Sub-Day 12/10/07

Hi kids,

Welcome to the second trimester--I'm sorry to be gone on this day! I look forward to seeing who is in my classes now and I'll be seeing you tomorrow.

Today the first thing I want you to do is read the two top posts on this blog together as a class. Maybe take turns? If you hold OpenApple and press the "+" key, the text gets bigger so everyone can read along. I'm afraid it's going to be confusing for the newcomers to the class, so please help them understand if you can.

Then go ahead and pair up and you'll take one laptop per pair. Today I want you to get a sense for the two options that you'll have for the research project (sorry about not allowing the Drug option--I thought about it for a long time and I have good reasons for limiting you to the other two.)

Today it's important that you only have one tab open, and that that tab stays in Clusty. The neat thing about Clusty . . . well there are a couple of neat things about Clusty. I guess at this point you could open a second tab (OpenApple + T) and google "clusty."

Neat things about Clusty:

1. You don't get bombarded with billions of webpages. It carefully selects the best resources on the internet for you.
2. It clusters the results. If you search for "poverty relief," for example, you see that they have organized all the poverty relief hits into categories and subcategories. This could even be useful to you as you research, because it could give you clues as to other "big ideas" that you might not even know about.
3. If you really want reliable sources, you might try staying away from commercial (for-profit) .com sites and aim instead for .org or .gov sites. That's under the "sites" tab above the clusters.
4. Oh--please be careful about the ubiquitous "sponsored links" at the top of the search hits. The fact that someone paid money for those to be at the top should make you NOT want to click on them for your research. Duh.

5. Okay, last neat thing about Clusty . . . it helps keep rabbit trails more orderly. There is a "preview pane" that you can make pop up by clicking the magnifying glass. Then you can see the page and even click within the page WITHOUT "leaving" the Clusty site. Believe me--from the classroom management point of view, this is GREAT. If you Google for your info, then two clicks later you don't even remember the assignment, what class you're in, or the teacher's name. You are off on a journey of click-clickety-click-clicking and who knows where you'll end up.

So today no Googling, Asking, Yahooing, or anything else. Don't click the link to get off the Clusty site, but rather make full use of the preview panes. You are always to be on the Clusty site as you gather information to use tomorrow.

If you'd like to create a Word .doc and drag some URL links (web addresses) into it so that when you come back the next day you can start in immediately (rather than having to re-find all the sites that looked useful today), you may. You'll be able to have the same laptop tomorrow. Um, it would be important for you to save your file as something other than Document1.doc, if you know what I mean.

A note for the sub: I forgot to mention that my 6th hour DI class, after they've graded the papers from last week, can begin reading the next story. They don't have to do the "next word, what word" part, but they do have to do the two-minute timed reads and begin on the workbook if there is time. And I am going to be absent again next Monday 12/17--if you are comfortable with the whole computer thing you could leave me a note to that effect and I'll see about requesting you. So class, be nice!

Thanks, guys. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow! Read the next post about the project and watch the VoiceThread video. It's nothing to write home to Mom about, but it's something. My first real VoiceThread!

~T. Chase

TESA II Research Assignment

For this research assignment, you will not include any of your own words. No summarizing or synthesizing this time--this 2-week project is about finding relevant text and images and citing your sources.

Since each class chose "5 Common Illegal Drugs" before the trimester changed to do a sample with, that option is now excluded. Choose between one of these two options:

1. Major Religious Holidays (Slideshow)
   
2. Solutions to Global Problems (VoiceThread)

Your project will be graded on the following criteria:

• Completeness (20 slides or 15 VoiceThread pics)
• References/Citations (15 pictures and 5 facts cited)
• Print Resources (2 print resources from EBSCO)
• Bibliography: "Works Cited" (printed sheet)
  
• Aesthetics (beauty and craftsmanship of your presentation)

The rubric we will use to evaluate research projects is ONLINE.

Some ideas about how to approach the project are available on this VoiceThread.

Death By PowerPoint

| View | Upload your own

Portland Chinese Garden

http://www.portlandchinesegarden.org/awakening/orchids/info/C1/

Web2.0 Tools

Here's a link to some great Web2.0 tools. Please get with your "dancing partner" and choose any one of these tools to work with, and then using that tool please explain the 6 Score Reporting Categories the State of Oregon will use to measure your reading prowess on October 29th.

You can either include the link to your web2.0 tool on your TumblrBlog or (if you are very brave) you may embed the code into your blog.

http://pdc.oetc.org/index.php

Essential Skills

Read and Interpret at Lexile Level 1200+

Write: Technically, Imaginatively, & Persuasively

Speak and Present Publicly

Apply Mathematics Outside the Box

Live Globally-Aware & Community-Involved

Adapt and Innovate with Technology

Think Critically and Analytically
(Scientific Inquiry & Problem Solving)

Communicate and Collaborate Effectively

Other 21st Century Learning Videos

Here are some other options for quotes or ideas for your videos.

http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/Other+presentations

Literary Elements PPT

Here is a link to download the boring version of the literary elements PowerPoint. Have fun dressing it up and adding a hyperlinked table of contents! (when you click once on the link, it will automatically download to your desktop as a .ppt file).

BoringLE.ppt

Johnny the Bagger Assignment

Please watch the movie (link below) and write a 1/2 to 2 page story about a similar (fictional) inspiring story.

http://www.stservicemovie.com/

The Brain on Basketball

Try clicking on these two mind-benders (and you can change the number at the end for other variations on the theme).

1. Please count the number of times the team in WHITE passes the basketball.
http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

and

2. Something in this photo will CHANGE over the course of the video. Can you catch it?
http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/5.html

Group Blogspots

Your group blogspot is http://lpmschasegroup#.blogspot.com/

If you want to change the Template or add Authors, you'll need to see me.

3 Steps Video

Find more videos like this on EduBloggerWorld

Pink TESA Test

Here is the link to the pink test:

http://www.unitedstreaming.com/studentCenter/index.cfm?cdCode=CC63-3257

Go ahead and read the pink test first, then begin to take the test online. When you are asked for your login information, please give your "Firstname PeriodLastname" If my name is Joe Schmo and I am in 4th period, I would login like this:

VIDEO Progressively Worse (or) Draw the Line

"I know some things are bad for me, but what's really the harm?"

I'd like to have student groups make a video--here's the sketchy skeleton of the idea for kids to flesh out and create:

Start with a clip of a student lying to his friend.  Look straight at the camera, shrug, and say "where's the harm?"

A clip of a student gossiping about another kid.  "Where's the harm?"

Bullying, pushing, harassing.  "It doesn't do any real harm."

Middle school romance. ""It won't hurt me."

Adding a little mercury to your drinking water.

Drinking pond water.  Eating chewing gum from under a desk.  Spraying chocolate with bugspray.  Etc.

"At some point during this movie, you "drew the line."  You said to yourself "Hey, no matter how much they like it . . . that's not good for them!"

Add music and classy transitions--I think this could be a powerful teaching tool and a point of reference for later discussions about WHY all these old-fogy adults keep telling kids not to smoke, drink, get sexually involved, etc.  The question about those topics is all-to-often "What's the harm--what's the big deal?"   

Reading Stations

I have good news and good news. Which do you want to hear first?

One good news is that the desks are going away, to be replaced by tables! It's a perfectly marvelous turn of events for the classroom, as it will allow for much more flexible groupings of students than last year.

The second is related to the first. We'll be implementing Stations into the reading classes this year. I'm not entirely sure yet of which stations you'll be seeing around the classroom, but here are some ideas running around in my head:

Progressively Worse / Drawing the Line Video

Ed Incentive Proposal

Vocab (plays, short stories, video vocab skit)

Silent Reading time
Word Roots
Literary Terms

TESA preparedness (videos, practice tests)

SRCs (identifying, item writing)

As a whole class we'll be working on Fluency (speed reading) and evaluating past performance on the Reading TESA.

Incentives?

There is praise and invective for Mike Bloomberg's policies on education. You'll be seeing more on this as the trimester progresses.
~T. Chase

The new school year!

Hey there!

Are you looking for blog-posts from the previous school year? Here's a LINK.

Welcome to the school year . . . let's get started in style!

~Mr. Chase