LLS: ITL Committee Meeting

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.

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

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.

KHS: 5th Grade Human Body Wiki

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.

GFS: Audacity to Monitor!

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

LLS: Leo the Lion Reads Across America

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.

KHS - SCRATCH Workshop Coming Soon!!!

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.

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

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