Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Skype Call

Hooray! Our second Skype call with Mrs. Wells' 4th graders in Ozawkie, Kansas went much better. I found my web camera, so they were able to see us this time. Since both Mrs. Wells and I were participating in Jen Wagner's project entitled Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, we decided to have our students read the book together during the Skype video call. My students read the left hand pages, and her students read the right hand pages. After the reading was over my class surprised her class with a song. Two of my students were our cameramen. Corey, handled the web camera so our Skype buddies in Kansas could see us, and Wayne used our Flip camera to make a video of the event. We had a few sound issues, and need to learn how to use the Flip camera better. I also need to invest in a better microphone. I created the videos for viewing using Windows Movie Maker. We hope you enjoy the videos. Feel free to leave us a comment.

Meeting Our Skype Buddies

On the morning of September 17 we did our first Skpye call with Mrs. Wells' class in Ozawkie, Kansas. I found Mrs. Wells through a Ning called OnlineProjects4Teachers. We communicated back and forth on the Ning and did a couple of Skype calls at home to figure out what we would do for our first collaborative project. Well, there was great excitement in the air on that Thursday morning, but as sometimes happens with technology things didn't work out quite right for me that day. My web camera went missing, so we had to go to Plan B. Mrs. Wells' students introduced themselves to my students since everything on their end was working fine. My class loved "meeting" them through the Skype video call which I projected onto our Promethean board. Our microphone was working so her class could hear us, but they couldn't see us. Below is a video of some of the introductions. Mrs. Wells and I Skyped each other later that day and set up a date for our second Skype call. She told me her studnets said it was like a mystery that they couldn't see us but could only hear us. They perked up when some of my students talked about being born in other countries. They are looking forward to "seeing" us soon.

Back to School Math Challenge

I received an email from vmathlive.com inviting me to register for their Back-to-School Math Mania Challenge. All 2nd–8th grade students in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas who were registered by September 14th could participate in the challenge. The competition took place on September 15 and 16. I registered all of the students from my three math classes and they had a blast playing the game. They logged on, created their avatar, and competed. Even though the challenge was for the states mentioned above, the site would select three players who were online and they could live anywhere in the world. A map of the world on the website would show each student where the students he or she was playing were from. My students played other students from Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Egypt and many other countries. All three of my classes place in the top 50. We got 41st, 32nd, and 12th place. Way to go Bissonet 4th graders.

Learning About Our World

We studied maps and globes as our first unit in social studies. We used our textbook, Promethean board flipcharts, wall maps, atlases, and globes to help us learn the continents, oceans, hemispheres, equator, prime merdian, and more. One of our favorite review games was Globe Toss. Each cooperative group had a globe and one student would toss it to another. The student catching the globe had to name the place where his or her right thumb landed on the globe. It was a lot of fun to play.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

President Obama's Back to School Message

This Wordle was created by my friend, Jen Wagner, from the transcript of the speech that the president will deliver tomorrow at 12:00 EDT to the schoolchildren of America. I just finished reading the transcript and am wondering why so many people are so opposed to President Obama addressing the children of our country. Here is an excerpt: That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn.

I found his speech to be very motivating and delivers a message of the importance of a good education. He encourages them to set goals, ask questions, and do the best they can do. Is that a subversive message?

I think these are things that each parent should be saying to their children every day as they head off to school. As a teacher, I know I strive to be the best educator I can be, and want my students to ask lots of questions. Setting goals is a great way to stay focused on the important things in life. I was the first person in my family to earn a college degree and know first hand the value of a great education. I spend a hour or more everyday continuing my educational journey online and value all the technology tools that enable me to learn something new everyday.

As I face my students everyday, I hope that they will catch the learning fever that burns inside of me and strive to be the best that they can be.

3D Photo Display

I learned how to make a 3D display of my photos today with a website called Kickfly. I had these pictures I had taken at the Natchez Balloon Festival in October in my Flickr account. Kickfly allows you to upload pictures from your MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, or Photobucket account. Or you can upload from a web page. Kickfly takes the pictures you upload and creates your gallery for you. After it is created you can share it to your MySpace or Facebook page, email it to friends, or embed it in your website or blog.

I really like that it can popout of my blog to be viewed fullscreen. Another cool feature is the ability it click on the Blueprint button to see the floor plan of your gallery.

Enjoy!

Animating Online

I attended the "Working on the Work Web 2.0 21st Century Skills" inservice sponsored by the Jefferson Parish Public School System on June 10 and 11. I learned about animating online in one of the sessions. I learned about Blabberize, Glogster, and Voki. My students and I made several vokis last year.

Next year I will demonstrate Blabberize so that my students can choose which tool they would rather use to create an avatar. Their avatar can be used to explain how they solve a math problem, to recite a poem, or to highlight the events of the week as a very 21st century learning log.

Below are some examples of the Vokis we made this year.