SPOTLIGHT on TEACHING AND LEARNING with NEW LITERACIES (ITL)

May is Big Think MONTH!

2010-04-27T21:33:00.008-04:00

On Monday night, April 26th, after school for 4 hours, 17 ITL teachers participated in a Big Think workshop at SES. The Big Think is a metacognitive experience that is created for the end of a unit of study -- after the traditional assessment has been completed. David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwaan authored the book, and David Loertscher was virtually present via Skype during the last hour of the meeting to answer questions and provide elaboration on the purpose and meaning of the Big Think and the 9 strategies created to promote deeper understanding and opportunities to apply learning to a "real" situation. Groups worked to unpack the Big Think Strategies, and in pairs, created a short video describing each of the 9 strategies. A visual was created for each presentation. These videos were added to the Tools/BigThink/April26th section of the Blackboard class Contemporary Literacies (Every teacher in Westport can access this class). Using the Jigsaw model described int he book Ban Those Bird Units (also by David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwaan), the participants regrouped to include experts on most of the strategies in each group. They then created Big Think scenarios to go with several descriptions of actual units taught at various grade levels in the district.During the workshop we used a Web 2.o tool recommended by David Loertscher called Wallwisher to collaboratively share ideas and ask questions about the Big Think. David responded to the questions during our Skype session and also added more responses after our workshop was over. (Click on image below to see larger version of our Wallwisher page.)

Big Thinks will hopefully be created and implemented in all schools by ITL teachers with classroom teachers during the month of MAY, and some will be shared at the third and final ITL Steering Committee meeting at Staples High School on June 1st!

Microsoft's Courier - Is it the iPad Killer?

2010-04-06T21:51:00.004-04:00

Today at the SHS Student Tech Club Meeting, Logan showed us a video previewing a new tablet from Microsoft called "The Courier." Amazing! Take a look:

Also, the students set up a new technology blog.

The Housekeeper and the Professor

2010-01-30T18:12:00.007-05:00

Today three students from BMS (Jake and Zack R, and Parker S.) and I presented two sessions of SCRATCH at the Westport Public Library from 1-4. This workshop was in conjunction with the WestportREADS book, The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, and the afternoon included many events under the title Math, Memories and Making Connections.

We started the event with a brief story animation created in Scratch (shown below), then taught the participants some of the basics. Results can be viewed on the Scratch website that we set up for the workshop- http://scratch.mit.edu/users/wplworkshop.

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/wpsscratch/866067

Glogster

2010-01-19T20:26:00.009-05:00

The educational version of Glogster allows for the creation of classes with some complications in terms of account names and passwords for our elementary students. The educational account provides no advertising and access to other Glogs made only in the edu site. Pam Syndercombe, technology teacher at CES and Ed Wolf, 5th grade teacher at CES, are preparing to use Glogster in an upcoming learning activity and will provide all of us with some suggestions on how best to use Glogster with a whole class.

As Glogster use evolves, I'll add an update on some of its relative advantages in a future post.

This practice Glog will eventually have links to each of the 5 contemporary literacy areas identified in our "21st Century Skills" workshops over the past 2 years.

CES: TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE

2009-12-10T17:26:00.017-05:00

Yesterday, December 9th, CES administration, teachers and parents planned and presented an amazing technology showcase for parents at a 9:30 PTA meeting in the library media center. CES has been using a variety of ITL tools in their everyday teaching and they decided to share some recent lessons with specific ITL tools.

This was the agenda:

Welcome and overview of meeting - Melissa Paolini
Overview of ITL Steering Committee/ ITL Curriculum - Bill Derry
Blackboard Background and Explanation - Natalie Carrignan

INTEGRATION of Technology--CES Staff Members

o Smartboard Application/ Kindergarten - Jessica Lack
o Google Earth-2nd grade- Social Studies - Eileen Carroll
o Scratch-3rd grade- Science - Kate Lyle and MaryJo Lombardo
o Truthfulness/Usefulness-4th grade - Sarah Spencer
o Discussion Board-5th grade-Language Arts - Joe Pullia
o Wiki-5th grade-L.A., Science, S.S. - Ed Wolf

CES LIVE – A behind the scenes look at the TV Studio - Pam Syndercombe

FUNDRAISER PTA Co-Presidents - Lisa Laudico and Ginny McGovern

Later in the year there will be a PTA fundraiser, possibly used to move the current CES TV station from the corner of the library media center into its very own ROOM. (More on that initiative later in the year.)

This Technology Showcase was a model presentation for demonstrating how kids and teachers in one school are learning, using and sharing contemporary literacy skills. It was very clear that there has been a school-wide effort to make ITL tools and skills an essential component of every child's education at CES! Great job CES!

AASL Conference

2009-11-11T20:06:00.005-05:00

Barbara Eilertsen, LMS at LLS, and I attended the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) conference in Charlotte, NC. We also took part in a pre-conference School Library Think-Tank called Treasure Mountain, the 15th event put together by David Loertscher (our keynote and workshop leader in the first ITL Summer Institute in 2007).

Treasure Mountain focused on the changing role of the school library media specialist/teacher librarian and the new environment that is being envisioned for a flexible, inquiry-based, real and virtual library. David Loertscher calls this new space the Learning Commons, and he has written a book about it with Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan. Carol Koechlin was at Treasure Mountain and engaged all of us in a final "Big Think" to synthesize the learnings from the workshop.

Other presenters included: Jean Sausele Knodt (author of the book Nine Thousand Straws: Teaching Thinking Through Open-Inquiry Learning ), Valerie Diggs (the LMS and founder of the first High School Learning Commons in Chelmsford, MA), Dr. Violet Harada, professor in the Dept. of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Hawaii (author of many books for educators focusing on the role of the school library media specialist) and many other university professors and practitioners working in information and library media professions.

The actual AASL Conference started with an Exploratorium, where practitioners from around the country set up tabletop presentations on a wide range of BEST PRACTICES in SCHOOL LIBRARY MEDIA CENTERS (see the entire list) including redesigning your high school library media center to resemble a popular book store to using T.R.A.I.L.S., a free online information literacy assessment program. The conference opened with "the high priestess of social networking," danah boyd and closed with a presentation on digital media in the classroom by Marco Torres. During the conference we attended workshops on web 2.0 applications, the new AASL 21st Century Standards, information problem solving processes, and many others. We followed our now traditional conference note-taking routine and created a wiki: http://westportaasl2009.pbworks.com .

We did the same thing for the recent CECA/CASL conference that I did not write about in this blog -- but there were many more people who attended, hence -- more notes!
http://cecacasl09.pbworks.com .

ITL PD Day -- November 3rd

2009-10-31T11:59:00.005-04:00

This Tuesday, November 3rd, most teachers and administrators, grades 6-12, will take part in an all-day series of workshops focusing on ITL skills and tools that can be used to plan engaging teaching and learning experiences for students. All Technology Uses are NOT Equal: Accelerating High-Yielding Practices will be the keynote topic provided by Bernajean Porter, who will also be conducting two workshops later in the day.

This past summer we set up a Blackboard class on Contemporary Literacy (our new title for 21st Century Skills), which is a class now available to all Westport teachers. Those teachers wishing to add information to the class must request to be changed from a student in the class to a teacher in the class. All participants in this past summer's ITL workshops are listed as teachers, and three other teachers have requested to become teachers rather than students in the class. Many of the handouts for the November 3rd workshops are under the appropriate ITL tool in the TOOLS button in the Contemporary Literacy Class.

An evaluation for the ITL PD Day has been created and will be available via e-mail to all participants the afternoon of November 3rd. The results of this evaluation will help with determining the value of the day, and the changes that could be made to improve a similar professional development day for teachers and administrators in the future.

The schedule for the day can be found at: http://nov3itlworkshops.pbworks.com/FrontPage

WESTPORT READS

2009-09-25T22:32:00.010-04:00

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa is the book selected by the Westport Public Library for the ONE book that all interested readers in Westport will focus on in January 2010 as part of WESTPORT READS. Many activities are being planned to complement and enhance the themes of this book.

The book deals with a math professor's brain injury and resulting short-term memory loss after each 80 minutes. The story details the relationships between the professor and his housekeeper, and the housekeeper's young son, "Root." The professor relies on his knowledge of equations and mathematical relationships, as well as his knowledge of Japanese baseball, to create strong, meaningful connections between the principal players.

Today Maxine Bleiweis, director of the WPL and Marta Campbell, collection development & readers' services coodinator, met at Staples High School with Lis Comm, 6-12 English curriculum leader, Frank Corbo, 6-12 Math curriculum leader, Julia Roberts, SHS library media specialist, Robin Stiles, SHS library media specialist, Rita Hennessey, BMS library media specialist, John Horrigan, CMS library media specialist and me.

We learned about some of the plans the Westport Public Library has for Westport Reads, and the curriculum leaders and library media specialists talked about how they could support the upcoming January community event. Here are some of the ideas or plans that were presented, planned or discussed during the meeting:

The translator of the book, Stephen Snyder, a teacher at Middlebury College will present at the WPL on January 11th.
A neurosurgeon will speak at the WPL about memory loss.
A speaker on Japanese baseball will possibly present at the WPL.
WPL wants to involve school kids in Westport Reads.
Frank Corbo reported that Bill Walsh, Math teacher at SHS, had presented about the book at a Math department meeting. Talked about the possibility of creating a panel of kids who could talk about why they enjoy Math.
Possibly the panel of Math kids could present during a lunch time activity in the library media center.
Is there a possible ART connection that can be made?
There are 10 community book groups that are planning to focus on the book in January.
Could be a connection with Math Counts in the two middle schools.
Maybe students will create a promotion for the book on SHS, BMS and CMS morning television programs.
Lis Comm is planning to purchase 24 books, one for each English teacher.
The library media center will purchase 10 copies of the book, create a display and plan for some lunch time activities and presentations in January.

BMS - FIRST ITL MEETING OF THE YEAR

2009-09-02T22:14:00.004-04:00

The BMS ITL committee met for the first time this year from 3:00-4:00 this afternoon. Rita Hennessey, LMS, and Lauren Bullock, technology teacher, are the new co-chairs of the committee and Rita Hennessey led the meeting. Members of the committee able to attend included: Meg Tiley, assistant principal; Laurie Gray, math teacher; Anitha Bolar, math teacher; Jeremy Royster, social studies teacher; Kathy Fleming, technology teacher; Lauren Francese, science teacher, and new member, Susan Cyrulik, science teacher.

Rita provided an overview of this year's ITL Summer Ca mp. 1-2 participants from every school learned about, used and explored the relative advantages of using: Smart Recorder to create screencasts, Flip cameras, MovieMaker, Diigo, Skype, Bubbl.us, Scratch, Google Forms, evaluation tools for websites, and Google Earth to create virtual tours.

There was also a discussion that I led about the Nov. 3rd ITL professional development day for all staff grades 6-12. We looked at the existing list of possible topics, and discussed if there were any topics missing. No new topics were added. We also discussed the structure of the day (8-9:30 - Keynote by Bernajean Porter; 10-11:30 - Workshop 1; 12:15-1:30- Workshop 2; 1:45-3:00 - Workshops 3; OR one afternoon workshop from 12:15-3:00). The group looked at the other possibility of having ONE workshop from 10:00-3:00, and although there were some advantages, everyone thought it was more important that teachers be exposed to at least two different topics.

Rabbit Hill, a Festival of Children's Literature, was briefly discussed. (There will be future posts on this, I am certain!) This amazing literature program sponsored by the Westport Public Library will bring five authors to Bedford and Coleytown Middle Schools on Friday, Oct. 23rd. On Saturday Oct 24th, the authors present at Saugatuck Elementary School at a free morning event, with workshop sessions offered in the afternoon. The reason for putting Rabbit HIll on the agenda was to support the preparation of students as much as possible for the authors' visit to maximize the impact of their presentations. Kathy Fleming and Rita Hennessey discussed connections with the TV Studio and the LMC.

Two future faculty meetings may be used for ITL workshops this year after the ITL PD day on Nov. 3rd.

Attending the meeting and hearing about potential ITL work this year at Bedford was a great way to end the 2nd day of school (for students).

Contemporary Literacy

2009-08-19T16:03:00.006-04:00

A new year is about to start. 17 teachers recently attended the SUMMER ITL CAMP focusing on Contemporary Literacy. A Blackboard class has been set up for all teachers to access information about a wide range of contemporary literacy tools and concepts. All teachers will be members of the class in September.

We looked at the relative advantages of using the following tools and concepts: Smart Notebook, Flip cameras, MS MovieMaker, Diigo, Google Earth, Skype, Scratch, Bubbl.us and strategies for determining the Usefulness and Truthfulness of information.

Planning has begun for the ITL professional development day on November 3rd for all 6-12th grade teachers. A survey will go out to all 6-12th grade teachers soon to determine the areas of most interest for that day.

ITL staff will have a full day meeting with professional development on Friday, August 28th.

Looking forward to an exciting year where more and more teachers are engaging students in learning activities which require ITL skills for success.

CES: Authentic Learning - Science, Language Arts, ITL

2009-06-17T21:17:00.014-04:00

Today I was honored to be the audience for 4 presentations by the owners and employees of 4 different fitness centers. Each presentation focused on the special features that made their health and fitness center an excellent choice for anyone interested in special exercises, diet and individual attention. Although these companies were "not real" and the owners and employees were 5th graders in Ed Wolf's class at Coleytown Elementary, it only added to the obvious learning and sophisticated display and presentation of information. The "owners" presented their companies' missions and special services AS IF their fitness and health centers were legitimate companies.

It all began several months ago when Mr. Wolf wanted to have his students apply their prior knowledge of using wikis (See blog entry -- Jan. 21st - Community of Learners -CES) to a new project dealing with their study of the human body. Instead of researching the systems of the body, he wanted his students to have a strong purpose for using the researched information. He engaged the students in a proposition --
Can you create a "real" website using a wiki for a "real" fitness and health club that provides specific health, diet and exercises for specific people with certain needs, such as a 60 year old man recovering from a heart attack or a 15 year old soccer player?

The Mission Accomplished group, a doctor, diet specialist, fitness specialist and orthopedic specialist spoke about the yoga classes designed for a 23 year old leukemia patient. They described a selective diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. They said that whoever came to their gym received one to one time, and the staff would create personal connections with everyone. They created online diet tables with pictures. They also brought in a former client "Mr. Malon " [aka Mr. Wolf!] who provided a testimony to the great work done at Mission Accomplished!

The Groove Fitness and Health group expalined that their club was more social than any other gym.They offered a special individualized program for every person, and even provided children's programming. They detailed special programs for a 10 year old gymnast, a 40 year old Survivor participant and a 65 year old recovering from a heart attach. They offered cardio workouts, stretching plans and diet recommendations.
The !BAM! group explained that every professional who works in their gym focuses on the needs of the individual. They stated that the staff values respect and responsibility. They worked closely with a 10 year old dancer and provided real videos of turns, leaps and dance routines for their client to use at home. They embedded these videos within their website, and used them to illustrate how they worked closely to meet their clients' needs.

The Shock Fitness and Health group presented their plan for providing ONLINE personal training programs. The strength and diet experts talked about their recent experiences with a 10 year old tennis player, a 65 year old heart attack survivor, an obese 10 year old and a 50 year old smoker. An easy to read grid was organized to tell and show each client various foods and exercise programs. Pictures of the lungs after smoking, and before and after pictures of some clients were shown.

After the incredible presentations which focused on all of the major systems of the human body and what they need to stay healthy, the students answered my question:

What did you like best about this project?

and they responded:

I learned some incredible presentation skills.
I learned how to research in a group.
I liked pitching and presenting about my company.
I liked gathering information and putting it to GOOD USE!
I enjoyed creating my own clients.
I liked working together and getting to know the people in my group better.

21st Century Librarians Wiki

2009-06-12T22:52:00.002-04:00

Started by Joyce Valenza, library media specialist at Springfield Township High School in Erdenheim, PA, this wiki is for library media specialists, and everyone interested in new strategies to positively impact teaching and learning.

http://21stcenturylibrarians.wikispaces.com/

Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally

2009-06-11T22:58:00.006-04:00

This article in Technology and Learning details the application of Bloom's Taxonomy to learning in the digital world.

http://techlearning.com/article/8670/article/8670

District: 5th Grade Social Studies Pilots

2009-06-10T22:33:00.003-04:00

Today John Bayers, principal of Greens Farms Elementary, led a small group to discuss a summer writing workshop to look at some possible changes in the 5th grade social studies curriculum. The group consisted of Michael Brownstein, technology teacher at LLS; Joe Pullia, 5th grade teacher, CES; Anne Nesbitt, assistant principal, KHS; Nancy Giglio, 5th grade teacher, KHS; Melanie Carroll, 5th grade teacher, LLS; Calla Constantine, 5th grade teacher, GFS; and Dianne Connolly, 5th grade teacher, SES.

The goal of the writing group this summer will be to make some minor changes to the 5th grade study of culture through the exploration of these essential questions:

How do the cultural universals help us compare and contrast various communities?
How does human interaction with natural resources influence the development and survival of a culture?
How do technology and trade affect the growth of a culture?
What contributed to the development and “cultural diffusion” of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome?

The group will look at:

how the four big ideas from the recent social studies curriculum review process are integrated into the social studies units (Global Understanding, Multiple Perspectives, Effective Citizenship, and Historical Thinking)
the possiblity of including "Big Think" activities that provide students with the opportunity to apply their learning to a "real" problem
the inclusion of other ancient civilizations that broaden the understanding of "culture."
the possibility of one or more schools piloting the proposed changes during the 2009-1010 school year.

CES: Crouch/Greenberg 2nd grade/3rd grade Westport/Bridgeport

2009-06-09T21:49:00.002-04:00

Today, for the second time, Stacey Crouch's 2nd grade students at Coleytown Elementary School communicated via Skype with Bob Greenberg's 3rd grade students at Columbus Elementary School in Bridgeport. Bob Greenberg had attended last year's ITL Summer Institute because he is a regular user of Classblogmeister, created by our keynote and workshop leader, David Warlick.

Ms. Crouch and Mr. Greenberg planned the focus of each session and a wiki was created on which the students could asynchronously communicate. The teachers had their students come up with a list of 5 questions to ask their friends while on Skype. During the two 35 minute sessions all students had an opportunity to talk on camera at least once, and most twice.

Before the second session all students read the book City Mouse, Country Mouse and discussed which mouse they felt most like. Students were coached by their teachers to think of other questions to ask each other. One more Skype session is being set up for this year.

The collaboration was designed to complement Westport's 2nd grade social studies unit on understanding urban, suburban and rural communities. Next year Mr. Greenberg will be a 2nd grade teacher, so the grade levels will be the same. Ms. Crouch and Mr. Greenberg are hoping to have their students Skype again next year.

BMS: When/How Do You Use Google Spreadsheets?

2009-06-08T20:28:00.007-04:00

Today Rita Hennessey, LMS and I with Jeremy Royster, 6th grade social studies teacher, worked with a class to test a 6th grade orientation session for next year. This was our second time working with a 6th grade class to create their own rubric to assess websites. We used a Google Spreadsheet with the students, ONE for each of the 5 groups.

We learned something that was not surprising -- if you introduce Google Docs to a group of students for the first time as a vehicle to accomplish a task; the task may not be as important compared to the fun of playing with Google Docs --- changing other people's answers, adding random colors, etc. We decided that the next time we use Google Docs we will limit the number of students in a Google Doc during the first session and provide better guidelines for its use.

(NOTE ABOUT GOOGLE SPREADSHEETS: Last summer I started having a serious problem with Google Spreadsheets. I would prepare a spreadsheet for a workshop, and even after selecting "open for viewing and editing without the use of a password" -- particpants in the workshop would click on the link and reach a password protected page. It became so problematic that I stopped using Google Spreadsheets with groups that I knew did not necessarily have gmail accounts. It was impossible to use them with students. Recently Scott Johnston who works for Google (a friend of Bryan Davis's, a social studies teacher at CMS) solved the problem. It is a bug that will be fixed in the future, but for now, if you are using a Google Spreadsheet link that has been opened to edit without a password, you have to FIRST go to GOOGLE (http://google.com), which places a cookie on your computer. Then you can click on the Google Spreadsheet link and it should open. If it does not repeat the process a few times, and it will!)

Internet 4Classrooms

2009-06-05T23:10:00.000-04:00

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/index.htm

Internet4Classrooms was started 12 years ago, and continues to organize links by subject area and grade level. There are skill level pages for grades K-8. There are subject and special areas listed for K-12 links, including free clip art by subject, smartboard sites, library media specialists topics, and many, many other areas. There are also links to assessments in language arts, math, science and social studies for grades K-12.

KHS - Skype with Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda

2009-06-04T19:58:00.000-04:00

Today at KHS, Tara Doyle, technology teacher, and Elena Wetmore, 1st grade teacher, communicated with a Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda, Emily, a friend of Ms. Wetmore's. Emily first wrote a letter to the class. Then the class wrote letters back to her asking questions. One boy in the class asked Ms. Wetmore if Emily had the Internet and Skype so they could talk with her. Ms. Wetmore wrote to check that out and found out that she did have a computer with Internet access. Many pictures were shared so students could see where and how Emily was living in Rwanda. This is a picture of the road to Emily's job.

Ms. Wetmore and the class talked about the different location, Rwanda, and came up with questions to ask Emily. A script was created and each person who wanted to speak had a part. It was practiced many times. Here it is:

Script for Skyping

Student1: Hi Emily! We are Ms. Wetmore’s Class.
Student2: How are you?
Student3: We are from Westport, CT in the USA.
Student4: Where are you from?
Student5: Did you get the letters we sent you? Were they torn at all?
Student6: What time is it there right now?
Student7: We are growing beans, pumpkins and sweet corn during
science.
Student8: What types of plants are in Rwanda? Do you have a garden?
Student9: Do you have pets or animals around your house?
Student10: What do you miss most about the USA?
Student11: When are you coming back to the USA? Maybe you can come
visit us sometime.
Student12: What is your house like?
Student13: We read about water pumps. How do you get your water?
Student14: Thanks for skyping with us.
ALL: Chow for Now!

As it turns out as they were talking more questions were thought of so there was a line that formed at the microphone.

Although there were some technical problems and the connection was lost, students did get a chance to see and talk with Emily.

Tara Doyle, technology teacher, helped Ms. Wetmore a lot with the technology part of it since it was the first time Ms. Wetmore had used Skype. Because they needed to meet when Emily was available, they did not use their regular computer time, so they met at a different time with Ms. Doyle for the Skype session.

Ms. Wetmore said, "The kids were so into it and learned a lot. I loved seeing them come up with other questions as they heard things (a skill we had worked on when doing a podcast interview about a person's history with Ms. Anctil our library media specialist). "

Map of Rwanda from Wikimedia Commons (Click on image to enlarge.)

KHS: Heroes and New Literacies

2009-06-03T21:13:00.002-04:00

At KHS, on Friday, May 15th, Ali Moran, 5th grade teacher, and Aimee Anctil, LMS, invited parents and others to attend their 5th graders' presentations entitled, "What makes a hero?" This was the culminating project for their hero study.

During this study the students were immersed in "new literacies" for the 21st Century. These "new literacies" were co-taught during Internet workshops by Ms. Moran and Ms. Anctil and included Internet navigation skills, how to read live search results, and the critical evaluation of websites (usefulness and truthfulness).

What makes a hero? was the guiding question throughout the study. The students worked collaboratively to create digital story presentations (using iMovie or Photostory) that effectively expressed what being a hero meant to them.

The presentations were excellent, and the conversation following the presentations was equally amazing. Students reflected on what they learned about using websites, including methods to determine the authority, currency and usefulness of a website.

Students used music created either by Photostory software or GarageBand and some students also selected short pieces (under 28 seconds) of popular music that enhanced and transformed the selected images to tell their "hero stories."

One Sample:

Wider Audience for Student Produced Video

2009-06-02T17:55:00.004-04:00

At an administrators' meeting today, I presented, for a second time, the possibility of having a district sanctioned celebration of student created video in the Westport Public Schools called the Westies. Mike Zito, SHS media teacher, Deb Perry, CMS technology teacher, Barbara Eilertsen, LLS library media specialist, and I created the proposal, which was designed to motivate students to create high quality videos for a broader, authentic audience. The 5h grade entries would come from the students working in some capacity with each elementary school TV studio; the 6-8 videos would come from both the TV studio, the media club and the technology classes learning video editing; and the 9-12 entries would come from video production classes.

While principals and other administrators recognized the potential value of this opportunity for students, several areas emerged as obstacles:

Each elementary school manages the studio in a different way, so there may not be equal opportunity for all 5th graders to produce video.
Competition at the middle and high school has not been promoted by the district in any curriculum area.
Confusion about the connection between the Westies and the Cable Contest.
Confusion about the real purpose of the Westies.

It was determined that a wider audience could be created by putting more student video on Cablevision's local access Channel 78 without the competitive element associated with the Westies. (The competitive element involved the awards ceremony for the middle and high school students.) Permission slips from parents of every child involved in the video would be essential before the video could be shown on Channel 78. Also it was determined that the video contest could continue next year with students submitting video they had created for their TV studio or in clubs or classes.

Train the Trainers Workshops - August 10, 11, 12 and 13th

2009-06-01T21:02:00.005-04:00

Breaking News:

This will be presented at the ITL Steering Committee Meeting on Wednesday, and distributed in an e-mail later this week.

District funding has been given for up to 20 educators to participate in a four-day ITL workshop on August 10, 11, 12 and 13 this summer. The workshops will focus on learning ITL skills by using and/or developing handouts created for specific ITL topics, such as: Blackboard, blogs, Destiny, Google Docs, Google Earth, MovieMaker, PBworks, Picnik, Podcasting, Scratch, Skype, Social Networks for School, subscription databases, Twitter, United Streaming, Ustream-TV, Video Production, Voicethread, Wolfram/Alpha.

We will use the combined knowledge and abilities of the groups to teach each other about some of these topics. I have presented workshops on many of the areas named above, and will use the created handouts to present on those topics.

The goal will be to have a large group of ITL members prepared to either give workshops or train others to give workshops during the 2009-2010 school year.

It is hoped that the participants will learn enough about each topic, and have the necessary resources, to present several workshops (or train others to present workshops) during the school year. The summer ITL workshop time will be considered as preparation for the workshop(s) (2 hours of prep for each hour of training during a staff meeting or a professional development day). Taking the workshop does mean there will be expectations for participants to present workshops if possible, but it is NOT required.

Workshop participants should be members of their school's ITL committee: 2 people from each elementary; 2 people from CMS; 3 people from BMS and 5 people from SHS. Names should be given to principals who can send me an e-mail by June 12th with the names of recommended attendees from each school.

It would be possible for more than 2 people to attend if their are only 2 people from each school on any given day (4 people for example -- where 2 do 2 days, and 2 others attend the other 2 days). The schedule is NOT currently developed, so attendees may not be able to pick areas of interest in advance.

District Literacy Committee Meeting & SHS LMSs use of TRAILS

2009-05-29T16:21:00.004-04:00

After the Elementary District Literacy Committee meeting today I reflected on three things:

1.) I heard from reading teachers at the meeting that elementary students have a more difficult time summarizing material from a nonfiction text than a fiction text. Library media specialists are in a good position to help with the improvement of students' abilities in that area, since much of research deals with summarizing information taken from nonfiction sources.

2.) Ahhh! To have the data! Data-driven instruction based on DRA scores and a variety of other assessments leads to the creation of instructional strategies and differentiated instruction to improve reading and writing skills. As media specialists and technology teachers we need to create/use more assessments that provides data to guide instruction.

3.)....and speaking of DATA -- at this morning's meeting with Julia Roberts and Robin Stiles, LMSs at SHS, Natalie Carrignan, director of instructional technology, and I viewed the recent data collected from an online assessment they gave to 5 English classes. This was a trial run of an online Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (TRAILS -- http://www.trails-9.org/ ) which Robin and Julia will have all 9th graders take during an orientation session at the beginning of next year. The resulting data will be used to determine what areas of instruction might be needed for whole group instruction or for the creation of short video tutorials that will be created for individual viewing by students on specialized topics (such as intellectual property or boolean operators!)

eLearning & Content Advisory Council

2009-05-28T21:01:00.002-04:00

Today I attended a meeting of Connecticut's eLearning & Content Advisory Council, of which I am a member. It was from 3-5 at Charter Oak State College in New Britain. Ed Klonoski, president of Charter Oak State College, chaired the group for the last time, since Vice Chair, Sue Palisano from the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, was selected as the new Chair for next year.

The eLearning & Content Advisory Council is one of four councils to report to the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology.

The Commission is charged with:

Establishing the Connecticut Education Network . (Check out the resources!)
Establishing rigorous standards in technology competency for students, teachers, and administrators.
Establishing the Connecticut Digital Library.
Reporting annually on the progress of educational technology in Connecticut, and making recommendations to the Connecticut General Assembly on matters relating to educational technology. (View the 2009 Annual Report and Recommendations)

[Both the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology and the Connecticut Education Network were listed this afternoon in the Governor's new budget cuts!]

There was a discussion on the free training sessions tomorrow at CREC for all interested middle school Science teachers or administrators on the implementation of the free United Streaming Science video project. The new resource that will soon be available to all middle grades (Grades 6-8) in Connecticut. Connecticut has acquired a statewide license to Discovery Education Science—an award winning standards-based multimedia resource that powers any middle-school science curricula with virtual labs, simulations, interactive videos, reading passages and more, coupled with a real-time assessment component that measures students’ progress.
This is a four-year license and is provided by the Connecticut Education Network (CEN) through the Commission for Educational Technology (CET) at no cost to school districts.

Organized around an inquiry framework and covering physical, earth and space, and life sciences, Discovery Education Science is designed to engage students, encourage exploration, stimulate critical thinking and deepen understanding of science.

Westport teachers will be provided with passwords to access this special science material inside Discovery Education Science (United Streaming). (Read the original letter about this project.) [Click here to get a preview of the service.]

We also talked about utilizing the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium's state license with iTunes University, and looked at possible goals for next year -- including focusing on providing professional development opportunities in a variety of ways.

I hope that the committee is not disbanded and look forward to working on the eLearning & Content Advisory Committee next year.

Science Curriculum Revision - Year ONE

2009-05-27T20:54:00.005-04:00

Image from Arizona State Dept. of Education website:
http://www.ade.state.az.us/sa/images/Science.jpg

I attended a Science Curriculum Revision Committee meeting this afternoon. (Since most meetings were held on Dept Meeting Mondays, I was only able to attend 3 meetings this year.) Harry Rosvally, K-8 science coordinator, convened the 8th and final meeting of this school year. So much has been accomplished this year, and much planning has been done for this summer and committee work for next year.

The agenda included an overview of summer work, and Brian Fagan, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, confirmed that the proposed Science workshops for after July 1st would be funded. A great deal of curriculum work will be done in Science this summer and many committee members will participate in a Scarsdale, New Canaan, Westport Summer Science Institute.

A start was made on a 5-year professional development plan for science with committee members previewing a preliminary document presented by Harry. The document led to a discussion about the areas of focus for professional development over the next 5 years, and the anticipated vision for science education in the year 2014. Should ITL be a strand or should it be part of every strand? (integrated vs. absorbed)

Three committee members attended an AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) workshop for 3 days in New York City earlier this year. They are preparing a presentation on what they learned for all other committee members.

Next year work will be done to align the Westport science curriculum with the CT Science Frameworks K-8. The revisions will be organized in a digital format with at least one inquiry per unit, with prepared assessments and identified resources. Many technologies will be utlized including SmartBoard interactives, websites that use java applets to simulate science concepts, video and podcasts.

In closing Harry talked about the impact of feedback from the recent Tri-State visit and how we could increase communications with our colleagues so that everyone is aware of the science curriculum revision process.

TAG GALAXY

2009-05-26T21:16:00.003-04:00

As I was sitting pondering the Blog entry du jour, an e-mail from Janna Bell, assistant principal at CES, delivered the answer.... TAG GALAXY..

What do you get when you blend folksonomy, Flickr and an interactive solar system interface??? TAG GALAXY!!! Once you enter an initial tag it becomes your "sun" and is surrounded with revolving related planets/tags.
Click on a planet and a new world is created -- with a surface of images from Flickr!!! Click on each image to get some information.

For more information, read this Blog post and/or go directly to TAG GALAXY.

"Apple yanks iMovie 6 download, ends era of appeasement"

2009-05-22T23:44:00.002-04:00

Apple no longer allows for the download of iMovie 6 now that iMovie 9 is available. (Many people have known this for awhile, but I didn't really believe it until today, when I discovered that all roads to the iMovie 6 download have been permanently SHUT DOWN!) iMovie 8 was such a drastic change from iMovie 6, with fewer editing capabilities than its predecessor, that for a year Apple allowed users to download the OLD version for free. Not any more!

You can read the full article in Macworld at:
http://www.macworld.com/article/138476/2009/01/goodbye_imovie6.html

This means that, for those of us involved in video editing who have been using iMovie 6, we will have to learn iMovie 9. Some students have been using iMovie 9 to produce videos , and have found it to be easy with some "very cool effects."

Yet another example of rapid change where a possible solution to learning the new technology is allowing the kids to teach their peers and their teachers.

Area Nine Cable Council and Cablevision of Connecticut

2009-05-21T21:38:00.002-04:00

Area Nine Cable Council and Cablevision of Connecticut
Announce the Winners of
The Annual Access Awareness Awards for Students Grades K – 12

The Educational Access Awareness Awards honor original student television productions cablecast during the school year on Cablevision Educational Access Channel 78. [I am the representative for the Westport schools and attend monthly cable advisory meetings and help plan for the awards and judge video entries.]

Designed to encourage students to develop video production and storytelling skills by creating access television shows relevant to their school and community, the Educational Access Awareness Awards recognize submissions in four separate categories - Public Service Announcement, School/Community Stories, News, and Open Entries.

This year, thirty entries from across Fairfield County received awards. First place Elementary and Middle School projects will be awarded an equipment package for their school. An “Eddy” (Ed Access Trophy) will be presented to individual winners at the HS and MS level and to the school at the Elementary level. A certificate of recognition will be presented to students who participated in First, Second, and Third Place projects. These awards are currently being delivered to schools, and all schools should have them by tomorrow, May 21st.

Congratulations to all of the students and teachers who participated in this year's cable awards program!!!!!!

Awards 2008-2009

High School - School/Community Story
1st Place
“Requiem For The Honeybee” - Greenwich High School
Richard Detmer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Teacher Profile: Mr. Cushman” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

3rd Place - Tie
“Simplicity & Spending” - Convent Of The Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor
and
“Cyber Bullying” - New Canaan HS
Roman Cebulski - Instructor

High School - Open Entries
1st Place
“Hacked” - Greenwich High School
Richard Detmer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Moss’s Mind on Cheating” - Staples High School, Westport
James Honeycutt - Instructor

3rd Place
“Weapon of Choice: Female Suicide Bomber” - Conv. of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

High School - News
1st Place
“Today From The Heart” - Convent of the Sacred Heart
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

2nd Place
“Ram Review, Nov. 2008” - New Canaan High School
Roman Cebulski - Instructor

3rd Place
“Staples HS News” - Staples High School, Westport
Mike Zitto - Instructor

High School - PSA
1st Place
“Support Our Troops” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

2nd Place
“No Cheating” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

3rd Place
“Help Before It’s Too Late” - New Canaan High School
Nicole Giusti, Caitlin Dwyer - Grade 9
Roman Cebulski - Instructor

Middle School - PSA
1st Place
“Global Warming” - Bedford Middle School, Westport
Kathy Fleming - Instructor

2nd Place
“Quit Before You Start” - Bedford Middle School, Westport
Lauren Bullock - Instructor

3rd Place
“School Rules” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

Middle School -Open Entries
1st Place
“President Obama’s Top Priority” - Weston Middle School
Peggy Jorgensen - Instructor

2nd Place
“The Adventures of Knife, Fork & Spoon” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

3rd Place
“Puppy Trainer” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

Middle School - School/Community Story
1st Place
“Cultures” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

2nd Place
“Cyber Bully” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

Elementary School - School/Community Story
1st Place
“The Buzz: Bullying” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Early Gym” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

3rd Place
“News From The Heart” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Kathy Dunn - Instructor

Elementary School - Open Entries
1st Place
“Case of the Missing Presents” - Long Lots Elementary School, Westport
Barbara Eilertsen - Instructor

2nd Place
“Tech Tips” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

3rd Place
“The Money Show” - Kings Highway Elementary School, Westport
Tara Doyle, Nancy Giglio, Timothy Soper - Instructors

Elementary School - PSA
1st Place
“Internet Safety” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Recycle Man” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

3rd Place
“Trashless Lunch” - Long Lots Elementary School, Westport
Barbara Eilertsen - Instructor

A special thanks to:

John Repicky (Wilton), chair of the ANCC Education Committee for all of his work organizing the awards judging, publicity and ordering of trophies and camera packages

Jennifer Young, Cablevision representative, who supports and funds the education initiatives

Carol Weinshel and Evelyn Reeve (Easton/Redding) ANCC members who create all of the student certificates!

and all other members of the ANCC committee who plan and judge the video entries

BMS/SHS: Final Student ITL Committee of the Year

2009-05-20T20:22:00.006-04:00

Julia Roberts, Staples High School library media specialist, visited the final BMS ITL Committee of the year to recruit students to the soon to be created SHS STUDENT ITL COMMITTEE. This student run committee will focus on the use of information and technology by the SHS community. The committee members will also look at current student use of technology in and outside of school and examine how it could be used for educational purposes. The committee will meet one to two times per month. There will be one or more representatives that attend the teacher ITL committee.

The SHS ITL Committee has a former BMS ITL Student Committee member as the first student on the committee, and a few other SHS students have expressed interest. Two 8th graders from BMS are planning to join the high school committee next year.

Meg Tiley, BMS assistant principal, and I have been co-chairing the student committee for 3 years. The student group meets approximately 6 times during the year... 3 official meetings and 3 sub-committee meetings. Students model and create opportunities for other students to use information and technology. This year students continued an idea from the last two committees, and created a live call-in information literacy contest on BAM, the morning TV news program. Another group created a video on how they use technology at home (including the use of Wii, Nintendo, ipods and iTunes). The video was used to promote a contest in which students would create their own videos about personal technology use at home. There were no student entries in this contest.

Next year most of the 25 student members are planning to continue on the committee. New members will be recruited from the elementary feeder schools. There will be an increased use of web 2.0 technologies including Skype, Google Docs, Scratch and other ITL areas of interest to students!

Wolfram/Alpha

2009-05-19T21:13:00.001-04:00

By now you have probably heard from someone about Wolfram/Alpha a new "computational search engine," and if you haven't then you have now!

I have read about it in the following people's blogs, and you can too -- just click on their names:
Kathy Schrock
David Warlick
Joyce Valenza

Enter two towns and it creates a chart comparing population, elevation, and time zones.
Enter formulas, and it computes.
Type in "3 peanut M&Ms" (or any quantity of any food) and you will get a detailed nutritional analysis.

It is just the beginning of a new way of turning objective data into computable data!
Watch a Screencast,
then...
Give it a try!
http://www78.wolframalpha.com/

2009-05-18T22:59:00.004-04:00

Today Deb Perry, technology teacher at CMS, and I visited Suffern Middle School in New York, primarily to see students working in Second Life (on Ramapo Islands) with Peggy Sheehy, library media specialist. (If you do a search on Peggy Sheehy on this blog you will find links and more information about her in two other ITL posts.) We learned a great deal from our visit -- about student use of Second Life and so much more!

(Peggy Sheehy, LMS, working with a class in Second Life)

Early in the day we met:

Dr. Robert MacNaughton, school superintendent
Mrs. Judy Barbera, assistant superintendent for instruction
Mr. James Yap, director of instructional technology and data
Eleanor Schuster, library media specialist
Brian Fox, principal
Teresa Ivey, assistant principal

We learned that the superintendent's vision includes exploring new technologies that support his view of a "flattened world." This includes trusting Peggy's abilities to align curricular goals and objectives with the student work in Second Life.

James Yapp has provided considerable support and has worked with Peggy Sheehy to find solutions to any problems that had to be considered over the 4 years since Peggy introduced Second Life as a learning vehicle in the school.

We observed two groups of students working with Peggy Sheehy and Gayle Yodowitc, Family Consumer Science teacher, working on their private islands in Second Life. Students brushed up their avatars, sent an IM to become a member of a new group, and heard the plan for their upcoming work to prepare for a debate on" Should teens have credit cards?" Both teachers worked with students in Second Life, and it was clear that the work in Second Life was motivational and focused students on their debate research.

(Student preparing avatar for a debate.)

We learned about other technology initiatives in the library media center and the school. There are 3 class sets of computers available in the LMC - one MAC lab and one PC lab in the LMC, and one more MAC lab in a separate room in the LMC. A glass wall will soon be built around 2 of the computer areas in the LMC to make the labs more private, and another class set of computers is going around the more flexible area in the LMC where large group activites can take place with a Promethean board available. The former TV studio in the LMC is being rebuilt as a video conference center. The school is completely wireless with many laptops available.

There is a 40 week technology program for all students called Gateway to Learning: Gateway to Technology. Two former wood-working rooms now have full computer labs in them. 6h graders have 10 weeks of technology classes, with a class every day. 7th graders have 20 weeks of technology classes with a class every day, and 8th graders have 10 weeks of technology classes with a class every day. The focus is on critical and creative thinking and problem solving.

During our visit students were creating podcasts in Garageband with the 2nd library media specialist, Elenaor Schuster.

We also learned about Saywire,which is currently being implemented K-8. Saywire is a secure social/academic network. Peggy talked about her use of Quest Atlantis as another MUVE (multi-user virtual environment). We learned about Peggy's work with Bernajean Porter, author of the book DigiTales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories (who visited Suffern Middle School and worked with 75 students for 4 days last year). We viewed an amazing and powerful digital story that Peggy created in a DigiTales workshop, called All that Glitters.

This post does not cover all that we experienced and learned on this incredible site visit, but you get the idea! It was amazing. We plan to further synthesize our experience and determine if and how we can implement a student presence in a virtual environment.

Thanks to Peggy Sheehy and all the incredible staff who welcomed us to Suffern Middle School today!!!

CMS: All My Faves

2009-05-15T23:32:00.002-04:00

At the CMS ITL meeting this week, chaired by Deb Perry, technology teacher and David Rosvally, Science Teacher, All My Faves was demonstrated during the Tech Tip portion of the meeting.

This site is a great tool for teachers. It provides the top ten sites in 8 categories (see 8 tabs on top: Home, Education, Entertainment, Games, Kids, Shopping, Travel, and Weekly Faves - Image below is from the Education tab.)

(Click on image to display larger view)

Inside each tab there are numerous categories with the "best" 8-10 sites listed with the companies icon. The rating of best is based on use.

MACHINIMA

2009-05-14T20:03:00.003-04:00

Deb Perry and I attended a Machinima presentation in Second Life this week sponsored by ISTE and given by Knowclue Kidd, who in real life is Marianne Malmstrom, a technology teacher at Elizabeth Morrow school in New Jersey. (A previous post from April 1st focused on her work with Peggy Sheehy on the video, No Future Left Behind.)

Knowclue (shown in the picture above) explained the value of students creating videos or machinima inside a virtual world (such as Quest Atlantis or Teen Second Life). Costuming, sets and storylines are "free" and not limited by reality. Students are highly motivated by this environment, as can be viewed in some of the projects below

Knowclue shared some of her students' videos.Some of the videos did not play, but the links provided an opportunity to see the videos outside of Second Life. Here are some of the links she provided so you can get a sense of the work she is doing.

Deb and I will be visiting Suffern Middle School in New York on Monday to see Peggy Sheehy's work with students in Teen Second Life, so you will be reading another post on this topic next week!

SHS: PTA Book Fair leads to a Stratford/Westport Collaboration

2009-05-13T19:58:00.008-04:00

Last year Kristin Veenema, English teacher at SHS created a proposal to use some of the profits of the school Book Fair. This proposal has since become a reality!

The purpose:

To provide students with an authentic audience for their thoughts on a text
To provide a reading experience that mirrors “what real readers do”
To broaden students’ awareness of others beyond their respective districts
To identify how differing backgrounds contribute to text interpretation
To foster inter-district and inter-community connections

Proposal:

The money collected from Book Fair 2008 will be used to purchase two class sets of one text, one that will stay at Staples HS and one that will be loaned to an area school. Through a Google application or a Voice Thread, all participating students (Staples and other school) will participate in an online discussion forum about the selected text.

Barnes and Noble / Staples Book Fair 2009 will host a gathering for all participating students as part of this year’s fair, which will occur after the online discussion so students can meet one another in person after interacting online.

This project can be continued in a variety of ways:
• Other classes, beyond the pilots in both schools, can read the books as an outside reading option or as participants in their own online forum.
• Continue the online forum by purchasing two class sets of another text.
• Continue the online forum but choose a new partner school with which to discuss texts.
• Eventually extend the program to online discussions between schools in different states or countries.

Presently Kristen Veenama has created a private wiki (PBworks) called shswallflowers to implement the project. Students from Staples High School and Stratford High School are regularly commenting on the wiki and relationships are being developed. On Monday, some students from both classes will meet at a Barnes & Noble event here in Westport. This is an unexpected and incredible learning opportunity that has been created from the profits of a Book Fair! We need more proposals and activities like this, I think!

(Click on the image to enlarge.)

Collaborating with Dolphins and Panthers!

2009-05-12T22:00:00.007-04:00

If you are a library media specialist you know that I am not talking about aquatic and land mammals. I am referring to the portable handheld devices shown below.Many library media specialists are currently using (or will soon be using) these portable handheld devices (PHDs) to inventory all of their resources. Our school media centers each have between 20,000 and 38,000 items -- so this is not a small chore.

The task is managed by the library media specialist with one or more library assistants. They work closely with parents to ensure that every item in the collection has its barcode scanned and collected by a laser beam sent from a DOLPHIN and/or PANTHER. These scans are then (sometimes easily and sometimes not) imported into our library automation system, Destiny. A report is generated which highlights problems, that individually must be reconciled in the system

Why an inventory, you ask?

An inventory is used to locate lost materials, find materials thought to be checked out to patrons, identify some materials that need to be weeded or repaired, and ensure that materials are fully organized.

Library media inventories are more "behind the scenes" events that manage, organize and support the delivery of a wide range of ITL resources to all members of our school communities.

Google Custom Search Engine

2009-05-11T21:43:00.005-04:00

I know that many teachers have learned to create their own custom search engines (CSEs), but this post is for those teachers who haven't heard about this... or, those who want to find out how they have improved!
The Google Custom Search Engine has many applications. Teachers can create a search engine that will only search sites that have been pre-selected. Middle and high school students can create search engines to help others find information on their research topics.

With Google Custom Search Engine, you can:

* Create a CSE at any time and Google will give you a landing page with a unique URL. You also have the option of applying your own site's look and feel.
* Invite friends and colleagues to collaborate and contribute to your search engine, enhancing its usefulness to your community.
* Provide your own search refinements within results pages so it's easier for your users to find the information they're looking for.
* Easily add more sites to your search engine's index as you surf the web.
* New! You can create a CSE on the fly simply by cutting and pasting a few lines of code into your website's HTML. Your new automatically generated CSE will let people search the websites you've linked to, as well as the sites they link to. For instance, if you've created a directory, a blog roll, or a list of online resources, your CSE will enable your users to search across these sites and the sites they reference.
Google For Educators - Custom Search Engine (11 May 2009)
http://www.google.com/educators/p_cse.html

Look at Mrs. Gray's Sample

http://snipurl.com/hu3zh
If you create some custom search engines, please share them.

CES: Using the GROUPS feature for Discussion Boards

2009-05-08T21:51:00.000-04:00

Joe Pullia, 5th grade teacher at CES, conducted a unit of study with his students on the Newbery Award. He chose to use the Discussion Board tool in Blackboard as a way to motivate students to have "conversations" about five books that received the Newbery Medal. Utilizing the Manage Groups feature in Blackboard [Control Panel/User management/Manage Groups], student groups were created.
The 5 groups were set up to include their own discussion board with specific students enrolled in each group. When a new button was set up for the groups a Tool Link was added, with the tool type being Groups.
Mr. Pullia noted that the discussion boards have motivated students to write more, share more, and go deeper into various issues and characters in the book. He said that that one huge advantage of the groups feature is the ability to differentiate instruction, since a group can be created for even a single student. Janna Bell, assistant principal, has been included as part of the discussion groups and often responds to posts and asks questions to promote dialog.

Here is a sample section of one books discussion with student names erased (click on image for larger view):
One student said that she really enjoys using discussion boards and especially the Newbery discussion board because she can "talk" with her classmates even when she is home. She said that she gets some ideas about the book that she didn't even think about, and she gives other kids new ideas about the book too!

The GROUPS tool adds another way to manage discussion boards and provides a system for supporting differentiated instruction.

Upcoming ITL Steering Committee Meeting - JUNE 3rd

2009-05-07T21:01:00.003-04:00

On June 3rd the ITL Steering Committee Meeting will take place in the SHS LMC at 1:45. This will be the third and final meeting of the year with the chairs and representatives from each school ITL committee.

What would you like to have happen at this meeting?

SHS: Why Is the Odyssey Important Today?

2009-05-06T21:16:00.004-04:00

Werner Liepolt, English teacher at SHS, has engaged his 3 classes of freshmen English students in a thorough exploration of Homer's Odyssey. The essential question focused on the influence of the Odyssey on present day life. One final component of this multi-faceted unit engaged students in a research project that included Robin Stiles, library media specialist.

In this part of the study the students had to do a citation for a movie, a piece of art, and three articles. They had already watched the movie, Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? and viewed artwork in class. In the LMC students used the Internet Movie Database (imdb) website for information on the movie. They also used museum websites to find information on the artwork.

Since the students were freshmen they were asked to limit their searching to Ebsco or iConn for the articles and Robin went into great detail about citing the actual source of the article, not just the database that it appeared in.

Students used Noodlebib, part of Noodletools, to create and share note cards with tags.

Emphasis was placed on the building blocks of the research process, demonstrating that the better the organization, citations and notations, the easier the creation of the final paper. Students were told that this process would be very similar to that of their junior research paper.

Werner brought his 3 classes to the LMC once a week for 3 weeks. The students completed a short essay from their synthesized research. The classes were successful in learning some of the major building blocks for their research papers in the future.

[This post can not do justice to the many facets of this study, most of which occured in the classroom, but the rubrics, graphic organizers and assignments are available on Werner Liepolt's website.]

Visitors from Irvington, NY

2009-05-05T20:40:00.017-04:00

L to R: Christina Rosenblatt, LMS K – 3; Greer Fischer, Assistant Superintendent;
Jackie Richardson, LMS 4-5; Joann Malloy, LMS 6 – 12;
missing from photo - Jesse Lubinsky, Technology Coordinator

Today five visitors from the Irvington, NY public schools (pictured and named above) visited four of our schools to observe the ITL program. They specifically wanted to see instances where technology was integrated into the library media program and/or examples of collaboration between a library media specialist, a technology teacher and a classroom teacher.

OUR DAY:

8:30 AM -- We all met at Long Lots School. Barbara Eilertsen, LMS, and Michael Brownstein, technology teacher, worked with 12 5th graders who produced the daily school news program in their TV Studio. Spanish teachers explained the history of Cinco de Mayo, students read poetry, happy birthdays were given, and summer programs were advertised. Brian Fagan, assistant superintendent, welcomed the group and time was spent discussing our ITL scope and sequence and curriculum, our ITL committee structure in our schools and the process of TV production at LLS.

9:20 AM -- The 5 visitors and I, in role as the EARTH MIGRATION BIOME DECISION-MAKING PANEL from the planet SHTAM (named with the first letters of each of the 4th grade teachers involved: Sullivan, Harper, Taft, Ackerman, Malbin) observed four presentations from Phaedra Taft's 4th grade. Michael Brownstein and Barbara Eilertsen had collaborated and worked with Phaedra Taft and her class on a study of biomes. This activity had been planned as a "Big Think" -- a final activity designed to promote higher level thinking. Each presentation focused on which biome should be colonized by the people needing to leave the overcrowded planet of SHTAM, and the Smartboard with Notebook software was used in the presentation. Two groups chose the Andes mountains, and two groups chose the rain forest. The "SHTAMIAN PANEL" questioned each group and could not decide between the mountains and the rain forest. Students were asked if they could add new facts to persuade the panel to change their decision. (Some new content was provided in a very emotionally charged final plea to colonize either mountain or rain forest regions.) Ultimately the panel decided to give the SHTAMIANS a choice to settle in both regions, with the thought that trade between the two regions would be beneficial. The students suggested that mountains and rain forest exist next to each other in Bolivia. Watch out Boliva -- The SHTAMIANS are coming!

10:50 AM -- Bedford Middle School for a very quick visit. In the library media center we spoke with Rita Hennessey, LMS, about the 7th grade Science research project that was in progress in the media center - Techford Area. We moved to the technology lab where Kathy Fleming, technology teacher, was working with a group of 7th graders on video editing.

11:30 AM -- Staples High School. Julia Roberts and Robin Stiles, library media specialists, prepared several handouts and a DVD for our guests. While we enjoyed lunch, Robin and Julia talked about a new assessment program for ITL skills (TRAILS) that they are piloting with some 9th grade classes this year, which will hopefully be given to all 9th graders next year. They talked about some of the features of their library media program. Natalie Carrignan, director of instructional technology, gave an overview of some district ITL accomplishments and described some works in progress (such as the implementation of an Internet Safety Curriculum in the 2009-10 school year).

1:00 PM -- Coleytown Middle School. John Horrigan, library media specialist, provided an overview of a 6th grade French class working with French teacher, Sharon Gardner, on a study of Quebec. Students used a rubric to prepare a topic, conduct research and present results in a Photostory. [For information related to the class: http://cms.westport.k12.ct.us/cmslmc/foreignlanguages/Quebec.htm]

At 1:25, after visiting the TV Studio we went to a computer lab where Deb Perry, technology teacher and TV coordinator, worked with 8th grade students to setup an electronic portfolio in Blackboard using the content of their recent research projects on green technology topics. John Horrigan worked with the students on this project as well.

2:00 PM -- Irvington Public School visitors returned to New York. It was great to share information and technology literacy stories and activities with each other.

GFS: Time, Continuity and Change

2009-05-04T20:50:00.001-04:00

Recently at GFS the 1st grade teachers, Mary Ellen Barry, Ellen Mason, Shannon Utecht, MarySue Welch and library media specialist, Kelley Auringer and technology teacher, Sally Wanamaker with guest presenter, Michael Urban, owner of Urban Antique Radio & Vintage Hi-Fi created a TRIP THROUGH TIME for all the 1st grade students!

Michael Urban shows 1st graders antigue radios.

Students had a passport that needed to be stamped as they made their way to different "artifact stations" where various tools and equipment were displayed and presented to students.

Mary Ellen Barry shows 1st graders a washboard.

Kelley Auringer, LMS, shows 1st graders a typewriter.

Students later researched the artifacts and created a digital photostory in the computer lab. Through these activities students were engaged in thinking about this essential question:

How would your life be different if you were a member of a family living in an earlier time period?

SES: Big 6 and the Value of Reflection

2009-05-01T18:25:00.004-04:00

The Big6 Problem Solving Process was created by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz.

RaeAnne Locke, LMS at SES, recently reintroduced the Big6 to 4th graders before they began research for their biome unit. In order to help students identify with the steps of research, she decided to tweak the lesson to include a student reflection -- a quick write demonstrating how the steps directly impacted their daily work. In the quick write students were asked to think about the step they enjoyed the most and why, which one they felt they did the best and why, and which one they wanted to improve on and why.

She found this to be an easy, quick and valuable enhancement to the traditional Big6 check- off list because it helped give ownership to them as researchers and demonstrated how the Big6 impacted them personally. Once the biome unit is over, there will be another Big6 reflection to see what changes there will be based on more experience.

Some of the student reflections included:

“I like synthesis best because it is like the whole job coming to life. It is fun to see your work on board. I think I should work harder on evaluation because I don’t spend enough time evaluating my work.”
“My best step is Location and Access (step 3) because I like going to the resources, using the tools, and getting information. I would like to get better at step 4 because I need to work at putting things in my own words.”
“I like step 3 the best because I like to read a sentence and figure out what it means. I like to read magazines and websites a lot. I want to do synthesis better because I get shy when I present.”

CMS: Music Movies

2009-04-30T18:03:00.007-04:00

Amy Laurino, Music teacher at CMS, recently challenged students to create an iMovie on the Eras of Jazz. Students were required to begin with at least two images dealing with American Roots Music and Blues Music. They then had to cover each of these Eras and present information on each composer and style listed:

1. Early Jazz Era (1850-1910)
Jelly Roll Morton and Scott Joplin

2. Hot Jazz Era (1910-1944)
Boogie Woogie, Swing, and Progressive Swing Music.
Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, King Oliver

3. Cool Jazz Era (1944-1970)
Bebop / Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk
Cool Jazz / Miles Davis
Also Afro-Latin Jazz / Dizzy Gillespie
Hard Bop / Art Blakey
World Fusion / Keith Jarrett
Free Jazz / John Coltrane

4. Modern Jazz Rock Era (1970-2009)
Jazz Rock Fusion / Pat Metheny OR Chick Corea
Neo-bop / Wynton Marsalis OR Wayne Shorter

5. Add a conclusion, where do you think Jazz is headed?

Here is one sample of a final product (it is 29 minutes):

BMS: ART in the MIDDLE [school] AGES

2009-04-29T23:11:00.006-04:00

THE BEDFORD COMMUNITY OF

LINE, SHAPE, DIRECTION SIZE, TEXTURE, COLOR, VALUE, BALANCE, GRADATION, REPETITION, CONTRAST, HARMONY, DOMINANCE, UNITY, PERSPECTIVE, ABSTRACT, SCULPTURE, CUBIST, SURREALISTIC, CARTOON, MODERN, COLLAGE, MOSAIC, MULTI-MEDIA, PHOTOGRAPHY, CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING are some of the concepts and skills that students worked with in the creation of the hundreds of art projects on display on two floors in Bedford Middle School.

Of course art is important in its own right, and many students will become "real" artists. But producing and appreciating art plays a role in all of our lives.

Dan Pink says that design is an essential 21st Century Skill. Strong art and design skills when combined with content in other areas (history, psychology, law, engineering, catering, health care, etc.) create new job descriptions and new ways of relating and collaborating. These skills help individuals differentiate their skill sets and special abilities from the skill sets of others. These skills are regularly applied in all subject areas at school (as evidenced by some previous blog posts) when students are asked to synthesize and present their thoughts, research and writing. Tonight's student ART display at BMS is an indication that all students are learning many principles of art and design.

Art and design are essential ingredients in the information literacy problem solving process. Decisions need to be made at all steps in the process which may be impacted by design questions, but especially must be considered in the synthesis/presentation stages of the process.

There was also a multi-media gallery and a video installation called Project Run Away, an animated mannequin fashion video projected on a white abstract human body.

Music was also an important part of the Art Show with two student string groups performing -- one in the library media center and the other in the cafeteria, with plenty of food for the crowd of parents, teachers, administrators and students.

Congratulations to the three Art teachers -- Lynne Karmen, Peter DiFranco and Cecily Cowburn.

Video Contest Evaluation Day

2009-04-28T20:36:00.007-04:00

I spent the day with 7 other members of the Area Nine Cable Council's Education Committee (colleagues from Weston, Wilton, New Canaan, Greenwich and Redding). We evaluated this year's entries in the Cable Contest at the Cablevision offices in Norwalk. Each video was scored using a rubric (click on the image for a larger view).

All entries had to be shown on Cablevision's Local Access channel. Westport had 32 videos entered in the contest in four categories: News (high school only), Open Entry, Community/School Story and PSA (Public Service Announcements). After the first round of judging, 21 of the videos remained to be judged with all of the other entries.

The following schools submitted videos in the contest and ALL schools received awards -- either a first, second or third prize. [Awards will be prepared (trophies, and certificates with some equipment packages for 1st prize winners) and officially announced by the end of May!]

Our students should have the ability to compellingly communicate ideas in a video format. With this skill students will be more marketable in almost any career imaginable. Hopefully next year we will have another venue to celebrate the art and science of video creation in our schools -- the Westies!

SHS:Dan Geraghty Creates an Amazing Author Visit with Craig Mullaney

2009-04-27T22:01:00.004-04:00

Craig Mullaney

Last Wednesday afternoon, March 22nd, Dan Geraghty, English teacher at SHS, interviewed author, Craig Mullaney, via a live Skype connection. Students from Dan Geraghty’s sophomore English 2A, B and contemporary American literature classes, with Christina Richardson’s speech class made up the audience. Craig Mullaney is the author of The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education (Penguin Press) and a U.S. Army veteran.

Dan Geraghty originally read the book because of personal interest, specifically related to his connection to Craig's background: Craig and Dan served in the same military unit on active duty in the 10th Mountain Division. Both are Army Rangers and Infantry Captains. They both left the military after a period of service in order to pursue other interests. Dan was using the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien as a class text and he realized how relevant Craig's story would be as a non-fiction supplement to the text. Dan was able to connect with Craig Mullaney through Facebook, and Craig was enthusiastically willing to "visit" Dan's classes via Skype!During the 45 minute interview Dan Geraghty had prepared his own questions and selected some questions from his students. (The full video interview will be available soon and added to this blog post.) Craig Mullaney reflected on his life experiences at West Point, Oxford University and as the leader of his army platoon in Afghanistan. The interview was riveting and poignant. Craig's story is archetypal and his focus on growing up and taking responsibility for something greater than himself was inspiring.

I do not think that this interview would have been any more powerful if Craig Mullaney was actually at the school. For all intents and purposes he WAS fully present, which speaks to the power of video conferencing and Skype.

Inklings, Staples school newspaper, published an article today with more information on this amazing event.

GFS: TV10 visits McMahon Communications Center at Quinnipiac University

2009-04-24T18:30:00.009-04:00

On Tuesday, April 21, 2009 the 5th grade members of the GFS TV10 club visited the Ed McMahon Mass Communications Center at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT. Kelley Auringer, LMS, arranged and managed the visit.

Quinnipiac students in the School of Communication led the TV10 crew through a tour of Quinnipiac's state of the art television studio and broadcasting program. The TV10 crew was allowed to use Quinnipiac's professional level technology and equipment to produce their own news show. The students' favorite part was working with the green chromakey wall and producing the weather. There was a lot of laughter, excitement and fun as the learning took place. By all accounts the field trip was wonderful and will be considered by many to be a highlight of the TV10 year.

KHS: Poetry Cafe

2009-04-23T20:23:00.008-04:00

Cats, My Mother Has…, Flags, Keep a Poem in your Pocket, Behind the Eyes of Me, Alex, Blank, Summer, Black Cat, The P---l Family, Water, Snowboarding, Seasons, The Bells of London, Dream, Owl, Dreams, Self-Portrait, Darkest, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Don't Trust the Fog, A Tour of the World, Crescent Moon, Leave it all on the Court, A Nightly Stroll, Paper, Life Roller Coaster, Tree, When Deaf Don Met Talkie Sue, Umbrella, and Live, Laugh, Discover.

Those were the names of the 30 poems read at the 5th annual KHS Poetry Café held in the library media center last night. It was organized and led by Aimee Anctil, LMS. Students registered in advance. Over 20 poems were written by students, and the other poems by well-known poets were selected by students to read.

The library media center was transformed into a cozy, lamp-lit, table-clothed, artsy, café environment filled with cookies, chocolate milk and other comfort foods and drinks. It was conducive to the sharing of personal, family, humorous, serious, happy, anxious, sad and foggy poetry! The standing room only crowd listened attentively to each poet's rendition of his or her poem. Café applause filled the word drenched atmosphere after each mouthing at the microphone. It was an evening to remember!

Information Literacy embodies the use of ALL kinds of information. This Poetry Café event demonstrates that writing, reading, sharing, communicating and socializing with family and the school community are all important aspects of what happens in a school library media center. The Café experience is one important part of a multi-faceted library media program at KHS.

LLS: ITL Committee Meeting

2009-04-22T21:16:00.004-04:00

I was fortunate to attend the Long Lots School ITL Committee meeting yesterday afternoon from 3:00-4:00. Steve Cerney, ITL committee chair, and Nick Brophy, Assistant Principal, unveiled the four new ITL committee objectives to work with through the end of this school year, but more importantly, to guide the group for the 2009-2010 school year.

An overview of the current status of the 21st century skills was provided utilizing the Voicethread embedded in the ITL homepage. A discussion by group members determined that grade level teams would decide which 21st century skill to focus on in each unit of study. Strategies for teaching the listed 21st century skills would be documented during the 2009-2010 school year.

CES: Trash and Treasure

2009-04-21T19:32:00.001-04:00

Sarah Spencer, LMS at CES, has been working with 2nd grade students on several sessions using the Big6 Trash and Treasure method of note taking. First she showed a Powerpoint presentation to introduce the concept of how you need a question in order to know how to find the treasure! Today's lesson involved reading a variety of fiction and non-fiction books (some wordless alphabet books) in search of treasures to answer the question, "Why is this community an urban community?"

In the lesson I observed today with Karen Nelson and her class, students were asked to use the special note taking sheet to record their treasure words and the pages on which they were found. Each pair worked with a different book with several adults supporting their efforts. They were asked to find at least 10 treasure words before time was called and they shared their treasures.

All 2nd grade classes are also working with Pam Syndercombe, technology teacher, on trash and treasure activities. Having the same terminology used by the classroom teacher, technology teacher and library media specialist is helping students understand and practice the art of selecting information that is related to the research question.

Blackboard Clinics

2009-04-20T14:01:00.006-04:00

Today was my second Blackboard Clinic. I am spending a full day at each school to provide Blackboard assistance for interested teachers -- from setting up the basic menu (Teacher Info, Class Overview, Announcements and Assignments), to a wide variety of additional features, including (but not limited to) adding videos, images and html code. There are many new video tutorials on specific Blackboard features made by Natalie Carrignan, Director of Instructional Technology. These tutorials can be found under the BB tab after logging in.

The Blackboard Clinic Schedule:

BMS - April 8th
SHS - April 20th
CES - April 29th
GFS - May 6th
KHS - May 7th
CMS - May 13th
SES - May 14th
LLS - May 19th

To Schedule time: Click on this link
(E-mails are sent out approximately two weeks before the Clinic dates!)

KHS: SEVEN WEEKS OF SCRATCH

2009-04-09T14:55:00.015-04:00

(This is a follow up to Blog Post Feb. 26th where we learned that a Scratch group was started at KHS!) -- This morning I had the incredible opportunity to observe the culminating event of a 7 week SCRATCH group of students who met one morning a week before school. Two months ago, two students came to Aimee Anctil, LMS at KHS, to talk about their recent experience at a Saturday workshop in Darien in which they learned how to program with SCRATCH. Ms. Anctil asked the students if they would like to teach her and other interested students how to use Scratch. Now, the first 7-week Scratch course is over... with plans for a second!

Today parents, siblings and future Scratch students (who plan to enroll in the SECOND Scratch series) were in the audience. The presentations were structured to put the students in the driver's seat. They showed their work and talked about creating, remixing and posting Scratch files. They showed the MIT site and talked about some of the projects that they learned from and how they downloaded and "remixed" them. The two leaders are planning their strategies for the next series of Scratch workshops, which will have new students (beginners) and repeating students (advanced). The two student teachers have divided their responsibilities to each be with one of the two groups.

The example below was created by one of the student leaders, whose Scratch name for posting on the Scratch website is Popeyeblack0.

In a rapidly changing culture, Margaret Mead pointed out that the young have to teach the old. Kids regularly learn "games" and the use of certain technologies earlier than many adults. Asking them to teach their peers and willing adults provides them an opportunity for not only learning the content at a deeper level, but also allows them to develop many other important skills, such as collaboration and communication. They are also highly motivated by the passion they have for the subject.

This morning's culminating Scratch sharing BY kids for kids and adults was a great opportunity to view how "old concepts" (independent learning, flexibility, opportunity to fail, design, collaboration, determining audience, critical thinking) are reframed in the 21st century. Great job SCRATCH kids! Great job Aimee Anctil!

... and now school stops (as does this blog) until April 20th. See you then!

BMS: Magic School Bus - 7th Grade Science/English

2009-04-08T22:32:00.001-04:00

At BMS each year Science and English are integrated in a special interdisciplinary project where students create a children's book on a science concept modeled after the Magic School Bus series by Joana Cole and published by Scholastic. Today I was fortunate to be in Kimberly Materese's 7th grade Science class held in a computer lab, but you might have thought it was an English class, or maybe an Art class, or possibly a Technology or Library Media class. Wait a minute! It was!

Students were working on the story and layout of their children's book on computers, and each book focused on a specific science topic, such as gravity, Pluto, meteors, black holes, and others. (See topic list below.) In English class students worked on their nonfiction story to entertain and teach others about their science topic. Students were using their checklists and rubrics to self-assess their book. They were extremely excited and proud of their work. All students were focused on last minute efforts to perfect the mechanics, content, story and art work of their book, since the project is due tomorrow, April 9th.

Rita Hennessey, LMS, was also working with students on many aspects of their project, including the use of Noodletools to create a thorough Works Cited page for every book.

Thanks to Mrs. Matarese, here are the rubrics, checklists and other documents used for this project:

... and a sample page from Matt and Jeremy's book on Gravity...

Play with the Solar System

2009-04-07T17:32:00.005-04:00

This website allows users to view the movement of the planets over ANY period of time.
Users can control:

the speed of time passing -- both forward and backward
the angle of viewing the solar system
the distance from planets
the measurements in Astronomical Units, Kilometers or Miles between any two objects
the playing of existing tours and the creation of their own tours
and much more!

For an unusual tour of our solar system, check out this website:
http://www.gunn.co.nz/astrotour/

Take the introductory tour to learn some of the shortcuts (such as press the + or - keys to zoom in or out; use your left mouse click to move the solar system around; hold the shift key down while you move the solar system and rotate the entire solar system on an axis).

Repeat POST: Please fill out Google Doc Form below!

2009-04-06T19:13:00.000-04:00

If you go to Google Docs (enter your login and password or create an account) then go to NEW/ FORM, you will be creating a new form that allows you to collect data from as many people as are willing to respond. The data will automatically be entered in a Google spreadsheet in your Google Docs account with the same name as the name you gave the form, and each entry will be recorded in a separate row in the spreadsheet.

The form can be embedded (SEE SAMPLE BELOW) in most digital communication systems, including Blackboard, a wiki, an e-mail or a blog. If you are doing this with a full class and you have the spreadsheet open on a screen or Smartboard, as each student answers questions on the form, they will appear in the document when you refresh the page. Since the information is in a spreadsheet you can sort the information based on any criteria.

In this case I am collecting information on readers of this blog. Your answers will go into a spreadsheet in my Google Docs.

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If you would like to utilize this tool for an activity in your class or school, and you would like more help in setting it up, please contact me:
Email: Bill Derry

Use Google Docs to Collect Data- PLEASE FILL OUT THE FORM IN THIS POST

2009-04-03T17:48:00.005-04:00

Leo the Lion Tours America -- When Will He Return?

2009-04-02T19:46:00.006-04:00

Long Lots has celebrated reading all month, and their school mascot, Leo the Lion, has traveled around the United States sending postcards along the way. Michael Brownstein, technology teacher, Barbara Eilertsen, library media specialist, Becky Laus, 1st grade teacher, Kendall Alderman, music teacher, and others have monitored Leo's travels on their daily television program. A Google Earth file was created to show a photo-journal of the places that Leo has visited in America and it can be downloaded ( and it will automatically open in your Google Earth -- IF you have it on your computer) [You can download it here as well as on the Long Lots School HOME PAGE.]

Students have read hundreds of books to celebrate Leo's journey across America, and the entire school will be gathering tomorrow at a community meeting to celebrate all of the reading done in the past month.

This project promoted school spirit, met many ITL objectives and developed social studies and language arts skills.

No Future Left Behind

2009-04-01T19:41:00.001-04:00

Marianne Malmstrom, a technology teacher at Elizabeth Morrow school, created the video below with Peggy Sheehy, the media specialist at Suffern Middle School in New York. Peggy and Marianne are both leaders in working with students and teachers in virtual worlds. I first met Marianne (aka Knowclue Kidd) when she was presenting student machinima at a lecture in Second Life. I then asked her to present her machinima work with students virtually with me at a conference in Florida last November. We have continued to communicate via Skype and Second Life, and I was very impressed with the video when I previewed it before it was presented. Although I shared it with ITL staff in early March, I wanted to share it with a broader audience.

Marianne and Peggy created this video as a keynote for the Net Generation Education Project: http://netgened.wikispaces.com

When kids at the Suffern Middle School Tech Club were asked to talk about education and their future, they gave Peggy Sheehy, the SMS media specialist, an earful. Other students heard about the project and joined in. They brainstormed the script and started filming. Listen and learn the bits of wisdom that can be gleaned from the students, if we only dare to ask them.

Students from The Elisabeth Morrow School Tech Club contributed machinima created in Quest Atlantis.

Marianne Malmstrom (aka Knowclue) worked remotely with the students of Suffern to create machinima of their avatars.

Original music, "Harpsicord" was created by a former Suffern Middle School student, Larry Bordowitz.

All editing was done by Peggy Sheehy and Marianne Malmstrom.

Opportunities and Challenges for Web 2.0 in Schools

2009-03-31T22:00:00.003-04:00

Today at CES (Cooperative Educational Services) I joined Natalie Carrignan, Director of Instructional Technology, at a meeting for many technology coordinators. Before the official meeting we were part of a live 1-hour Technology and Learning Webinar, sponsored by Lightspeed Systems with several excellent presenters:

Alan November, an expert in educational technology, discussed the opportunities for creating communities of learners and enhancing education in the 21st century. He advocated going beyond the techno-centric and suggested creating 6 new learning jobs for students that parallel the changes in our culture: Daily Researcher, Curriculum Researcher, Global Communicator, Tutorial Designer, Curriculum Reviewer, and Daily Scribe.

Ellen Bialo and Jay Sivin Kachala from the research firm IESD (Interactive Educational Systems Design) discussed the results of a new survey of technology directors and what the implications of those findings are for school districts around the United States. (Survey is available.)

They found that the 3 reasons that districts utlize web 2.0 technologies are:
address students’ individual learning needs
engage students' interest
increase students' options
In the survey they broke Web 2.0 into 7 categories:
Student-generated online content
Teacher-generated online content
Online social networking used as part of instruction
Online learning games and simulations
Student use of virtual learning environments
Multimedia resources (podcast video cast)
Online communication with parents & students outside school hours

Terrrell Tucker, director of IT services in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District in California, presented details of what the staff do to create a professional learning community. Collaboration is promoted through the use of Web 2.0 tools. Access to filtered material is provided to teachers who can override the block by selecting a time frame to use the material, and entering a username and password. An educational video library has been created by teachers for use in the learning community.

The webinar was a great preface to a meeting that focused on several issues, including the use of web 2.0 technologies in schools and the impact this is having on district acceptable use policies.

The original event was broadcast on:
Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM EDT
Duration: 60-minutes

http://www.media.qualitytech.com/client/new_bay/2009_0331/137512/launch.htm

You can view the event archive at the link provided above.

ITL Department Meeting on Assessment

2009-03-30T18:39:00.001-04:00

Today we had three 45 minute ITL department meetings == all focusing on assessment.

High School: Robin Stiles, Julia Roberts and Rob Rogers are working on a 9th grade pre-assessment for next year. They are currently looking at TRAILS (Tools for Real Assessment of Information Literacy Skills) as a model for an online assessment that will be given as the first orientation class next year.

Middle School: John Horrigan, Deb Perry, Rita Hennessey, Kathy Fleming and Lauren Bullock reviewed the 5th grade assessment process to determine what information, if any, they could get about their 6th graders. They asked questions about the report card data, and suggested that the actual tools used to measure ITL success would be a valuable addition to the grades. Portfolios, which contained examples of students' best work, were suggested as another method to pass on information to middle school teachers.

Elementary School: Sarah Spencer, Kelley Auringer, Aimee Anctil, Tara Doyle, Michael Brownstein, Rae Anne Locke and Ken Hine reviewed the data from the first 5th grade report card on technology and research grades, with the intention that they would talk about the grades at an upcoming 5th grade level meeting at each school. We discussed what might be done to improve the process. We talked about the process used at SES to define each person's responsiblities in the grading process around specific lessons. We talked about the units of study which made up some of the process and products that were graded (primarily the study of ancient Egypt). We heard about the use of e-portfolios at KHS, where students identified their best piece of work from their research project, and defended their choice. Fixed scheduling was mentioned as one way to ensure that all students at each grade level received the same ITL information from the library media specialist. We also discussed the possibility of LMSs fixing a 5th grade technology class in their schedule at least one time each month to ensure that at least 10 times a year there would be a collaborative session with each 5th grade class. There will be one more analsyis of the report card grades this year, to see how grades compare between February and June.

Making Data more Visual, Relevant and Comprehensible

2009-03-27T21:49:00.007-04:00

This week John Dodig, principal of SHS, shared an amazing video, Hans Rosling: Debunking Third-World Myths with the Best Stats You've Ever Seen. Many teachers are now exploring how they can use the software demonstrated in this video to make data more visual and understandable. Watch the video to discover new ways to visualize data:

The Think Tank: A Discovery Room for Young Learners

2009-03-26T08:25:00.005-04:00

David Loertscher is working on a new vision for library media programs, which he calls the Learning Commons. He recently attended the ASCD conference and made many connections. One was Jean Knodt (author of the book Nine Thousand Straws with Teacher Ideas Press).

Knodt established a THINK TANK room in a school separate from the library and the computer lab. She is constantly working on understanding inquiry and developing innovative and industrious thinking. "The Think Tank: A Discovery Room for Young Learners" is on Harvard's Active Learning Practices for Schools website (ALPS). David Loertscher is imagining and working with others to redefine the library media program as a Think Tank -- but not just for the younger learners -- for all learners.

If 21st Century Skills include flexibility, creativity, independent thinking, unlearning/relearning, adaptability and the ability to fail, we will need to promote and support learning activities for students in which these skills can be experienced and practiced.

Have a PICNIK with your IMAGES

2009-03-25T20:26:00.001-04:00

Today, while working with a teacher on Blackboard, we needed to resize an image quickly. We saved the image from Blackboard, then went to the free online image editing site, Picnik (http://www.picnik.com).

We uploaded the image, clicked on the resize button, and changed the width size from 640 to 230 (which automatically changed the height to keep the proportions of the image since we left the check mark in front of "keep proportions.") We then clicked on the SAVE & SHARE tab, changed the name and saved the new image to the computer we were working on. We deleted the old image in the Banner section of Blackboard, and uploaded the new resized image. The whole resizing, uploading and downloading took about 2 minutes.

PICNIK is a great site to fix red-eye, rotate, crop, sharpen, change color and add special effects. You can become a member of Picnik for free, and save images on the site for future use if desired.

GFS: My Life as a Writer

2009-03-24T21:40:00.001-04:00

GFS 4th grade teachers, Mrs. Dimock, Ms. Krzyzek, Mrs. Theiss, and Mrs. Walsh, with technology teacher, Sally Wanamaker worked with each student to create a PhotoStory entitled, "My Life as a Writer." Recently, Sherry Black, technology teacher, posted all of the student projects to Blackboard. The following information was sent home to parents to explain the project:

In January and February the students planned the content of their digital story using a storyboard with their classroom teacher, and brought their plans to computer class. In computer class, the students created their illustrations for each slide using several different methods. They used drawing tools in PowerPoint/Max Show and saved the illustrations as jpegs so they could be used in their digital story. They also searched for their favorite author’s picture using Teachingbooks.net, and added clipart where appropriate.

Students then created slides using Microsoft’s Photo Story 3 software, inserted all of the illustrations they created, and typed in their captions, paying attention to slide layout and appropriate font style, size and color. The next step was to record their voices reading the script that they had created in their storyboard plan with their classroom teachers. When they were sure that their recording was clear and understandable, they added music that complemented their recording but didn’t compete with it. Lastly, they added custom transitions and animation to enhance their show.

The students had the opportunity to complete a rubric to assess their performance. Their performance on this project was also assessed by their computer teacher.
We wanted to give you a chance to see these projects, so we have posted them on their secure Blackboard site so that they may share their project with you, as well as share the attached rubric with you.

This is one sample of a student's final digital story, "Bryan's Life as a Writer." (The student's image and full name have been removed from this version of the final product.)

Current Issue of Educational Leadership Focuses on Literacy 2.0

2009-03-22T21:12:00.008-04:00

Janna Bell, assistant principal at CES, recently shared two articles from the current issue of Educational Leadership with staff. The theme of this month's issue is Literacy 2.0. Janna shared the article, Orchestrating the Media Collage by Jason Ohler, with two committees at her school: the literacy committee and the ITL committee.

Both groups met separately on different days and all participants came to each meeting having read the article, ready to discuss. Both groups had lively discussions with much interaction and found the article interesting and applicable to their group's mission.

The article is atypically NOT filled with much educational/technology jargon. It provides 8 guidelines for teachers to ensure the promotion of the most important skills associated with digital literacy. The article focuses on the increased importance of reading and writing in education, explains the difference between report and story and elaborates on why they work well together, adds art as the 4th essential "R", and explains the importance of becoming knowledgeable about a wide range of digital tools.

This article is a MUST READ for anyone interested in redefinining literacy. A link to the online article is available here.

A List of Blogs for Teachers

2009-03-20T22:30:00.008-04:00

Every week Kathy Schrock sends out an SOS (Site of the School Days) with ONE link to a potentially valuable educational site. If you don't get a weekly SOS from Kathy Schrock, and you would like to, register at Discovery Schools Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators.

This week's link connects you to Educational Blogs You Should Be Investigating, a list of useful blogs organized around specific areas: technology integration, blogs for administrators, elementary teachers, pre-K teachers, kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, art, library media specialists, business education/photojournalism/graphic design, drama/theater, english/language arts/speech, ELL/ESL, FACS (family and consumer services), foreign language, industrial technology, math, music, PE/health, science, social studies, special education, study skills, and technology/computer apps.

After a short time reading some blogs of interest, I found several interesting resources and ideas, including:

On Free Technology for Teachers --Quietube, "a handy little browser extension that removes all the clutter from YouTube allowing you to view only your selected video."
On The School Superintendent Blog -- a post reflecting on the role of technology in the daily life of students with a Youtube video.
On Science Notebooking -- pictures and descriptions of science "notebooking" in elementary classrooms.
On Creating Lifelong Learners -- a list of links to royalty free images
On if bees are true: reveries for teaching and learning -- a "media literacy lesson that matters" with references to Creative Commons and new definitions of Fair Use.
On Mathematics Learning:Sharing Strategies of Teaching/Learning Mathematics -- strategies and games for learning times tables.
On Strategies for Special Education & Inclusion Classrooms -- a review of literature heroes for students with disabilities.

KHS: 5th Grade Human Body Wiki

2009-03-19T21:48:00.005-04:00

Tara Doyle, technology teacher, Aimee Anctil, LMS and all the KHS 5th grade teachers and students are currently pre-searching and researching human body systems. A private wiki has been created with every students name listed under their teacher's name. Each student is filling in the wiki according to the model below (click on image for larger view):

The students and teachers will use this rubric to assess the work in progress and in its final stage (click on image for large view):Project Overview:

What makes my body work?
Human Body Project

Task: Chose a human body system from the list provided and become an expert on it.

• Identify the parts of the system and explain the roles and jobs of each part.
• Explain the overall function of the system and how it helps to promoteyour body’s heath and well being.
• Create a glossary of important key words and terms relating to your research

Possible systems:

• Respiratory System
• Skeletal System & Musculature System
• Digestive System & Excretory System
• Cardiovascular System
• Nervous system

Products: Create a wiki page to host what you have learned. Use at least 3 different technologies to show your learning. Examples: Create an inspiration diagram of the parts of the system; create an Audacity MP3 file to explain the function of the system.

Possible technology applications:

• Microsoft word
• Audacity/MP3
• Inspiration
• PhotoStory
• Other…

What you will be assessed on:

• Quality of Research & Citing sources
• System Parts: Identified and explained each part of the system
• System Function: Explained the overall function of the system and how it helps your body’s heath and well being
• Quality of Synthesis (writing in your own words)
• Technology Application
• Presentation
• Glossary

Challenge:
Research what happens to the body when your chosen system fails. Explain a disease that can affect your system and how it impacts each part/organ of the system. Explain how it affects the life of the infected and describe possible treatment options for the disease. Post your synthesized research on your wiki.

BMS: Creating Book Trailers

2009-03-18T20:32:00.005-04:00

NO, NOT THAT KIND OF BOOK TRAILER!!

Rita Hennessey, library media specialist at BMS, recently challenged students to create a Book Trailer, a movie to advertise a book! The contest was also advertised in the BLAST and Lauren Bullock & Kathy Fleming, technology teachers, also helped promote the contest in their computer classes and in the after school Media Club. This is the advertisement for the contest:

Book Trailer Contest!

Create a trailer (or commercial) for a book. You can use Windows PhotoStory 3, Windows Movie Maker, iMovie, or any other technology that can be saved (or converted) to a .wmv or .mov file.

Guidelines:
Minimum length: 30 seconds
Maximum length: 2 minutes

What to include:
The Title and Author of the book are required - everything else is up to you!
Your goal is to convince the viewer to read the book.

Students can submit their videos to the "Book Trailer Contest" drop box
(on the "R" drive).

Finalists' trailers will be shown on BAM, so please use
school-appropriate language and images.

Deadline:
Friday, March 6, 2009

Winners will be announced Friday, March 13, 2009

Prizes: Your choice of iTunes or Barnes & Noble Gift Certificates

First Place: $25.00
Second Place: $15.00
Third Place: $10.00

See complete details at http://bmslmc.pbwiki.com/Book-Trailer-Contest

From the student entries, three were selected as 1st and 2nd place, and a 3rd was given honorable mention.

Honorable Mention to Melissa B. & Will H. for The Wizard of Oz
Runner up to Alex P. for Kensuke's Kingdom
First Place to Caroline S. for 13 Reasons Why (View Below)

MUVE Over for a Saint Patrick's Day in Second Life

2009-03-17T22:30:00.008-04:00

Last Thursday evening the Chicago Public Schools' Library Media Program held a St. Patrick's Day "Party" in Second Life from 9-10:00. Second Life is a M.U.V.E. or a multi user virtual environment. This is the description of the event on their website:

On Thursday, March 12, the Chicago Public Schools Department of Libraries hosted a St. Patrick’s Day party in Second Life on our sim. The party featured a live DJ playing Celtic and blues songs. Approximately 85 people attended from the education and library communities. Many came with their avatars dressed in green for the occasion. There were virtual refreshments, including an Irish feast. As in real life, the Chicago River was dyed green. A highlight of the party was an Irish trivia scavenger hunt that led partygoers around the sim looking for pots of gold while they sought the answers to the party quiz. Adding to the festivities, many also wore a special bracelet that animated their avatars to dance an Irish jig. Members of the AASL and ISTE SIGMS attended and this event was the ISTE Social for the week. While the event was couched in the terms of a party, it was also an opportunity for educators from around the world to network in an inviting setting. See the Flickr pics.

Deb Perry, (aka Sweety Footman in SL) technology teacher at CMS, and I (aka Atomic Thespian in SL) attended the Saint Patrick's Day event, and you can see us dancing the jig in this clip:

At this past summer's ITL Summer Institute Kathy Schrock gave us a tour of educational sites in Second Life. She provided us with a link to her online Second Life resources. Second Life is for adults 18 and over, with a separate Teen Second Life for teens, ages 13-17. Many teachers have created environments in Second Life for their students to interact and create Machinima, or movies made in Second Life or other Virtual Worlds. Westport has an educational presence in Second Life on Lighthouse Learning Island.

This year AASL and ISTE have presented several workshops, and several ITL Summer Institute participants have attended these virtual meetings. The workshops involved presentations from:

David Loertscher, discussing ideas for a new concept for library media centers called The Learning Commons
Joyce Valenza, leading a conversation about significant changes that are impacting the daily operations of a library media program
David Warlick, looking at recent developments with PLNs (Personal Learning Networks)
Mike Eisenberg, discussing how library media specialists can survive in the current economic crisis

The next AASL-ISTE SIGMS virtual learning community meeting will be on Thursday, March 19th at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT in Second Life. This month’s guest facilitator is Jon Mueller. Jon is the author of the book “Assessing Critical Skills” (Linworth Publishing) and is a nationally-recognized expert in skill development and assessment.

If you have not experienced a virtual world, and would like to learn more about Second Life, please let me know and I will create a workshop for those interested. Email me at bill_derry@westport.k12.ct.us .

CMS: ITL Professional Development Staff Meeting

2009-03-16T20:43:00.000-04:00

Today at CMS the staff meeting was an ITL professional development session. The CMS ITL Committee (Co-chairs: Deb Perry, technology teacher and David Rosvally, science teacher) planned the session around four areas:

Using Google Literature Trips - Presented by John Horrigan

Using RSS Feeds - Presented by David Rosvally

Creating Tutorials with Smartboard Sound Recorder - Presented by Bill Derry

Using Voicethread - Presented by Deb Perry

This wiki that was set up for teachers to choose a topic, provides you with an overview of each of the workshops. (Podcasting and Wikis were offered, but not enough teachers were interested in those topics to make them a viable 5th or 6th workshop choice.)

GFS: BIG THINK - 2nd Grade Social Studies Unit

2009-03-13T23:30:00.021-04:00

During the ITL Summer Institute of 2007, David Loertscher formally introduced the concept of the Big Think. A "Big Think" activity involves the creation of a "final" unit experience which motivates students to apply their learning from the unit. Big Thinks can be created at any level, K-12. Since this activity demands the application and synthesis of information learned, students are compelled to think at their highest levels. The Big Think is NOT a traditional sharing of PowerPoints, PhotoStories, posters, museum artifacts, research papers, or any other products created during the unit (although they might be included) --- it is the creation of a NEW experience (different from any of the prior activities in the unit) which demands flexibility and independent thinking WITH the application and synthesis of the unit content by students.

Kelley Auringer, LMS at GFS and I recently planned a Big Think for a culmination activity of the Social Studies research 2nd grade students did in their study of rural, suburban and urban communities. [All 2nd grade teachers and the LMS worked with students in 6 groups researching transportation, family life, economics/jobs, shelter, education and recreation, and ultimately will complete a Photostory synthesizing their research. For an account of the research and technology component created by Kelley, which also included the work of Sally Wanamaker and Sherry Black, technology teachers, click HERE. It does not include this Big Think which was created later.]

The purpose of this Big Think was to get students to have an opportunity to USE the facts and ideas they had been working with for the previous 8 weeks. Their learning was focused on this essential question: What are the differences and similarities between urban, suburban and rural communities?

This is the plan we came up with, which was modified the day before implementation by the inclusion of another co-teacher and "collaborator," Bobbi Essagof, GFS Library Assistant! Here is the scenario we designed:

The three of us (Kelley, Bobbi and I) would play the Portwest Family. Due to Mrs. Portwest's job reassignment from London to New York City in the book publishing business, the family needed to determine the best place to make their new home. Their problem--they all have very different needs and they can't decide where to live, but they know they would like to live in Connecticut. The family had been to a real estate agency and the Realtor was very confused since the family didn't know if they wanted to live in the city, a suburb or a rural town. The Realtor told the family about a group of EXPERTS on urban, suburban and rural communities, and recommended that the Portwests pay them a visit before returning. So, the Portwests visit the experts at Greens Farms Elementary to see if they can help them solve their problem, and get the experts to recommend a place for the family to live.

Each of the three family members has different needs:

Mrs. Portwest: Mom. Works in NYC and loves living in a high rise building. Likes the convenience of many different kinds of public transportation (taxis, subways, busses, etc.) and does not like to drive. Enjoys regular visits to museums, theater and libraries. Does not like to cook, and wants to get to a variety of restaurants quickly.
Mr. Portwest: Dad. Works at home as a writer. Enjoys writing and looking out the window at nature. Wants to walk and bicycle through a natural environment with limited views of buildings. Plans to have a large garden. Wants at least two dogs and two cats and is interested in raising goats. Has a car to get to shops when needed and likes knowing the shop keepers and the people in the stores.
Ms. Portwest: Daughter, Patty. Teenager-15. Wants a good school. Wants to get to stores easily and to the public library. She wants to live near plenty of friends so she can see them often. There needs to be good cell phone reception as she loves to text and talk to her friends often. She likes the beach. In one year she will be getting her license, and wants to get a job. She looks forward to driving, but doesn't want to have to drive very far or too often -- she would like to be close to her job.

Each class of students came into the Big Think organized by the classroom teacher (Nicole Fieschel, Meghann Keaveney, Lisa Lewis and Sarah Stefans) into 3 groups. Each group had representatives from all of the six research groups. [This is the Jigsaw Model described in Ban Those Bird Units : 15 Models For Teaching and Learning in Information-rich and Technology-rich Environments by David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin and Sandi Swaan.]

When the students sat down, they were asked to explain to Mr. Derry what they had done in the research process. They were then asked "Why do you think you are experts in this area? Should the Portwests be coming to YOU as experts? Can you help them? " Each group said yes and explained why they were experts and why they were the right group for the Portwests.

Then each group was assigned to focus on either urban, rural or suburban issues. A student spokesperson was selected for each group, and told that at the end of the consultation the spokesperson had to report to the family why they should live in a specific rural, suburban or urban Connecticut town or city. (They used the 2004 Rural Connecticut Map created by the CT. Health Dept. -- with cities colored in blue -- shown below!) If any group did not think the best place for them to live was in the area of their focus, they could change to a different type of community, but either way they had to DEFEND their selection.

As of 3-13-09, 3 of the 4 classes completed the Big Think, and although each class recommended different towns (though there were many similarities) they all had this in common:

It was FUN and exciting.
Most of the student conversations were intense and relied on their combined "knowledge bank" of facts about urban, suburban and rural communities created during the research.
When the student spokesperson delivered the report from the committee, there was focused and connected attention from everyone.
The experience of the family visiting seemed "real" even though students knew it was not a real family.
The content of the students' responses demonstrated a deep understanding of the differences and similarities between urban, rural and suburban communities.

If you are interested in planning a Big Think to culminate your learning unit and would like to collaborate, please contact me.

LLS: Global Awareness through Wiki Collaboration

2009-03-12T20:23:00.005-04:00

Phaedra Taft and her 4th grade students are communicating with students and their teacher in Myanmar via a wiki.

Image Source (Click on map for larger view)

How was this connection created? Phaedra explains:

The connection arose when the mom of a student was chatting with a friend in California who started Friends Without Borders, an exchange between India and Pakistan. The friend had just gotten a request from a teacher in Myanmar for a 4th grade class in the United States, and the friend in California knew that my student's mom had a 4th grader at home in Westport! Then they asked if I would be interested in an e-mail exchange. I was interested and decided to start a wiki.

The study of Myanmar supported the introduction and reinforcement of many of the geography terms that are in the Social Studies curriculum. Information and technology literacy skills are addressed through the use of the wiki, and in the group research projects that students did to understand the culture, geography and history of Myanamar. Students followed the Science Inquiry procedure and created PowerPoint presentations, and some students made newspapers and sculptures to present the synthesis of their research. The communication with students in Myanmar will also complement the biome unit beginning in 2 weeks.

Since the wiki is private, below you will see is an image of the font page of the wiki. (Click on the image to view larger.) Students and teachers have a logon and password to enter the wiki, then they can go to the topics and add their entries in comments.

(Click on image to see larger view.)

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY CLEARINGHOUSE

2009-03-11T20:08:00.001-04:00

The Educational Technology Clearinghouse is a website that provides free web resources for students and teachers. It is a resource for all kinds of sources, including: audio, clip art, fonts, photos, videos and presentation templates.

GFS: Audacity to Monitor!

2009-03-10T19:30:00.006-04:00

Caitlin Walsh, 4th grade teacher at GFS, uses Audacity software to monitor her students progress in oral reading fluency.

Students first recorded their reading using a microphone and Audacity software. They saved their files in the R-Drive so that they could be easily accessed.

Students used the following three checklists to assess their growth over three repeated readings. The checklists were designed based upon the focus of the lesson (click on them to open up the checklists):

Fluency Center Goals and Progress Reflection for Heeding Punctuation
Fluency Center Goals and Progress Reflection for Reading with Expression (Poetry)
Fluency Center Goals and Progress Reflection for Reading with Expression

Listen to an example of one of the student's audio files: SAMPLE

SHS: Spanish -- Podcasting and Blackboard

2009-03-09T21:39:00.002-04:00

Victoria Mazzarelli, World Language Department Chair and Spanish teacher, recently combined podcasting with Blackboard's Discussion Boards. Two of her 12th grade Spanish Honors classes participated in this activity. A Blackboard class was set up combining all students from Periods 2 and 3. Both classes were given the assignment to read and create an alternate ending to the story "Nosotros, no" ("Not us") .

Working in pairs students used the language lab to record their endings in Spanish. With the help of lab assistant, Laura Schwartz, the audio files were then attached to each group's Blackboard Discussion Group.

Next students from Period 2 were asked to listen to the podcasts in the Discussion Board of Period 3 and comment in Spanish on all of them. Students were given time to start this in class, but some of the work was done at home.

The project involved reading, writing, listening and speaking in Spanish as well as collaborating with students in another class.

This image shows the Blackboard Discussion Board groups with the uploaded .mp3 file. Click on image to see a larger view. To hear one of the Spanish podcasts, click here.

TIMESPACE: WORLD - from the Washington Post

2009-03-06T23:00:00.018-05:00

Just read about the Washington Post's new interactive news map on Joyce Valenza's School Library Journal NeverEndingSearch Blog, and thought it would be of interest to many of you personally, and it could serve as a resource for some of your students.

TimeSpace is an interactive map that allows you to navigate articles, photos, video and commentary from around the globe. Discover news hot-spots where coverage is clustered. Use the timeline to illustrate peaks in coverage, and customize your news searches to a particular day or specific hour. (Many Washington Post stories appear at midnight; others are published throughout the day as news happens).

Place your cursor on the timeline at the bottom and you can scroll through 24 hours changing the number of Photos, Post Global Blogs, Videos, Post Articles, Foreign Policy and Articles are available. You can check each box to filter only those types of information you are looking for. Using the search box you can refine your search by entering names or topics of interest.

Click HERE to go to the Post's Interactive News Map.

SES: Technology, Research, Literature and Art!

2009-03-05T14:53:00.002-05:00

Ken Hine, Tech Teacher, and Maggie Murphy, Art Teacher worked with the SES 4^th grade on a project involving technology, research, literature, and art reflection. This project involved a study of the famous pop artist, Andy Warhol. Students began by hearing stories about the life of Andy Warhol and being exposed to his art. Some of the books used included: Dropping In on Andy Warhol by Pam Stephens, Andy Warhol: Paintings for Children, Uncle Andy’s by J. Warhola. Click HERE to view the digital images of his artwork provided on a website constructed by Mr. Hine.

Students used school research links, as well as the literature and bookmarked web pages to answer guiding questions about the legendary artist. Children composed paragraphs and were then asked to consider the images they would most likely choose if they were to create art consistent with the style of Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup, Marilyn Monroe, and Mickey Mouse pieces. Many students chose to use pictures of themselves.

The students then imported their .jpegs into an innovative website created by Big Huge Labs featuring a tool called a Warholizer. The site took their pic and digitally transformed it into the “Andy Warhol style”. The students were proud to be able to emulate the famous artist and then reflected on their digital artwork. This project was a fun integration of technology and art.

One example of a finished student piece:

[Click on Image Above for Larger View]

BMS: Digital Imaging -- Creative Publishing

2009-03-04T20:45:00.000-05:00

Lauren Bullock, technology teacher at BMS, is currently working on a creative publishing activity utilizing Adobe Photoshop with 8th grade students. The activity involves the design and production of a magazine cover.

Students were asked to choose one of the following (2) options to creatively produce a print magazine cover that reflects their knowledge and understanding of digital imaging.

Option #1 -- Create a magazine cover for your position paper topic using the standard magazine format and headers. The artwork layout space is 8.5 x 11 inches.
Option #2 -- Create a full magazine cover for the Bedford Literary Magazine using the standard magazine format and the IMAGE header. The artwork layout space is 8.5 x 11.

Other requirements and the project rubric are available on the Class Handout.

This cover is a student sample of a work in progress:

[Click on magazine cover to view larger image.]

LLS: Leo the Lion Reads Across America

2009-03-03T20:27:00.014-05:00

Barbara Eilertsen, LMS and many teachers with administrators have just kicked off a month long reading adventure to celebrate the 105th anniversary of Dr. Seuss's birthday on March 2nd. The video below was shown during the live morning TV program today, March 3rd. Watch the video and you will better understand what is going on at Long Lots School.

So you now know that the school mascot, Leo the Lion, is on a long trip across the country. Barbara has put together a wiki that will be used for parent volunteers to log in the names of the books students have read (grades K-2). Students in grades 3-5 will input their own book titles. For every 100 books students read, Leo will arrive at another destination.

Leo will send postcards all along the way,and he will be tracked daily on a large map in the cafeteria. Michael Brownstein, technology teacher, is working on an interactive Google Earth tour of Leo's travels. The entire school is engaged in an information and technology literacy extravaganza.

SHS: Book Reviews on Voicethread

2009-02-26T21:47:00.018-05:00

Julia Roberts, library media specialist at SHS, recently worked with New Canaan High School library media specialist Michelle Luhtala to learn more about creating a Book Review Voicethread. Robin Stiles, library media specialist at SHS, soon joined in on the project. Julia began the process of adding several book reviews and other staff members have started adding their book reviews. Students and staff are encouraged to recommend new books and add video, audio or typed book reviews.

Julia wrote, " Our goal is to broaden our discussion around books...Having talked with others who have used this form of discussion schoolwide, I know it will take a while to catch on, but there have already been some voluntary student and teacher comments. The library staff has been commenting as they find time. (All comments and recommendations come to me first for some control.) Another goal is that the Summer Reading list will be on VoiceThread. Those who recommend a book for summer reading will comment. ... In the fall, we hope to have an online survey of What Was the Best Book You Read over the Summer? based on what we did in the spring to prepare for summer reading."

This Voicethread was shared with 30 teachers at the recent ITL Steering Committee meeting, and was motivation for several to start similar Voicethreads at their schools and many found new books to read on the Voicethread presentation! If you have read one of the books, please leave a video, audio or written book review. For the original larger version please go:
http://voicethread.com/#u5821.b316167.i1723018

SHS: TV Production

2009-02-26T20:05:00.002-05:00

Mike Zito and Jim Honeycutt co-teach the TV Production class at SHS. They work with all students on developing video skills through demonstrations, planning and creating videos for several weekly TV programs, and critiquing each others video productions.

Students are provided individual support and guidance to bring their personal and group ideas to fruition. This "independent study" environment has allowed every student to learn the basics of video production and some students to master a variety of video editing software at a very high level. When this happens students can serve as mentors to other students and the teachers.

One student, Brandon, has excelled at Motion 3 (part of Apple's Final Cut Pro suite which allows the creation of many visual effects, including particles exploding through space; movement around an object and 3D motion graphics). He has created several video pieces for the TV Production class (including the sample for the opening of a Good Morning Staples program shown below), and also applied his video skills to products for a Social Studies Civil War project as well. He is working simultaneously on many projects on his own MacBook Pro that he brings to school.

Mike Zito said this about Brandon: " He has inspired other kids and pushed Jim and me to keep up with him and elevate our program."

It was a real treat to sit in on this TV Production class today, not only to see the great concepts that are being taught and discussed, but to also conference with Brandon to view the many video projects he is working on and to hear the depth of understanding he has about video construction and the tools he is utilizing.

CMS: 6th Grade Research Project - Social Studies and ITL

2009-02-25T20:42:00.001-05:00

6th grade social studies teachers, Glenn O'Neill and Lucille Hyland recently worked with John Horrigan, LMS, to plan and implement a research project on a disaster. After determining that there were plentiful resources, studens followed their interests around a spcific natural or man-made disaster, such as: the San Francisco earthquake, Pearl Harbor, the Irish potato famine, Hurricane Katrina, the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, the Titanic, or the Love Canal disaster.

Students used the online project guidelines and resources on the LMC page, which included the following:

Questions to consider
Disaster project note sheets
A project rubric
Instructions
Photostory Tips
Scanned pictures and music in the R -Drive
Resources to develop background knowledge
Specialized resources to develop more knowledge (books, magazines, Internet)
Suggestions for interviewing, viewing videos
Use of Noodletools to cite sources

This year was the first year for this Social Studies/ITL project and it was so successful that it will be done earlier in the year next year providing students with the opportunity to become oriented to their new library media center and to both apply and learn new information and technology literacy skills within a social studies context.

Here is one sample by Emily which focuses on the Irish potato famine:

SHS: Students Provide Middle East Policy Suggestions to President Obama

2009-02-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

Dana Gilland, Social Studies teacher, and Robin Stiles, library media specialist, recently completed a project focusing on the Middle East at SHS.

Students pretended to be the new Secretary of State, meeting with President Obama for only 3 minutes to convey their thoughts on the foreign policy for the Middle East. They had to include 5 out of 9 main ideas from the semester long class on the Middle East. Students had to infuse American values with what they had learned about the identity of the region and the people. They then had to come up with a foreign policy approach/strategy to handle terrorism which would not create more enemies for America.

Research was primarily done in the LMC, while the synthesis was done primarily at home or during free time before exams. To present their strategy students were required to create a digital story. Students could use any platform they were comfortable with, including PhotoStory3 and iMovie. Their presentations constituted their final exam, and the movies were presented during that time slot. Here is one sample created by Suzie.

ITL Professional Development Day

2009-02-23T21:30:00.003-05:00

All library media specialists and technology teachers met on this professional development day in the SHS LMC. Our agenda included many topics and activities, including:

A discussion of the survey soon to go out to all staff about possible alternatives to the ITL Summer Institute (which, due to budgetary constraints, will not run as it has the past 2 years).
A review of the current status of our "Defining 21st century skills" project and the task to be undertaken by this Wednesday's ITL Steering Committee meeting using VoiceThread to add comments.
The creation of an ITL NING (professional social network) to share information.
Break-out sessions for elementary, middle and high school staff to discuss programs and services as well as possible collaborative opportunities between LMSs and technology teachers.
A live guided tour of TeachingBooks.net by Bret Hoffman from TeachingBooks. This K-12 subscription provides background materials, audio recordings and videos on books, authors and more! We learned about the new Web 2.0 features and plan to participate in the Beta version.
An update on current uses of Blackboard by several teachers.
An update on the development of a new Internet Safety Curriculum.
A discussion on the due date for the K-12 Cablevision Area Nine Cable Advisory Council Video Contest and how the entries will be handled.(For more information: rules, application form and flyer)
A conversation (utlizing Skype) with Valerie Diggs, high school LMS at the Chelmsford High School in Chelmsford, MA. She has implemented one of the first Learning Commons in the U.S. and presented the major principles of a Learning Commons and answered questions. (Read David Loertscher's article in School Library Journal)
An online discussion about the possiblity of applying for the AASL National Library Media Program of the Year Award for 2010.
A quick look at developments in our virtual teaching and learning space in Second Life's Lighthouse Learning Island, which is managed by Kathy Schrock.
Looked at this video on flixxy

Les 44 présidents des Etats Unis
by thony911

KHS - SCRATCH Workshop Coming Soon!!!

2009-02-13T16:00:00.002-05:00

Aimee Anctil, LMS at KHS, has uncovered a SCRATCH expert at her school -- a student. What is SCRATCH? Scratch was created by MIT and is a visual programming language. Users can easily create games, stories, plays, art, animations -- and they can be interactive. All of these can be shared on the web. In fact, you don't have to start from "Scratch," as you can download other people's work, and tinker with it to get it to do what you want.

According to the website "Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively."

Aimee is starting the "Scratch Club" on February 26th (before school starts) with 10 kids signed up so far...for a 7 week session!

This is a great example of the creation of a learning environment that allows kids to lead and teach others.

BMS: Student ITL Committee

2009-02-12T16:09:00.002-05:00

Meg Tiley, Assistant Principal, and I have been coordinating a student ITL committee for three years at BMS. This group meets before school three times a year with several subcommittee meetings throughout the year. The mission is to increase awareness of the importance of effectively utilizing information and technology at home and in teaching and learning activities at BMS. Currently two groups are focusing on two different initiatives: a call-in information literacy contest held for one week live on BAM (Bedford's TV Station), and a video contest which asks students to creatively focus on the technology that they use at home. The group has an ITL Student Committee Wiki for agendas, and notes. In the wiki each student and teacher is represented by a self-created avatar name and icon.
Meg Tiley said, "Bedford has over 30 students involved in the Student ITL committee. We were able to target those kids with technology interests from their elementary schools and we advertise committee participation school-wide. It has been a wonderful connection between the students and faculty and the needs of our students. Currently, we have one student representative on the faculty BMS ITL committee. As we all know, our students are steps ahead of us with regard to current technology. We have found the student ITL committee to be an invaluable part of the BMS community. Each year, the student ITL committee holds one to two ITL contests to get other students involved in Information and Technology Literacy and what it means to them and to BMS. It is my hope that the committee will continue to grow and that students will feel empowered around some of the decisions regarding technology within the classroom."

SES: Author, Elise Broach, Starts her Westport School Visits

2009-02-11T20:10:00.008-05:00

Rae Anne Locke, LMS at SES, was the first of all the elementary LMSs to host author, Elise Broach. The 3 presentations planned for the day provided many opportunities for students to sharpen their creative and critical thinking skills. Of course the SES PTA and the PTAs of each school are instrumental in the planning and financial support of these visits!

Authors are great "primary sources" and although we can bring authors in through a variety of technologies now (Skype, webinars, TeachingBooks.net and others), there are special connections made between the book(s) and the reader when the author is present. The SES library media center on Tuesday, 2/10/09 was filled with children, teachers, parents and the author and it was "charged" with the excitement of a good presidential press conference or an interview with a popular movie star. Some of the "new literacies" components of this visit involved the authors use of the Smartboard to present, the sharing of digital images in BlackBoard and via e-mails, and the communication of the event through this blog.

Elise Broach has written many children's books, and you can find out more about her on her website. With a Ph.D. in history from Yale it is easy to understand her ability to merge historical facts with fiction in powerful mysteries.

The two books that she talked most about were Shakespeare's Secret and Masterpiece. Her presentation style maintained the attention of the two 4th grade classes and the adults present. Students answered and asked many detailed questions about both books, and for this blog entry, I'll focus on Elise Broach's presentation of Shakespeare's Secret.

In Shakespeare's Secret, Hero, a sixth grader, has moved and is just starting a new school. She has a name based on one of the characters in a Shakespeare play, but she is not interested at all in Shakespeare. However, when she finds out that there could be a very valuable diamond somewhere in her new house AND that it could lead to learning more about who the real Shakespeare was, Hero decides to try to solve the mystery.

Shakespeare's Secret was a Nutmeg book this year, and students throughout Westport and Connecticut recently completed voting for their favorite Nutmeg. The favorite Nutmeg book will be announced on Feb. 14th.

Elise Broach presented evidence that convinced many in the audience that William Shakespeare was not the author of "his" plays. Could it have been Queen Elizabeth I, Edward de Vere, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon or a group of writers? Absolutely.

Over the next two months Elise Broach will bring her love of writing and incredible communication and detective skills to all the elementary schools in Westport.

(Rae Anne Locke, LMS; 5th grade team: Eric Lawrence, Peter von Euler, Nonie Price, Elise Broach, Diane Connolly, and Jason Bedient, student teacher.)

All images from Rae Anne Locke. Click on images for better view

SHS: Honors Western Religious Symposium Wiki

2009-02-10T18:05:00.002-05:00

Eric Mongirdas and Rebecca Levine, Social Studies teachers at SHS, created a wiki for students in their Honors Western Humanities Classes to collaborate in a Socratic Seminar. This is the homepage of their wiki with some sample comments and collaborative discussions created by students.

Rebecca said this about the project: "This Wiki was a great tool to promote student discussion beyond the classroom walls. Students were able to discuss historical content critically at their leisure and without the constraints of limited class time. Furthermore, this tool empowered students who may shy away from class discussion to participate fully on their own time. As for added value, the Wiki was tremendous. Students used the material discussed online to formulate theses for midterm essays on the changing role of religion in the West. "

Welcome to the Honors Western 2008-2009
Religious Symposium Wiki!

The purpose of this Wiki is to communicate with your academic colleagues regarding Christianity and Western Humanities. It is our (Mr. Mongirdas and Mrs. Levine) intention that you collaborate across class periods on topics introduced in the curriculum.

Throughout the semester, we expect you to comment periodically on our Wiki. You will be assigned formally to comment on certain topics, but we encourage and expect you to visit the Wiki frequently and post your musings on class discussions & activities, homework, essays, outside reading, etc. We will be using the Socratic Seminar rubric to evaluate the depth and breadth of your comments.

Follow links below to engage in Socratic discourse about our units of study.
(These links do not go to the original wiki, but take you to some samples of students' comments with names removed.)

Rome Links

Medieval Links

Renaissance and Reformation Links

GFS: Music

2009-02-09T06:00:00.003-05:00

Suzanne Propp, Music teacher at GFS, has been using an iPod and a microphone to record kids' singing and playing various pieces of music on the instruments in the music room. The students then listen to the performance to do an assessment of their skills. Here is how she describes the activity:

"Laughing All The Way" is an activity I use with 5th graders to teach them to read a musical score. After several lessons where students read through the music, we rotate through the instruments so that everybody gets a chance to try all of the different parts. Then we work on finalizing the performance. Recording the performance on the iPod and playing it back immediately helps the students assess their performance; they listen to see if they are (a) keeping a steady beat and (b) playing the correct notes. Later we work together to add expressive elements (dynamics)."

This activity meets many curricular objectives from the ITL and music curricula, including:

Create, perform and respond using: half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, dotted quarter notes, dotted half notes, whole notes, dotted eighth notes, sixteenth notes, syncopated rhythms, triplets, eighth rest, quarter rest, half rest, whole rest, fermati and ties.
Perform and respond with understanding to metered signatures of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 through singing, movement or accompaniments.
Identify and understand the function of music symbols, such as repeat sign, single bar line, double bar line, first and second endings, and D.C. al fine, multi-measure rests and coda.
Review treble clef and recorder notes C- D'.
Demonstrate an understanding of rhythm patterns by performing orchestrated accompaniments on Orff instruments and in other ways.
Perform pieces that use a variety of layered ostinati (speech, body percussion, instruments).
Identify and perform pieces in AB, ABA, AABA, Rondo and other forms.
Self-assess performance and final product using rubric established by self, class and/or teacher.
Use a variety of production technologies for sharing information, e.g., word processing, photographing, audio recording, drawing materials, maps, models, multimedia presentations, scanning, videotaping, multimedia presentations and video editing

Listen to One Piece of Student Music

BMS: Digital Photography -- Abstract Architecture

2009-02-06T23:00:00.001-05:00

Kathy Fleming, Technology teacher at BMS, is currently working with students over a series of sessions on a Digital Photography unit. Students viewed several YouTube videos and a BrainPop video about taking good digital images and using digital cameras.
Students learned the three essential elements of a successful photograph: the subject matter, the composition and the lighting. The subject matter must be interesting, or beautiful, or striking, or funny, or touching. The composition is the arrangement of the subject matter within the photograph and it should create a balance and/or special meaning. The lighting defines the shape, mood, depth, and contrast.

Students also spent time reviewing and identifying basic photography principles, such as:
• The use of focus to add depth or a 3-dimensional feel
• Looking at the background - for weird looking objects or for being too busy and distracting.
• The use of flash both outdoors and indoors
• Moving in close on a a subject
• Getting down to the subject’s eye level
• Using the Rule of Thirds
• The power of vertical vs. horizontal images
• The meaning and use of a Dutch tilt
• Acting as "a picture director"
• Capturing the feeling of the moment.
• The use of lines, angles, & shapes in objects (esp. in abstract images)
• Focusing on a small part of a larger thing (esp. in abstract images)

Students were given many images, and asked to work with a partner. The students wrote short comments under each photo which described the basic photography principle that was followed.
They were also asked to comment on images that did not show any of the principles, and asked to explain how the image could be improved.

They also perused many images in Flickr's Abstract Architecture Gallery and made comments on some of them.Each student then used a digital camera to take 5 – 10 abstract architectural photographs around the BMS campus. They were told that quality, not quantity was most important. When they returned to the classroom they used a card reader to download their images to their "Y-Drives." After reviewing their photos, they selected the 2 best and inserted them in to a Word document, under which they described how each photo demonstrated the principles of photography.

Since this lesson is in progress the finished products will not be posted for another 2 weeks. Please come back very soon to view a few samples of the amazing digital photography work done by the 7th grade computer students at BMS.