Technology for 8th Graders

Math Stuff

2007-01-14T11:18:00.000-05:00

Check out my Math Sites webpage at http://rochesterschools.com/rms/technology/links/math.htm

Shakespearean Quote Quest

2006-06-02T09:21:00.000-04:00

Mrs. Marshall gave me 23 quotes from Shakespeare. I created a worksheet that students will search through a website to find who said it, the name of the play, the type of play, Act and Scene and what the quote is about. The website is http://www.rhymezone.com/shakespeare. It allows phrase searches and keyword searches. Students can also read text before and after the quote once it is found. We promised big prizes for the student team who got the most correct.

The worksheet is on the Technology Library page at: http://rochesterschools.com/rms/library/.

Rhymezone also does synonyms, antonyms, rhyming words and lots more.

Podcasting Workshop

2006-03-20T17:49:00.000-05:00

I attended the Podcasting Workshop at the Seacoast Professional Development Center in Exeter. (www.spdc.org) It was a very well run workshop with a knowledgable humorous presenter, Steve Kossakoski.

At the outset we were told that we could create a podcast without spending any money. To get better quality podcasts, ease of use, etc. we could spend a lot more. Steve called it "hardware creep". To start with we will need a microphone and a poor one will be noticed. We were given headsets with microphones (cost $15) that are of a very good quality. We will also need a software program that will edit recordings and save them in the correct format. Garageband is a free program for MacIntosh and Audacity is free to download for use on a PC or Linus or Macintosh.(download site is here) We were given time to record our voices and mix it with some free uncopyrighted music. It is very easy to do in Audacity. It's like word processing only it's sound. It has some fancy effects like fade in and fade out so that music can begin the podcast and then fade when the voice begins. You can also increase the volume on certain parts or delete sections. Lots of fun to use. Students will like it also.

If you want some portability to record voice or other sound you can buy a small mp3 recorder. They can run $30-$500. But all you really need is the microphone, a computer, Audacity and if you would like to subscribe to a podcast, you will need iTunes. To subscribe to a podcast, which means that iTunes will download it as soon as a new podcast is posted, simply go to the podcasting website and drag the "chiclet" or RSS feed button to the iTunes window. iTUnes is also free to download. It is an excellent program for keeping your music organized, getting and listening to podcasts and can be used to go to the music store to buy albums and individual songs.
Some of the uses for podcasting in education: Colleges are using them so students can listen to a lecture over again to review. Listen to interviews with experts on a topic. Some schools have used them to communicate with parents such as expectations and new programs. Students use them to read their own stories, reports or poetry. Visitors to a classroom can be interviewed. Special Education teachers talked about the value of having students record their reading skills periodically throughout the year and listen to their progress. I would like to have reading or English classes write and record stories for a week on a particular theme such as what they are studying in science or reading. A group of students could interview students during the team Literacy Fair. New teachers or administrators could be interviewed for a podcast. Many World Language classes are trying out podcasting.

Steve gave us several links that are directories for podcasts. I found one that has the full text of a story by Herman Melville, Typee. Another podcast had the "Federalist Papers". They are endless. Here are some of the links. Learning in Hand , Bob Sprankle's podcasts, Room 208 (3rd graders in Maine) , the Bobby Bucket Show (A Podcast for kids, Parents, and Readers of All ages! Celebrating READING with Books, Music, Author Interviews, and more) , and lectures from professors at Stanford University. More - Podcast Alley (choose by genre), Education Podcast Network ( podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century), Recap Educatonal Podcasting for teaching and learning (from the U.K. podcasting for educational use) , Podcasting News (all kinds of news) , Podzinger (search for a podcast) , ITunes ( find and subscribe to a podcast).

More great resources - sound effects and non-copyrighted music. Audio: Open Source Audio (several genres to choose from), CCMixter.org.
Sound Effects: Free Sound Effects (car door, phone, kitchen drawer), More Sound Effects, FreePlay Music ( over 1000 songs, indexed, searchable, helpful).

The final step to creating a podcast after refining it in Audacity is to export it as an MP3. Remember where you save it. Then you must upload it to a server or host. There are free servers and others that cost. Steve has set up a server for us at Loudblog. PodAdmin is another one. You can download free opensource software and set up your own server or choose a server of your own. Others are: Switchpod, PodAdmin, and Creative Commons. You can simply upload your mp3 file to your webserver but then it can't be used in iTunes and loaded into ipods. You will just be able to listen to it. Uploading your podcast into one of these hosts is a little like uploading a webpage through ftp or publishing a blog. They will be archived and you can put a title and comments and even an image.

As our final "test" we were asked to had a "discussion" or" interview" about podcasting and the possibilities we could imagine. The results are at http://www.spdc.org ...click on Resources and then the Loudblog link.

Blog Workshop

2006-03-15T20:15:00.000-05:00

On March 16th I will be giving two 2-hour long workshops. The material and links are all on the webpage linked from the RMS site. It's at: http://rochesterschools.com/rms/technology/blog/blog_workshop.htm

We're going to learn what a blog is, look at some different blogs and then create either a personal or classroom blog. Blogger.com is very easy to use and update and edit. My only worry is that Metrocast is scheduled to do some maintenance between 9 and 9:30 tomorrow just when we should be creating the first post in our blog.

If there is time we can talk about RSS feeds and see if anyone is interested in learning how to set up an account.

Should be fun!

Postscript to the blogging workshops: I have added links to several of the blogs created that day. Everyone had fun and was amazed at how easy it is to create a blog and to add to it. Use the link above or go to the Teachers Page at the RMS site.

Science Resources on the Web Workshop

2006-03-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

I attended the NHPTV Science Resources on the Web Workshop. Many great sites. They are all on a webpage at NHPTV. One of the presenter's favorite type of site is the online science museum. They have educational sections where there are lesson plans and activities. Some of them will let you create a profile so you can "collect" lessons that you found helpful. Some of the best are the Exploratorium in San Francisco (the Digital Library here has activities for in the classroom searchable by grade level, also check out the "cool sites" section) , the Boston Museum of Science and the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
The Teachers' Domain collections include classroom-ready multimedia resources for use in lessons. Search by grade level and subject (life science, physical science) and find videos, lesson plans and interactive activities. [Example - This interactive activity from NOVA Online lets you spin a spiral galaxy, including our own Milky Way. It demonstrates that what you can learn from visible light observations of a galaxy is largely determined by the angle from which you are observing it. (Earth and Space Science 6-8) ] It wants you to register but it's free.
One of the best websites I found while in the workshop was the Genetics WebLab. It has 14 interactive activities including: Mendel's Peas (you determne the number of traits and then try to create a specific kind of plant); Punnett Squares, Dragons (by manipulating the recessive and dominant genes you try to create a dragon); DNA Fingerprinting, natural selection and more.
A website with some fun activities involving genetics is Kids Genetics. They have some excellent interactive activities/ tutorials where students can learn about genetics.
The last website I'd like to mention is the Middle School Portal, a part of the NSF. Here you can choose, Math, Science or Technology. Has many lesson plans, activities, worksheets, exercises. For Example: The Virtual Body from MEDtropolis.com is an interactive overview of some of the basic structure and function of the human body. The site, available in both English and Spanish, is a mix of information and activities focused on four areas -- the brain, skeleton, heart, and digestive tract. The site's extensive array of diagrams and images, as well as its interactive nature, enhance the site's appeal and educational potential. Worth exploring.
Discovery school has some great Teaching Tools for Teachers. These include puzzle makers, lesson planner, worksheet generator and quiz creator. It will even correct quizzes and send the results to your e-mail address. All you need to do is register. You'll be able to save all your creations on the website for later use.
Finally, the presenter suggested we help students become better at evaluating web resources. Many students assume that if it's on the Web it's true. She defines sites as either Expert (NASA), Credible (TIME Magazine) or Unknown (site credentials are unverifiable). Students should learn to read a URL. Do they know that a .com is a commercial site, .edu is educational (probably a university or school), .gov is an official government site. I'll be putting together a PowerPoint presentation to help students become better at searching and to help them evaluate websites. FYI, the presenter showed us a website with the URL martinlutherking.org. Kids might find it when searching for information about Martin Luther King. But, it's a website created by David Duke to trick kids into distributing literature defaming Dr. King. I'd like to show this PowerPoint before the 8th graders do their research paper.

Battles of the Revolutionary War

2006-01-06T14:14:00.000-05:00

Ms. McCarthy and I came up with a project to get familiar with the battles of the Revolutionary War. I found a website, http://www.britishbattles.com/battle-of-quebec-1775.htm, that organizes the battles into categories (fields). We had the students set up a database in FileMaker Pro with the 9 fields: Battle, date, place, combatants, size of armies, generals, casualties, winner and picture. For advanced students we added significance. They were required to do 10 battles which must include Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown. As a final activity they will write and answer 10 questions about their database. Students will then switch computers and question sheets and see how well they can answer the questions using the Find feature. For a rubric and directions you can open this WORD document.

The New Read/Write Web

2005-12-14T17:45:00.000-05:00

Everyone by now has used the read-only Web. The web we use to google for information for our report. The new web some have called Web 2 or the Read/Write Web is changing how students are communicating. Not only can you read some information but you can respond to it. Teachers are using blogs to get their students communicating through writing. When you know there is a real audience out there it feels different. In writing this blog I find myself writing much more than I ever thought I would. It appears that teachers who use blogs in the classroom are finding students reacting this way also. They aren't just reading and writing, they are collaborating and correcting.

Some of the "new" things on this "new" web - A blog is short for a web log. It's an online journal that is archived and that readers can respond to. I have a school account with Blogmeister that I think will work for RMS. It allows teachers to filter student writing. RSS Feeds are another new tool that stands for Reallly Simple Syndication. They allow you to subscribe to different sources of information that will collect into a file for you to read. For instance, if you are interested in wind power as an energy and want all the latest news and writing about it, you can have it collected for you. The sources of information could be from online newspapers, magazines, or blogs. Student could also use RSS feeds. Another new one that was news to me is something called social bookmarking. It works a little like bookmarking a website that you want to remember. With social bookmarking you actually save a copy of the website into a searchable folder. I guess it would actually be like accumulating a stack of books for your term paper. And you can subscribe to someone else's collection of websites on your RSS feed. Two websites to try to investigate social bookmarking are Furl.net and del.icio.us. You may have heard of podcasting. Many teachers are getting into this with their students. It's actually similar to a radio broadcast but it's distributed on the web. Listeners can listen to them when they want.

I'm hoping to try some of these new tools at RMS. Experiment at home. To start a blog go to blogger.com. It's almost as easy as setting up a Hotmail account and it's free. Put your class assignments up for each week so students can refer back to them. Give extra credit if they respond to a question or comment. Subscribe to an RSS feed. It could be on any topic such as gardening, a certain author, adventure vacation spots, or the Patriots. I'm going to try social bookmarking. When I find an excellent website for a particular project I'll try "collecting" it so I can pull it up quickly. Anyone want to do a podcast at RMS?

Geometer's Sketchpad

2005-12-14T11:34:00.000-05:00

I attended a math workshop in November and listened to a middle school teacher present her successes with Geometer's Sketchpad. It's a geometry program that allows student to visually see results. It also allows algebra students to graph equations. A very neat program. I gave Marie B., our Math C.C. the disk to try and she is excited about it also. We may try to do a workshop in March if we can learn it well enough by then. It is free to download at this site for 30 days but you cannot save or print. The package is about $1300. and comes with lessons and worksheets. There is an excellent tutorial at this site that has some basic lessons with lines, triangles and circles. I found this lesson about pinwheels that looked interesting. Hoping we can get the money.

It's Official - 1 Tech Facilitator/4 teams

2005-12-14T11:27:00.000-05:00

Wally made it official yesterday that Carleen will begin teaching 7th grade Computer Class next semester (Jan. 23). I will continue as the technology facilitator for all 4 8th grade teams. We saw a need for 7th graders to learn computer technology. Seventh grade teachers have been complaining that the students have "no clue" how to save, print, edit, etc. The present 8th graders had the course last year so we are coasting on that. Next year it could be disastrous! So Carleen will teach keyboarding, WORD and a little of Excel and PowerPoint. It's still a work in progress so please comment if you have any suggestions.

Christa McAuliffe TC Day 2

2005-11-30T17:57:00.000-05:00

Many "good ones" today. Nicole went with me. She got some good ideas and we are going to collaborate on a webquest or mystery for French culture.

The keynote speaker was Annette Lamb who has a remarkable website that has all kinds of resources, ideas, lessons and examples. Several ideas she presented were especially good. She called them a "HOOK". In science she suggested going to the website called "The Annals of Improbable Research". There they have listed actual research that seems a little silly, i.e. "If you drop it, should you eat it?" Does the 5 second rule apply? Get kids to write the scientific experiment that could research this problem. I had students visit the twinkies website to see how a lab report should be written. This website conducts several different experiments on twinkies using the scientific method. Very funny and educational. She suggests going to the Pulitzer Prize photos site to get photos to show students. Ask them why do you think they won? What do we know about the picture? what don't we know? The CSI TV show is very popular with teens. Have them visit the CSI website and write a mystery using vocabulary from the show. Even have them produce a record of the scene with a camera. A website called "Documenting the American South" has many diaries online (Loreta Janeta Vasquez is a woman who fought in the Civil War). Also suggests FirstGov.gov as a great website for photos. You can look up photos of disasters or the Civil War.

Open Source Software: One of my goals for this conference was to find free software to do some of the things I want to do in the classroom. There are many open source programs available which are programs that people change and add to constantly. I attended a workshop on how to use GIMP a graphics program probably as good as PhotoShop but a little harder to use. It can be downloaded for free at gimp.org and there are some great tutorials at http://gimp.org/tutorials/. Another program is called Moodle. It is a program that will create online courses with activities, quizzes, a forum, chat and bulletin boards. It is server based and will have to be run by the CIC guys. There also is an open source program called Open Office that many people say is as good as Microsoft Office. It has a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program and spreadsheet. All for free. You can read more about them at opensource.org.

My last workshop of the day was "Podcasting with a Purpose". I wanted to learn more about it and see a successful presentation of it in the classroom. Two teachers from Maine in a 3/4 classroom are doing a weekly podcast that has the students engaged. (Their website - is bobsprankle.com if you want to hear some of the students' podcasts). They make up the programs and write the reports. They have learned about plagiarism, rewriting and the global community. I'd like to try it with possibly a reading class or maybe with a homeroom/advisory group. It is not expensive. The recording device is $60-120 and the software needed is open source programs. There is even a website, music.podshow.com, that has free music that they allow you to use on podcasts as long as you give them credit. They mentionned a program called Audacity (open source) that allows you to edit the podcasts which are in mp3 format. And I found free, open source, program to do blogging - Word Press which allows the teacher to monitor all comments.

So a good day. I found a lot of free software and the Seacoast Professional Debelopment Center in Exeter is giving workshops on many of them. For information go to their website. Also try K12 Open Source site for some free software.

Christa McAuliffe 2005 Technology Conference

2005-11-29T17:26:00.000-05:00

As a technology facilitator I splurged this year and am attending the conference for 2 days. Today, Tuesday, I attended presentations on: Primary Source Materials, Copyrights (and Wrongs) in a Digital Age, PDA's in the Classroom, "Engage Me or Enrage Me, Educating Today's Digital Native Learners", and Virtual Field Trips.

PDA's in the classroom was interesting and fun, we were given a loaner to try, but I don't see them as having much "depth" in the classroom. The kids would enjoy them but I don't think we could get that deep into a subject using them in the 8th grades. The presenter uses them in a 6th grade classroom on a daily basis.

Virtual Field Trips was very good. The presenter is a technology facilitator in Exeter and her website has several field trips she created(The American Colonial Experience and NH History and Ellis Island) and some sites for further ideas. One idea I liked is that she has several "stops" in her field trip. Teachers can have some students do all the stops and others only 2 or 3. Each trip ends with further study, such as a letter to their favorite historical person or an ad to get people to come to a new colony. I especially liked a website she links to by Jamie McKenzie, a renowed educator, that talks about "slam dunk lessons". These are lessons on the internet using 1 or 2 websites (pre-selected), that take 1 class period. The link is: http://www.fno.org/sum04/fivekinds.html. " How can teachers build brief lessons with digital resources that inspire a high level of engagement while challenging students to interpret, analyze, synthesize and evaluate?"

The Key note speaker was Marc Prensky who spoke on our students of today who are the "new Digital Natives". We, the teachers, are "Digital Immigrants". He says to engage kids with learning we have to make the like video games. Our lessons must: 1.) have frequent important decisions to be made. 2.) level up to clear goals. 3.) focus on engagement 4.) adapt to each players individuality. He is an educational game maker and has an Algebra game in the works and many others available. A game he recommends is called Food Force. You can link to it here and download the game. From the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian agency, Food Force is an educational video game telling the story of a hunger crisis on the fictitious island of Sheylan. The entire game consists of 6 mini-missions and could take 1/2 hour. "It's up to you to save and rebuild the island of Sheylan". Another game suggested is the ESP Game. In this game you must type in words that could be associated with an image. You have a partner who is doing the same. If you both type the same word you go to the next image. The whole game is timed.

Primary Source Materials presented by Kathy Schrock has a website with many sites to visit.

Blogging Begins at RMS

2005-10-25T10:04:00.000-04:00

I’m ready to start kids blogging in class. I’ve chosen TypePad as my Blogger. It costs ($14.95/mo. For unlimited blogs and users) but allows for passwords. I got the go ahead from the Asst. Supt., Mr. Hemingway, and our Principal, Mr. Helliesen.

I would like to start with one class, probably Ms.McCarthy’s reading class on the Jaguar team. We’ve talked about this and she is interested. She’s even come up with a name for her blog, “The Chronicles of Jaguar”. The advice at the blogging workshop I attended said to set the tone well in advance: talk about netiquette, have students devise rules and standards. For the first day the students will look up “netiquette” and “blog” on the internet, define them, give examples and tell us what they think.

I’ve been searching for educational blogs to use in the classroom. Here are a few:

-Blog a sentence with many mechanical errors & have them retype the sentence correctly. (Like D.O.L. Daily Oral Language) The sentence to be corrected will serve another purpose; it will be a journal prompt; - kids being rude, etc.
-Students blog about what they learned in science... some cool facts they are learning.
-Have students explore a website such as Discovery.com. Then have them to blog an interesting fact about something they'd learned. .
- blog lunch/hall/dismissal problems/teasing /bullying
- vacation plans
- status of the class: what's your topic? Fascinating fact? ...
- blog to long-term sick student
- blog to a student who moved away
- Explore news sites - opinions on current events
- story/ book predictions
- Daily Oral Language
- ask questions to check for understanding, monitor progress on a project.
- express opinions using 1st Person Narrative point-of-view
- Debate sides of an argument to make blogging more interactive.
- Lit. Circles
-Word Wizard
- post a new vocabulary word you learned in your book.

-Historical characters….”My Dear Countrymen, it is with a heavy heart that I tell you both good news and bad news. We have signed the Declaration of Independence. THis means we will be going to war. Tell me what you think about this. How will this effect your family? You? Your friends?”
General Washington

-“Yo Colonial Dudes & Dudettes! How do you feel about the way of King George III is taxing the colonists? Are you a Patriot or a Loyalist? I know you guys disagree about the fairness of his taxes. Do you think they're fair? Can you live with them? Will you continue to pay them? How are all of these taxes effecting you & your family? What's the scuttlebut in town?”

Adopt-an-Element

2005-10-24T12:36:00.000-04:00

This week Mr. Weeks and his science classes will be coming to the lab to create ads for elements. Each student has been assigned an element and will be creating a one page ad for it. They must include on their WORD document: the element symbol, name, atomic number, atomic mass, slogan, cost and their name. They can also add pictures, autoshapes, wordart, textboxes, etc. At the end of this project we can hang up the student work and create our own GIANT periodic table. For the project description, rubric and example in pdf click here. I found this project on Science Spot (http://sciencespot.net/), an excellent online resource.

Interactive Math Websites

2005-10-18T17:36:00.000-04:00

Lots of great java applet websites for mathematics. This one is on factorization. Many on fractions: This one is the equivalent fractions pointer, in which you shade in boxes of equivalent values. The Area Explorer has students determine the area of a shape on a grid. Students practice their knowledge of acute, obtuse and alternate angles. Here are 7 activities that practice knowledge of angles and parallel lines. Learn about factors through building rectangular arrays on a grid.

Lots of Function and Algegra activities also. Students can investigate very simple functions by trying to guess the algebraic form from inputs and outputs.

Try this link to a my mathematics webpage with many, many more interactive activities.

Colony Brochure Project

2005-10-11T13:57:00.000-04:00

8th graders on the Mustang team are creating brochures to entice new settlers to their colony in the "New World". They must include 8 items (government, geographical features, natural resources, native americans, founder, religion, date of settlement, and climate). They open a template (available online here)which will be filled in with the information and pictures and formatting. Students are paired on this project: one does the center and the other does the outside. A fun project.

Jaguar Journaling Blog

2005-10-07T10:31:00.000-04:00

Ms. McCarthy and I are planning a blog for her to use in History and Reading. She will type a question, comment or prompt and the students (all in the computer lab) will respond in the form of a comment. She can then post another comment that may refer to something a student wrote or promote further thinking. Students and teacher can then read and post comments in a "written discussion" format. The entries of all the students will be read and graded. They can be printed out to file into reading folders or portfolios. Check back to see our "discussion" soon.

New Reading Resources Blog for RMS

2005-10-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

The Reading Resources Teacher, Jessica Carloni, and I have talked about creating a blog for Reading. It will include best practices, activities, links, ideas, etc. The blog will make it possible for teachers to comment on an activity. They can add that they tried it, changed it, loved it or liked it but it was too short. Lots of possibilites. She also will use it with her new Reading group for teachers. They will share articles, ideas, and readings. Visit it when it is up!

A Writing Idea

2005-10-05T13:53:00.000-04:00

This is the site of a teacher called Awesome Readers and Writers. She uses it to get the kids to respond to her writing prompts. Go to http://mrsd.tblog.com/ and click at the bottom of the comment on view/add to read the student responses.

Ideas for History & L.A.

2005-10-05T13:36:00.000-04:00

This is an idea from a history teacher, "In Social Studies, we're learning about the American Revolution. I blogged to them to get their opinions on various historical events they've learned about or reenacted in class. I'd like to get a running dialogue between Patriots & Loyalists & King George III.

I'm going to blog a sentence with many mechanical errors & have them retype the sentence correctly. (Like D.O.L. Daily Oral Language) The sentence to be corrected will serve another purpose; it will be a journal prompt; Students will first type their name, fix the sentence(s), and then respond thoughtfully using good sentence writing skills. In one glance I'll be able to assess all 30 students D.O.L. practice as well as some writing fluency skills.

More ideas from this teacher at: http://jsiporin.motime.com/

Blogging Workshop at NHPTV

2005-10-05T11:46:00.000-04:00

I attended a workshop on blogging on 10/5. The possibilities for teachers and students is mind-boggling. I'm not sure where to begin. The first task is to get familiar with creating a blog and posting to it. It's pretty simple but there are a lot of settings, templates, editing options.

One of the concerns when I came was about students posting inappropriate comments. The suggestion here is that if the teacher sets the guidelines, has clear expectations, goals, and objectives and GRADES the postings, then the students will do OK.

A school in Georgia has about 10 different blogs in their classroom. The principal has one (which is why I have invited Wally to be a member of this blog) on which she posts short essays on character, fairness, and issues that come up. The students can comment. The counselors have a blog and several teachers. The URL for that school is : http://jhhweb.rockdale.k12.ga.us .

Welcome to the NEW 8th Grade Technology Blog

2005-10-05T11:21:00.000-04:00

This is a beginning for RMS to use blogs in the classrooms in the 8th grade teams. I will be posting ideas to use in the classroom and ideas for students to use blogs for their own reading and writing. Please help by posting ideas that worked for you or suggestions for future activities and projects.