Learn the Address ...

The project that inspired my previous post is that of the documentarian Ken Burns. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address(which was given November 19th, 1863) Burns has called for individuals and groups to learn the address and then share those video with the world. For my students this assignment was incredibly challenging. We decided to break the address down into parts. The students then worked with a partner to learn their a section of the speech. For more information about the project or to view other videos, go to learntheaddress.org and perhaps you can make a video yourself! Below is one of my favorites.

6th Grade Student's Gettysburg Address Project

The SAMR model is somewhat daunting to wrap you mind around at first. It's very similar to Bloom's Taxonomy in that the higher you go in the model, the higher the level of thinking that is accessed in the student. Here is a short video by Candace M, found on Youtube that explains it very succinctly.

Above is a presentation that I made for the Special Education Academy in August 2013. This "Prezi" demonstrates a few things thatyou can do with the software and it includes many very user-friendly apps for multiple subject areas.

This fall I am attempting to run a marathon. On the weekends I do long runs and as you would imagine those runs have gotten longer ... and longer. Because of this my running partner and and I have started to run on the Allegheny Highlands Trail (much easier on the legs). Last time I took along my iPhone and captured a part of the trail. I used the Photoshop app and the Photoeditor app to demonstrate two options to enhance your photos. The first one was done in Photoshop, the second was done in Photoeditor and the final image is the original.

Prezi is my new favorite presentation app. It makes power point feel stale and flat. Below is a Prezi that I made for my Film Club at the middle school. It was a lot of fun to do and the kids on my club loved it.

As my class begins reading A Year Down Yonder I was trying to think of a way to introduce the book to the students and I found this book trailer on youtube.com created beautifully by Laurine Karstens. Technology is a great way to created and build comprehension. Most teachers are aware that some students learn visually. There are many videos available on youtube for such tasks.

This fall I am reading the book A Year Down Yonder to my 6th grade class. I decided to use their section 1 vocabulary words and definitions and use Wordle to create a poster to hang in the classroom. It i a great thing to have all those relevant words hanging in my room in such a colorful presentation.

The first project I have my students complete every year is a West Virginia travel brochure. I'm a 6th grade English teacher and this may seem like an odd request but I find it to be a very easy way to gauge my student's abilities. We begin the process with research using the iPads. Next the students fill out a graphic organizer with fast facts and important dates from websites about their subjects. Some examples of subjects that I have used in the past are: Harper's Ferry, Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, the Pringle Tree, the West Virginia Wild Life Center and so on. At the end of the project I have them present the travel brochure to the class. This year I included mini-lessons on copyright and google searches. Once the presentations were complete I used padlet and asked the students to include one thing that the learned from the project.  

Finding the Latest Information About Technology Via Twitter. 

Twitter is a great resource to get information on the latest technology being used in the classroom (and maybe some technology that hasn't been used yet).

Staying connected via twitter can keep you up to date on everything NASA is up to as well as information being disseminated be the Office of Ed Tech. Some feeds that I follow are; @ TechCrunch, @ WIRED, @ForbesTech, @nprscience, @BillGates and @NMHS_Principal.

Recently, through Twitter, I learned the term "20 Time". This refers to giving 20% of your class time or one day a week to let your students explore a topic that interests them. This allows the student to go deeper into a subject they normally wouldn't have time for. Check out the following link to get more information on the subject 20 Time