Friday, January 09, 2004
Hi Ladies,
Yesterday while meeting with the 4th graders, they expressed concerns about the upcoming ASK4 tests, the uncertaintly of the content, and the amount of time to prepare for them. I think your books arrived just as I was leaving, but for my own information, I did a little research and found the attached document at the state department web site. According to it, the format is very similar to that of the ESPA.
A big part of your concern was that there might be much more emphasis on grammar and punctuation. From my reading of the document attached, if there is a shift in that direction, it doesn't seem to be overly weighted in that direction.
If your assessment of the test from the preparation material is similar to mine, then many of the things you are currently doing with technology will continue to serve you as auxiallry perparation for the test.
As you know, we plan to begin working with Tom March's Web-and-Flow on the 27th. One of the activity formats we will be exploring is something called an Insight Reflector. It was designed by Tom to help students write a section (paragraph) composition about a topic from two different perspectives. That in itself is a powerful tool and you'll get a better feel for it on the 27th, but you can get a head start if you want to begin gathering a few links.
This is a link to a Reflector that I built about four or five years ago. As the introduction notes, it has a lot of broken links, but you can still get a good feel for the concept. Though some of the links are broken, the activity still functions and you can put a few words of text in at each prompt so that you can see the final results.
http://www.web-and-flow.com/members/awolinsk/migrants/reflector.htm
As you look it over, keep in mind that every word on the screen can be edited by you. The important concept here is that you are providing five writing opportunities and that the five pompts you provide will lead the student to a completed document.
Think in terms of finding sites that look at things from two different perspectives. They should be short pages or even paragraphs. It could even be two different pictures, ie prejudice/tolerance, war/peace, happy/sad, etc.
That's it for now.
See you Thursday.
Art
Yesterday while meeting with the 4th graders, they expressed concerns about the upcoming ASK4 tests, the uncertaintly of the content, and the amount of time to prepare for them. I think your books arrived just as I was leaving, but for my own information, I did a little research and found the attached document at the state department web site. According to it, the format is very similar to that of the ESPA.
A big part of your concern was that there might be much more emphasis on grammar and punctuation. From my reading of the document attached, if there is a shift in that direction, it doesn't seem to be overly weighted in that direction.
If your assessment of the test from the preparation material is similar to mine, then many of the things you are currently doing with technology will continue to serve you as auxiallry perparation for the test.
As you know, we plan to begin working with Tom March's Web-and-Flow on the 27th. One of the activity formats we will be exploring is something called an Insight Reflector. It was designed by Tom to help students write a section (paragraph) composition about a topic from two different perspectives. That in itself is a powerful tool and you'll get a better feel for it on the 27th, but you can get a head start if you want to begin gathering a few links.
This is a link to a Reflector that I built about four or five years ago. As the introduction notes, it has a lot of broken links, but you can still get a good feel for the concept. Though some of the links are broken, the activity still functions and you can put a few words of text in at each prompt so that you can see the final results.
http://www.web-and-flow.com/members/awolinsk/migrants/reflector.htm
As you look it over, keep in mind that every word on the screen can be edited by you. The important concept here is that you are providing five writing opportunities and that the five pompts you provide will lead the student to a completed document.
Think in terms of finding sites that look at things from two different perspectives. They should be short pages or even paragraphs. It could even be two different pictures, ie prejudice/tolerance, war/peace, happy/sad, etc.
That's it for now.
See you Thursday.
Art
Thursday, January 08, 2004
I've always said that lessons are where you find them. The incident in the previous post with Claudette and web publishing is one example. The message that follows illustrates another.
Hi Ladies,
I just got a message from the LM_Net mailing list asking for tips using Paint, the free drawing program built into Windows. It reminded me of an activity I did in 1990. It something we can do any time you like, but I know you are gearing up for the ASK4 test, hence the subject line. However, I warn you, I won't do it with you until your pictures are along side mine. You'll understand as you read. ;->
Here's the text of what I sent back...
I'm glad you are promoting Paint. It's a great little program. I do a little commercial web design and much of the work I do is done with Paint. Here's an activity and a little power tip.
Your message reminded me of a project we did back in 1990, that I had completely forgot about. I'm going to do it again. This is a really fun way to study symmetry and give kids some real basic photo editing skills.
Most people think that the human face is symmetrical, but there are significant differences between the left and right side of your face that can be demonstrated by creating a symmetrical image of yourself.
1) Start with a digital head shot of yourself. When you take the picture make sure you are standing up straight (head not tilted to one side) and looking straight ahead.
2) Open the picture with Paint. (Make sure there is checkmark next to Draw Opaque under the Image menu)
3) Use the Selection tool to box the left half of the picture face, being careful to split your nose right down the middle
4) Go Edit and Copy
5) Click to remove the selection and then go to Edit and Paste
6) Without clicking anywhere in the picture, go to Image > Flip/Rotate and Flip Horizontal. This will flip the image you just pasted.
7) Still without clicking, point to the pasted area, hold the left mouse button down, and drag the pasted image to form a face. Line it up carefully using the nose as your guide.
You now have an image made entirely from the right side of your face. Save it using a different name. Open the original image and repeat the above steps to recreate your face using the other side. Save it using another name. You now have three different images.
If you like, you can do some more editing and combine all three to come up with something like this.
http://www.3dwriting.com/art4.jpg
OK, here's a neat tip. There are many features missing from Paint that are available on other programs. Hey, it's free. What do you expect. Well, guess what? Some of them are there, but you have to be a little creative to figure out how to do it. For example, the one feature that people really miss is Crop. You can Cut and Copy, but you can't Crop... Unless you know the secret? Wanna know the secret? Sure you do!
1) Open a picture that you want to crop. (Make sure there is checkmark next to Draw Opaque under the Image menu)
2) Select the area you want to crop.
3) Go to Edit and Copy
4) Click to remove the selection box and go to Edit and Paste
5) That should have pasted the part you selected in the upper left hand corner. Now click outside the selection to freeze it there.
6) Now go down to the lower right hand corner of your picture. Scroll if necessary. You will notice that there is a little black dot in the very corner.
7) Carefully position the mouse point on the dot until the mouse pointer turns into a double headed black arrow. At this point hold the mouse button down and move it upward until it reaches the lower right hand corner of the portion you just pasted. Note: This requires good mouse skills and may be difficult for some elementary children and most teachers. ;->
Viola! You now have a cropped picture.
Take care,
Art
Hi Ladies,
I just got a message from the LM_Net mailing list asking for tips using Paint, the free drawing program built into Windows. It reminded me of an activity I did in 1990. It something we can do any time you like, but I know you are gearing up for the ASK4 test, hence the subject line. However, I warn you, I won't do it with you until your pictures are along side mine. You'll understand as you read. ;->
Here's the text of what I sent back...
I'm glad you are promoting Paint. It's a great little program. I do a little commercial web design and much of the work I do is done with Paint. Here's an activity and a little power tip.
Your message reminded me of a project we did back in 1990, that I had completely forgot about. I'm going to do it again. This is a really fun way to study symmetry and give kids some real basic photo editing skills.
Most people think that the human face is symmetrical, but there are significant differences between the left and right side of your face that can be demonstrated by creating a symmetrical image of yourself.
1) Start with a digital head shot of yourself. When you take the picture make sure you are standing up straight (head not tilted to one side) and looking straight ahead.
2) Open the picture with Paint. (Make sure there is checkmark next to Draw Opaque under the Image menu)
3) Use the Selection tool to box the left half of the picture face, being careful to split your nose right down the middle
4) Go Edit and Copy
5) Click to remove the selection and then go to Edit and Paste
6) Without clicking anywhere in the picture, go to Image > Flip/Rotate and Flip Horizontal. This will flip the image you just pasted.
7) Still without clicking, point to the pasted area, hold the left mouse button down, and drag the pasted image to form a face. Line it up carefully using the nose as your guide.
You now have an image made entirely from the right side of your face. Save it using a different name. Open the original image and repeat the above steps to recreate your face using the other side. Save it using another name. You now have three different images.
If you like, you can do some more editing and combine all three to come up with something like this.
http://www.3dwriting.com/art4.jpg
OK, here's a neat tip. There are many features missing from Paint that are available on other programs. Hey, it's free. What do you expect. Well, guess what? Some of them are there, but you have to be a little creative to figure out how to do it. For example, the one feature that people really miss is Crop. You can Cut and Copy, but you can't Crop... Unless you know the secret? Wanna know the secret? Sure you do!
1) Open a picture that you want to crop. (Make sure there is checkmark next to Draw Opaque under the Image menu)
2) Select the area you want to crop.
3) Go to Edit and Copy
4) Click to remove the selection box and go to Edit and Paste
5) That should have pasted the part you selected in the upper left hand corner. Now click outside the selection to freeze it there.
6) Now go down to the lower right hand corner of your picture. Scroll if necessary. You will notice that there is a little black dot in the very corner.
7) Carefully position the mouse point on the dot until the mouse pointer turns into a double headed black arrow. At this point hold the mouse button down and move it upward until it reaches the lower right hand corner of the portion you just pasted. Note: This requires good mouse skills and may be difficult for some elementary children and most teachers. ;->
Viola! You now have a cropped picture.
Take care,
Art
How important is basic trouble shooting to teachers? This message to Marilyn Cohen should answer that question (and a few others).
Troubleshooting is DEFINITELY on the agenda for the 27th. Today when I came in, Janine's problem still hadn't been addressed and Lisa had the same problem. Out of their 14 computers only 4 were reaching the Internet. On top of that, there must have been some district-wide networking done during the break that changed everyone's home page on the browser.
It only took me about an 45 minutes to fix everything. To fix the browsers, only took a minute and I showed each teacher how to do it. Janine's problem took me about 20 minutes to figure out, because I didn't realize that she had a hub. As soon as I spotted it, I knew what the problem was. When the custodians cleaned during break, the unplugged it. Lisa's problem was similar. They had unplugged the network drops.
Every single problem could have been solved by teachers who had basic troubleshooting training. I'm putting together The Care and Feeding of the PC. It will serve as a survival manual. You'll be able to use it district-wide.
I talked to Claudette also. She won't be at the workshop of the 27th, but I'll make sure she has the manual. We also talked a little about the repair process. She showed me the help desk list that's now being generated. Nice. When the teachers send her the Starw form, she puts it on the help desk. I suggested that when she gets a form from the teacher, she just gives a quick reply to let the teachers know that she got it and and whether she will be handling it or passing it along. The teachers agreed that would take a shine some light in the darkness.
She also told me that she wanted to do some web work with the advanced kid and asked about 3DWriter. I was sorry to have to tell her that it wasn't for the Macs, but had a better idea for her. Since they were advanced kids they would have no problem with doing regular html and I wrote a book for middle school kids about web publishing. The book covers the concepts with an emphasis on content and steps them through the creation of a web site about a science project. On top of that, the book is on the AR reading list. The students will be able to build web pages while reading, doing science and earning AR points.
I already gave her the draft I submitted to the publisher in Word format. Since it is a draft, the publisher considers it the same as my notes and we are free to use it with the kids.
She's going to prep the kids about the project, but before they actually start we'll have a Meet the Author day. I'll come down to meet with the on the 30th.
This is going to be fun!
I hope all is going well with New York Ave.
Later,
Art
Troubleshooting is DEFINITELY on the agenda for the 27th. Today when I came in, Janine's problem still hadn't been addressed and Lisa had the same problem. Out of their 14 computers only 4 were reaching the Internet. On top of that, there must have been some district-wide networking done during the break that changed everyone's home page on the browser.
It only took me about an 45 minutes to fix everything. To fix the browsers, only took a minute and I showed each teacher how to do it. Janine's problem took me about 20 minutes to figure out, because I didn't realize that she had a hub. As soon as I spotted it, I knew what the problem was. When the custodians cleaned during break, the unplugged it. Lisa's problem was similar. They had unplugged the network drops.
Every single problem could have been solved by teachers who had basic troubleshooting training. I'm putting together The Care and Feeding of the PC. It will serve as a survival manual. You'll be able to use it district-wide.
I talked to Claudette also. She won't be at the workshop of the 27th, but I'll make sure she has the manual. We also talked a little about the repair process. She showed me the help desk list that's now being generated. Nice. When the teachers send her the Starw form, she puts it on the help desk. I suggested that when she gets a form from the teacher, she just gives a quick reply to let the teachers know that she got it and and whether she will be handling it or passing it along. The teachers agreed that would take a shine some light in the darkness.
She also told me that she wanted to do some web work with the advanced kid and asked about 3DWriter. I was sorry to have to tell her that it wasn't for the Macs, but had a better idea for her. Since they were advanced kids they would have no problem with doing regular html and I wrote a book for middle school kids about web publishing. The book covers the concepts with an emphasis on content and steps them through the creation of a web site about a science project. On top of that, the book is on the AR reading list. The students will be able to build web pages while reading, doing science and earning AR points.
I already gave her the draft I submitted to the publisher in Word format. Since it is a draft, the publisher considers it the same as my notes and we are free to use it with the kids.
She's going to prep the kids about the project, but before they actually start we'll have a Meet the Author day. I'll come down to meet with the on the 30th.
This is going to be fun!
I hope all is going well with New York Ave.
Later,
Art
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Hi Ladies,
I just got back from visiting the new discussion forums. If you haven't done so, you might want to check out what Jen and Brook are already up to. Brook started a discussion just before leaving and one or two of her students are already responding from home. Check out her conversation in Nee Nee's Journal.
Jen is using here Class Forum to post here POW (I'm guessing that stands for Puzzle of the Week, right?) Anyway, it's a great idea and the puzzle about the different color ribbons is really a tough one, but a fantastic one to use to get kids to understand the power of using a table to solve all kinds of problems, including responsive writing on state tests.
The puzzle she is using is a variation on the famous Einstein riddle (posted below). According to Einstein, 98% of the people in the world would not be able to solve the puzzle. However, this just goes prove that this sort of thing can be learned, because once you know how to solve it, you can solve other similar puzzles and today it is estimated that only about 80% of the world could not solve it.
--------------------------------------
Reminder of how to get into the Forums. Go to http://www.star.org > Teachers > Classroom Discussion Area
First level username - journals
First level password - myjournal
This will give you access to read. If you want to write anything, you must click on Log In and use your unique username and our starw password.
----------------------------------------
Einstein's Riddle
Einstein wrote this riddle. He said 98% of the world could not solve it. However, it's not too hard, you just need to pay attention and be patient.
Einstein's Riddle
There are 5 houses in 5 different colours. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage.
"The question is: Who owns the fish?"
Hints:
The Brit lives in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the left of the white house.
The green house's owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes the Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water
I first came across Einstein's puzzle in Jr. High and remember it as one of the most satisfying activities I ever achieved in math.
Danger! Reading any further may cause you to fall asleep at the keyboard. (If you are an insomniac, you might want to print this out to read it later.) On the other hand if you are total and complete geek, it will keep you up for a loooong time.
A few minutes ago, I came across a solution that uses a computer program to figure out the solution. The person wrote a program in C++. If you know anything about programming of this type, it's really a fairly straight forward problem. The program has to be written in such a way as to systematically try every single combination of possibilities until it arrives at an answer (many millions). The program and discussion can be found at http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/Einstein.asp
There's an interesting fact or two there that can be appreciated even if you aren't a geek. About five years ago, it would take the fastest personal computer available almost 72 straight hours of calculation to come up with the correct answer. Today, an ordinary top of the line PC can do the calculation in less than a half second!
Is anyone still awake?
Art
I just got back from visiting the new discussion forums. If you haven't done so, you might want to check out what Jen and Brook are already up to. Brook started a discussion just before leaving and one or two of her students are already responding from home. Check out her conversation in Nee Nee's Journal.
Jen is using here Class Forum to post here POW (I'm guessing that stands for Puzzle of the Week, right?) Anyway, it's a great idea and the puzzle about the different color ribbons is really a tough one, but a fantastic one to use to get kids to understand the power of using a table to solve all kinds of problems, including responsive writing on state tests.
The puzzle she is using is a variation on the famous Einstein riddle (posted below). According to Einstein, 98% of the people in the world would not be able to solve the puzzle. However, this just goes prove that this sort of thing can be learned, because once you know how to solve it, you can solve other similar puzzles and today it is estimated that only about 80% of the world could not solve it.
--------------------------------------
Reminder of how to get into the Forums. Go to http://www.star.org > Teachers > Classroom Discussion Area
First level username - journals
First level password - myjournal
This will give you access to read. If you want to write anything, you must click on Log In and use your unique username and our starw password.
----------------------------------------
Einstein's Riddle
Einstein wrote this riddle. He said 98% of the world could not solve it. However, it's not too hard, you just need to pay attention and be patient.
Einstein's Riddle
There are 5 houses in 5 different colours. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage.
"The question is: Who owns the fish?"
Hints:
The Brit lives in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the left of the white house.
The green house's owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes the Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water
I first came across Einstein's puzzle in Jr. High and remember it as one of the most satisfying activities I ever achieved in math.
Danger! Reading any further may cause you to fall asleep at the keyboard. (If you are an insomniac, you might want to print this out to read it later.) On the other hand if you are total and complete geek, it will keep you up for a loooong time.
A few minutes ago, I came across a solution that uses a computer program to figure out the solution. The person wrote a program in C++. If you know anything about programming of this type, it's really a fairly straight forward problem. The program has to be written in such a way as to systematically try every single combination of possibilities until it arrives at an answer (many millions). The program and discussion can be found at http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/Einstein.asp
There's an interesting fact or two there that can be appreciated even if you aren't a geek. About five years ago, it would take the fastest personal computer available almost 72 straight hours of calculation to come up with the correct answer. Today, an ordinary top of the line PC can do the calculation in less than a half second!
Is anyone still awake?
Art
Brook was lamenting the fact that she has to work manually with forty response journals and was wondering whether students could set up Blogs. I felt that legal and technical reasons made this a poor solution, but found free discussion board software I could load on the StarW site. I demoed it to the teachers and they loved it. We are exploring ways of using them and are just getting under way.
The next few entries will be a series of messages I sent to the group between 12/22/03 and 1/2/03.
12/22/03 - Hi Ladies,
I've set up accounts for all of you in the new StarW Discussion Forum, and forums for students in four classes. You should have gotten messages welcoming you and giving you your username and password. Ignore the password. I changed it to wrats1 and you can change it to anything you want once you log in and click on the Edit Profile link. The URL that it lists in the letter is correct, but you don't have to worry about remembering it. I will be creating a link from the StarW page.
When you or your students go to the Discussion Forums you will have to first enter a username and and password to get in. This is NOT your personal password. This password is the same for everyone. The Username is journals and the password myjournal . This is to prevent the general public from having access to the site. Once, you get into the site, you can read any of the messages, however if you want to respond to a message you have to log in. This is your personal username and password.
Here's the full procedure. I also have this on the site with pictures at http://www.starw.org/instructions
1) Go to the StarW site, click on Teachers, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Student-Teacher Communication.
2) At the prompt for username and password, enter "journals" and "myjournal" (without quotes)
3) At the Discussion Forum, click on Log In and then log in using your first initial and last name with the password "wrats1"
You are each moderators of your own areas. As moderators you have the ability to edit all messages and delete most.
Those of you for whom I have not set up Forums, I can do so when we get back. Students will use aliases at the site, so you'll have to have your students make up names and give them to me. Even though your students don't have accounts, you do and you can log in, look around and see how you might what to use them.
As things stand, most of the forums are set up as journals for one-to-one communication between teacher and student. However, everyone can read everything and at some point you might want students to respond to each other. You'll also notice that each teacher has a Class Forum. This could be used for group discussions.
Have a great vacation!
The next few entries will be a series of messages I sent to the group between 12/22/03 and 1/2/03.
12/22/03 - Hi Ladies,
I've set up accounts for all of you in the new StarW Discussion Forum, and forums for students in four classes. You should have gotten messages welcoming you and giving you your username and password. Ignore the password. I changed it to wrats1 and you can change it to anything you want once you log in and click on the Edit Profile link. The URL that it lists in the letter is correct, but you don't have to worry about remembering it. I will be creating a link from the StarW page.
When you or your students go to the Discussion Forums you will have to first enter a username and and password to get in. This is NOT your personal password. This password is the same for everyone. The Username is journals and the password myjournal . This is to prevent the general public from having access to the site. Once, you get into the site, you can read any of the messages, however if you want to respond to a message you have to log in. This is your personal username and password.
Here's the full procedure. I also have this on the site with pictures at http://www.starw.org/instructions
1) Go to the StarW site, click on Teachers, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Student-Teacher Communication.
2) At the prompt for username and password, enter "journals" and "myjournal" (without quotes)
3) At the Discussion Forum, click on Log In and then log in using your first initial and last name with the password "wrats1"
You are each moderators of your own areas. As moderators you have the ability to edit all messages and delete most.
Those of you for whom I have not set up Forums, I can do so when we get back. Students will use aliases at the site, so you'll have to have your students make up names and give them to me. Even though your students don't have accounts, you do and you can log in, look around and see how you might what to use them.
As things stand, most of the forums are set up as journals for one-to-one communication between teacher and student. However, everyone can read everything and at some point you might want students to respond to each other. You'll also notice that each teacher has a Class Forum. This could be used for group discussions.
Have a great vacation!
It's time to do a little catching up with the journal. The next few entries will retroactively cover the period between 12/12 and the New Year.
12/15 - Jamie Saponaro, the StarW mentor for Stafford Twp. Elem. wrote to me asking if I had a 3rd grade teacher interested in a poetry collaboration with one of her teachers and/or a 4th grade teacher interested in doing a book review collaboration. I wrote back asking for more details. This is what she wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a teacher who is doing a poetry e-book with her students. They
will all be online by about March. Is there a teacher (3rd grade) who
is also doing a poetry unit? Maybe they could have students partner and
share/dialogue?
I also have a teacher who is doing online book reviews (4th grade).
Maybe students from each class could pair up with the same book, read,
and then each write a book review. They could email informal
discussions on the book along the way. Then the reviews could be passed
to the another pair and they could swap books. Or something like
that......
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If it sounds interesting to anyone, we can talk about it on Thursday and I can get more details. I told her that your students don't have email and that all correspondence would have to be through teachers. (I don't know if Stafford students have email, but I suspect not.) I also threw out the option of incorporating video conferencing in one or both of the projects. I have the necessary video cameras and software at my disposal. We would just have to work out some technical issues as far as district firewalls go.
Anyway, it's something to think about.
On another previous topic, I pointed you to the Technical Problem web form I created and gave you the URL. If you forget the URL, just try to remember to go to the StarW site, go to the Teachers page and scroll to the very bottom. There is an almost invisible link I created there for the form. It's just a period that you click on to bring up the Tech Problem form.
That's all for now. See you Thursday.
1/2/04 Follow up notes - I tried the video camera in Janine's classroom, but wasn't able to get out. I'm guessing it was a firewall issue, but am not positive. I exchanged an email with Jamie during winter break and we will be meeting in Stafford on the 6th to discuss this project further.
12/15 - Jamie Saponaro, the StarW mentor for Stafford Twp. Elem. wrote to me asking if I had a 3rd grade teacher interested in a poetry collaboration with one of her teachers and/or a 4th grade teacher interested in doing a book review collaboration. I wrote back asking for more details. This is what she wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a teacher who is doing a poetry e-book with her students. They
will all be online by about March. Is there a teacher (3rd grade) who
is also doing a poetry unit? Maybe they could have students partner and
share/dialogue?
I also have a teacher who is doing online book reviews (4th grade).
Maybe students from each class could pair up with the same book, read,
and then each write a book review. They could email informal
discussions on the book along the way. Then the reviews could be passed
to the another pair and they could swap books. Or something like
that......
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If it sounds interesting to anyone, we can talk about it on Thursday and I can get more details. I told her that your students don't have email and that all correspondence would have to be through teachers. (I don't know if Stafford students have email, but I suspect not.) I also threw out the option of incorporating video conferencing in one or both of the projects. I have the necessary video cameras and software at my disposal. We would just have to work out some technical issues as far as district firewalls go.
Anyway, it's something to think about.
On another previous topic, I pointed you to the Technical Problem web form I created and gave you the URL. If you forget the URL, just try to remember to go to the StarW site, go to the Teachers page and scroll to the very bottom. There is an almost invisible link I created there for the form. It's just a period that you click on to bring up the Tech Problem form.
That's all for now. See you Thursday.
1/2/04 Follow up notes - I tried the video camera in Janine's classroom, but wasn't able to get out. I'm guessing it was a firewall issue, but am not positive. I exchanged an email with Jamie during winter break and we will be meeting in Stafford on the 6th to discuss this project further.
