Friday, October 03, 2003
Starw.org has already been propagated to the DNS and is active. I created blank web page templates for each teacher and posted them to the web site. Later this afternoon I will email them with the URL.
Thursday, October 02, 2003
Today I gave a basics of Windows and browsers to all of the classes. After the demo, students practiced by exploring the web site I made of my last visit.
The computers are up in most of the rooms, but there are three down in each of Lisa's and Kelly's rooms.
Spoke with Jamie yesterday about what she might do during the workshop on the 10th and followed with an e-mail tonight.
When I checked in with each of the teachers before leaving, Debbie asked for help with locating some resources for charts and graphs. I didn't think that there be many sites that would have quality material and I was right. I only found two, but I found them quickly and they had a wealth of great material and interactive tools for exploring concepts.
The NCES site had a few nice resources....
Create a Graph will make and of four different types of graphs based on your data. From the National Center for Education Statistics.
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/graphing/index.asp
Fun with Surveys is a good activity to use with Create a Graph
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/Survey.asp
Explore You Knowledge in Math and Science is another NCES site. Challenging questions for 4th and 8th graders in Math and Scinece Great practice for standardized testing. How's your math and science knowledge? What are the results around the world based on the same questions?
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/eyk/index.asp?flash=true
What are your chances? allows you to explore the probablity of dice outcomes and how the numer of rolls effects the outcome. You determine the number of rolls and it creates a graph of the result. This is a great site to use with a projector as a group activity. http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/Probability/
Project Interactivate from the Shodor Education Foundation, is a fantastic set of interactive tools for exploring math and science! You could use this site repeatedly throughout the year. It could be the basis of many learning stations during the course of the year. http://www.shodor.org/master/interactivate/elementary/index.html
The computers are up in most of the rooms, but there are three down in each of Lisa's and Kelly's rooms.
Spoke with Jamie yesterday about what she might do during the workshop on the 10th and followed with an e-mail tonight.
When I checked in with each of the teachers before leaving, Debbie asked for help with locating some resources for charts and graphs. I didn't think that there be many sites that would have quality material and I was right. I only found two, but I found them quickly and they had a wealth of great material and interactive tools for exploring concepts.
The NCES site had a few nice resources....
Create a Graph will make and of four different types of graphs based on your data. From the National Center for Education Statistics.
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/graphing/index.asp
Fun with Surveys is a good activity to use with Create a Graph
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/Survey.asp
Explore You Knowledge in Math and Science is another NCES site. Challenging questions for 4th and 8th graders in Math and Scinece Great practice for standardized testing. How's your math and science knowledge? What are the results around the world based on the same questions?
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/eyk/index.asp?flash=true
What are your chances? allows you to explore the probablity of dice outcomes and how the numer of rolls effects the outcome. You determine the number of rolls and it creates a graph of the result. This is a great site to use with a projector as a group activity. http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/Probability/
Project Interactivate from the Shodor Education Foundation, is a fantastic set of interactive tools for exploring math and science! You could use this site repeatedly throughout the year. It could be the basis of many learning stations during the course of the year. http://www.shodor.org/master/interactivate/elementary/index.html
I'm the impatient type and I view part of my job as helping to make technology transparent. When the technology gets in the way of the curriculum as it very often does, it leads to frustration. I want to avoid that wherever and whenever possible. Therefore, I just registered starw.org and will set it up so that the teachers can maintain their own web pages beginning next week.
Next week I will install 3DWriter on the teacher conmputers and show them how to create and maintain a web site. Because of the simplicity of 3DWriter and the way I will set up the site, they should be up and running in under an hour.
Next week I will install 3DWriter on the teacher conmputers and show them how to create and maintain a web site. Because of the simplicity of 3DWriter and the way I will set up the site, they should be up and running in under an hour.
Just got these great math activities from the WWWEdu mailing list. All but Add & Subtract will be too difficult for most students and even add and subtract may be too difficult for some students. Check them out and let me know what you think and pass them on to the 5th grade teachers. No reason they have to wait until next year to get in on the action.
SpeedMath Deluxe
SpeedMath - Addition and Subtraction
SpeedMath - Multiply and Divide
SpeedMath - Inequalities
SpeedMath Deluxe
SpeedMath - Addition and Subtraction
SpeedMath - Multiply and Divide
SpeedMath - Inequalities
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Random thoughts at the end of a long day...
During today's workshop we talked about how we are going to manage to fit 10 pounds o f jelly into a five pound jar. I described Interning for Learning and it was received well. The first step in the process is to develop a database of activities to use as stations, which are central to the process. We began to do that near the end of the workshop and they would like to continue doing it on the workshop of the 10th.
Prior to that we created Blogs for teachers to use as online journals and for posting of student assignements.
We took a look at HotPotato software. They want to use it on the 10th as well. I'll touch base with Jamie S. to be sure she can do it. If so, I'll install the software on Brook's computers. The problem is that there is no easy way to get the material from the computers to the web. They will have to save to the hard drive and I can move via FTP to the StarW area at OII.
I showed them how to locate WebQuest and other web based activities that others have already created at Filamentality.
We are going to develop a web page with selected activity links and make it the the home page on IE in all the rooms. It will also have links to the teacher blogs.
During today's workshop we talked about how we are going to manage to fit 10 pounds o f jelly into a five pound jar. I described Interning for Learning and it was received well. The first step in the process is to develop a database of activities to use as stations, which are central to the process. We began to do that near the end of the workshop and they would like to continue doing it on the workshop of the 10th.
Prior to that we created Blogs for teachers to use as online journals and for posting of student assignements.
We took a look at HotPotato software. They want to use it on the 10th as well. I'll touch base with Jamie S. to be sure she can do it. If so, I'll install the software on Brook's computers. The problem is that there is no easy way to get the material from the computers to the web. They will have to save to the hard drive and I can move via FTP to the StarW area at OII.
I showed them how to locate WebQuest and other web based activities that others have already created at Filamentality.
We are going to develop a web page with selected activity links and make it the the home page on IE in all the rooms. It will also have links to the teacher blogs.
Monday, September 29, 2003
Janine just sent me an email with some clip art sites for kids and a note about blogs.
Here are the sites she sent...
http://www.123spot.com/clipart.htm
http://www.gironet.nl/home/cdon/home.htm
http://www.awesomeclipartforkids.com
http://www.kidsdomain.com/clip/
http://www.thekidzpage.com/freekidsclipart/
She wants a blog for each student, because she does a lot of journal writing and would be thrilled if we could do that. Well, guess what? That's part of what I had planned for tomorrow for two reasons. She mentioned that there are no composition books and I noticed that there really isn't any way for students to save their work on the network so that it is accessible and safe. By using blogs, it is both and it is paperless. Not only that, the way we are going to set things up it should be possible for her to make comments directly into the blog. Of course there will be a learning curve as student learn to create, post, publish, and edit, but it will be worth the effort. Not to mention the fact that writing of this kind is the sort of thing that the grant evaluators will love.
See you tomorrow, if you get this today. If not you'll see this during the workshop.
Here are the sites she sent...
http://www.123spot.com/clipart.htm
http://www.gironet.nl/home/cdon/home.htm
http://www.awesomeclipartforkids.com
http://www.kidsdomain.com/clip/
http://www.thekidzpage.com/freekidsclipart/
She wants a blog for each student, because she does a lot of journal writing and would be thrilled if we could do that. Well, guess what? That's part of what I had planned for tomorrow for two reasons. She mentioned that there are no composition books and I noticed that there really isn't any way for students to save their work on the network so that it is accessible and safe. By using blogs, it is both and it is paperless. Not only that, the way we are going to set things up it should be possible for her to make comments directly into the blog. Of course there will be a learning curve as student learn to create, post, publish, and edit, but it will be worth the effort. Not to mention the fact that writing of this kind is the sort of thing that the grant evaluators will love.
See you tomorrow, if you get this today. If not you'll see this during the workshop.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Text of an email sent to Patty, Diana, and Marilyn on Sunday evening...
Hi Ladies,
One of the big challenges of this whole project is figuring out how to get all the pieces to fit together within the limitations of time and resources. Twenty students, seven computers, assorted hardware and software, hundreds of Internet resources, Differentiated learning, small group instruction, follow up work, cross-curricular work, and a dozen other things make the job akin to fitting ten quarts of jelly into a five quart jar. I'm excited to say the job can be done without ending up with jelly on the floor and walls.
Back in the 70's when I was teaching 5th grade, I had the same kinds of problems and found the answer in a classroom management system developed by the then Educational Instructional Resource Center in Cape May. The program, if I remember correctly was Interning 4 Learning. I used it for four years with fantastic results, before I moved to the high school.
The kids absolutely loved it. It allowed me to divide and schedule small group instruction, follow up work, learning stations, writing activities, and even guided choice activities . It made everything manageable. It was so successful in my classroom that school eventually adopted the program. If had continued teaching elementary school or had a block schedule in high school, I'm sure I would have used it or something like it until I retired.
Over the years I have often thought about it and how technology could make it even more powerful and efficient. I tired unsuccessfully any number of times to find out if it had been updated, but I couldn't find any reference or trace of the original program. Since I was not in a position to implement it, there was little motivation for me to spend much time worrying about it.
That's all changed with StarW. After meeting the teachers, getting a glimpse of their curriculum, their classrooms structure, and looking at the goals of the grant, I think it is a perfect match. What's really neat is that many of the techniques of small group instruction, differentiated learning, and cross-curricular content that was so "revolutionary" in the 70's, are already in place in their classrooms. Interning for learning will add formal, but very flexible structure, management techniques that lend themselves to evaluation and reevaluation, as well as provide many opportunities to infuse technology. Even more importantly, the program fosters and grows collaboration and sharing between teachers.
StarW has given me reason to revisit the process. I still have not been able to find any reference or material from the original program, but since I was a trainer for the program, a lot is locked inside my head. I spent most of today clearing the cobwebs and recreated some of the structure and some introductory material using Kidspiration and Inspiration. I'm going to take about 15 minutes show it to the teachers on Tues. If they get as excited about it as I hope and think they will, I think we can implement it very nicely within the framework of the grant and the ETTC training days.
Art
Hi Ladies,
One of the big challenges of this whole project is figuring out how to get all the pieces to fit together within the limitations of time and resources. Twenty students, seven computers, assorted hardware and software, hundreds of Internet resources, Differentiated learning, small group instruction, follow up work, cross-curricular work, and a dozen other things make the job akin to fitting ten quarts of jelly into a five quart jar. I'm excited to say the job can be done without ending up with jelly on the floor and walls.
Back in the 70's when I was teaching 5th grade, I had the same kinds of problems and found the answer in a classroom management system developed by the then Educational Instructional Resource Center in Cape May. The program, if I remember correctly was Interning 4 Learning. I used it for four years with fantastic results, before I moved to the high school.
The kids absolutely loved it. It allowed me to divide and schedule small group instruction, follow up work, learning stations, writing activities, and even guided choice activities . It made everything manageable. It was so successful in my classroom that school eventually adopted the program. If had continued teaching elementary school or had a block schedule in high school, I'm sure I would have used it or something like it until I retired.
Over the years I have often thought about it and how technology could make it even more powerful and efficient. I tired unsuccessfully any number of times to find out if it had been updated, but I couldn't find any reference or trace of the original program. Since I was not in a position to implement it, there was little motivation for me to spend much time worrying about it.
That's all changed with StarW. After meeting the teachers, getting a glimpse of their curriculum, their classrooms structure, and looking at the goals of the grant, I think it is a perfect match. What's really neat is that many of the techniques of small group instruction, differentiated learning, and cross-curricular content that was so "revolutionary" in the 70's, are already in place in their classrooms. Interning for learning will add formal, but very flexible structure, management techniques that lend themselves to evaluation and reevaluation, as well as provide many opportunities to infuse technology. Even more importantly, the program fosters and grows collaboration and sharing between teachers.
StarW has given me reason to revisit the process. I still have not been able to find any reference or material from the original program, but since I was a trainer for the program, a lot is locked inside my head. I spent most of today clearing the cobwebs and recreated some of the structure and some introductory material using Kidspiration and Inspiration. I'm going to take about 15 minutes show it to the teachers on Tues. If they get as excited about it as I hope and think they will, I think we can implement it very nicely within the framework of the grant and the ETTC training days.
Art
