KHS: SEVEN WEEKS OF SCRATCH

(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

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:

• The Magic School Bus Science book revised 08-09.doc
  
• Timeline and checklist.doc
  
• Magic School Bus Topics.doc
  
• Rubric-Science.doc
  
• Rubric-English.doc

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

Play with the Solar System

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!

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.




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

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.




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

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.

No Future Left Behind

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.