WOW!

Discovery Education

Yesterday I decided to put together an assignment for my students that would enable them to become completely independent learners. How did I do it you ask? (Ok even if you didn't ask I am still going to tell you!) I decided to dive into our school's subscription of Discovery Education (formerly known as United Streaming). I spent about three hours clicking on various buttons and really taking in the options that are available for teachers. It was pretty easy to set up a "classroom" by giving my students usernames and passwords for individual access to the site. I also created an assignment in the assignment builder area. I am amazed at the possibilities for using this feature with the kids to create online classes for any subject area. It is a matter of choosing what media I want the kids to view, websites to access, and providing instructions for the kids to follow. Voila...instant lessons the kids can access independently to take control of their learning. I created a google doc for my students to fill out with answers to questions that went along with the two videos on plant classification. Little did I know, there is actually a quiz builder that I could have used right in the site. I will be sure to try that for the next online assignment. I asked the kids whether or not they liked this format and they all assured me that watching a video and answering questions on a virtual "worksheet" was much more fun than the traditional science book lesson. I sort of figured that is what they would say....

I hope the kids will take a look around the Discovery Education site in the next couple of days. I know I will be thinking of more and more ways to utilize this site for differentiation as well as alternative forms of assessing students!

Thank You

There is no better day to say thank you to all of the students, staff and parents of NorthWard Elementary than today. Thank you for making my job challenging, entertaining, and worthwhile. I am truly blessed. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Wolfram Alpha Video

A while back, the crew from Wolfram Alpha visited our classroom to see how we have been using this "computational knowledge engine" to assist in student learning. Here is the video they captured.

Fall "Leaves" Me Happy!

At least that is the theme of my classroom bulletin board right now. And that theme was definitely the source of happiness this past Saturday as a handful of my students, parents, and I did some leaf raking for the community. What an absolutely gorgeous weekend! It was the perfect day to be out and about with the K-Kid leaf raking caravan.

I am sure we are a site to see as approximately 10 vehicles packed with kids descend on a yard. I would liken it to a swarm of bees coming in, doing their work quickly and efficiently, and then swarming off to the next location.

There are two phases of the leaf raking process with kids that are absolutely my favorite.

1.) The initial hard work. Watching the kids work together to tackle a yard with the help of their parents and teachers is very satisfying.

but I think I enjoy even more...

2.) The look of pride on the kids' faces as the owners of the yards come out and thank the kids for their hard work.

I am not sure if more learning took place on Saturday during our community service project or in the classroom all week. I am sure both are considered productive learning experiences. I guess I just have to believe that Saturday's learning experience is one that will benefit the kids for a lifetime.

Happy Fall!

The Online Brain

"The Online Brain"

"The Homework Helper"

"The Online Tutor" (as I have it linked to our classroom homepage)

"The One Stop Shop" for all of your classroom assistance.

What am I writing about?

Why Wolfram Alpha of course!

This website is opening up a whole new way of helping kids become successful students.

Just in the past few weeks I have used this site to help students with vocabulary definitions, spelling patterns, longitude/latitude, and state research projects.

But honestly, that is just the tip of the iceberg. I am very excited about its use when checking math problems for immediate feedback as well as locating nutritional values for common foods that don't necessarily have a label printed directly on them (think fruit and veggies here). We are in the middle of our unit of study on the human body and I will be asking students to begin tracking their food intake for a day or two so we can evaluate whether or not we are getting proper nutrition. Using Wolfram Alpha will be a a major contributing factor to these nutritional journals.

I had a wonderful opportunity to show the parents of some of the students who are in my classroom how we are using this site. It is my hope that parents, too, will use this site at home for aiding in homework success. Whether is takes the place of the home dictionary, thesaurus, calculator or conversion tables, students and parents alike will be able to benefit from this resource.

I was also fortunate enough to present Wolfram Alpha to a large crowd of teachers this past Friday to show them how their students could benefit from the site. They were equally as excited as me. I imagine their students will be too! You can read more about that at the Recess TEC Inc. blog.

If you haven't had the opportunity to visit http://www.wolframalpha.com/ yet, please click on the link and take 10 minutes to look around. Take a look at some of the examples that are listed by subject area. I continue to be amazed and excited about the possibilities for my classroom!

Your first task when you get there...type in hello.