Connecting Birthday and History ...

My birthday is today!

I was looking at Thinkfinity today and noticed the Today in History area ....

I wondered what happened in history on my birthday ... so I clicked on the calendar and went to find out!

That got me thinking about research for students in a class. Each student has a birthday, right? So perhaps for one research project/writing lesson, students would need to research something that happened in history on the day he or she was born. I had grand ideas of using those projects to create a class book or using the multimedia digital projects created to form a classroom gallery. Students could have a choice as to how to share the information collected. Students could investigate the findings of other students ....

So I started playing around with that idea ...

I have a coworker (Marty) who will celebrate his birthday on August 18 ... what happened in history on that day?

I started getting more and more excited about my idea and how rubrics could be formed to assess research and the creation of the projects. I started seeing wonderful creations in my mind. I started thinking of the other dates that are significant in my life that I could look at ...

Another coworker (Dorene) will celebrate her birthday on Sept. 7, so I went looking for the even in history from that day on the Thinkifinity calendar.  I clicked forward to September and found ..... 

the calendar was blank ....

My first thought was ... oh no, another idea down the drain ...  because it won't work

My next thought was ... it may not work exactly the way I had it planned out in my head originally but it still will work in some shape ...

So I started considering alternatives ...  

• 
  each person could look at events that happened in history on the day he or she was born by looking at it that day  (but what about the kids with Summer birthdays ... my sister's is in July and mine is in August)
• students could look at the past Wonders of the day on Wonderopolis to find an event to research based on the information that was shared on their birthdays
• we could look for other resources to use to explore dates in history

That was when I remembered that the Thinkfinity calendar gives you the option to look at days, week, months, and even years. I had seen the ability to see previous ones when looking at the day, week, or month calendars .... so I wondered if I might be able to look at the calendars from previous years ...

So I decided to try!

The good news is that YOU CAN! 

So for my coworker who will celebrate her birthday on Sept. 7, I looked at the calendar from last year to see what event was shared that day!

Yay!

You may have noticed that several of my pictures include a button to click to view more. When you click on that, you are taken to a page describing the event in 2-3 paragraphs. Along with that information, you can also find links to various lessons, activities, and ideas from the Thinkfinity Content Partners that go along with that topic or could be used with that type of information!

The other ideas that I brainstormed above would work too and I predict you can come up with some even better ways to use these dates in history!

I would love to hear some other ideas, so please leave a comment and share them!

Go pick a date and explore ....

images from http://www.thinkfinity.org/today-in-history

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Back to School with Edmodo

photo credit: Avolore via photo pin cc

What do you do with last year's groups? You want to keep the group name and all the information, but you want to clean the group up to start fresh. 

Your first step would be to rename that group. For instance if you have Social Studies per 1 group, you might want to rename it SSper1. To rename a group, click on the group, then click on Group Settings and change the name. One of the reasons to rename your group is that you cannot create groups with the same name. Then after renaming the group, you should archive the group.

To archive the group, click on the group you are going to archive. On the right hand side, click on Group Settings. You will notice a button at the bottom of the box that says Archive Group. By archiving that group, no one else will be able to join the group but the teacher can access the group if it is necessary. Then the teacher can create a new group (with the original name) and all the files and links the teacher had in the original group will still be available in that group.

For more information from the Edmodo blog, click here: "Your Back to School Checklist". Make sure to read the teacher rollout resources and review the best practices. There is some great information located here.

Image from Photo Pin: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52636849@N00/204934333/

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Help! I Changed Schools ...

... How do I get all of my information from my old school in Edmodo and be connected to my new school?

Never fear, this is very easy for you to do and without losing any of your information!

The first thing you will need to do is to log into Edmodo. Once there, follow the directions below.

You will be asked for the new school code. Talk with your Tech Facilitator or email Dorene Bates  for your school code. Please make sure you put what school you need the code for.

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Have You Thanked a Teacher Today?

I found this video and just felt like I needed to share it!



So my plan is to thank a teacher today and at least one everyday!

_____________________________________________

Did you notice how your attention was drawn to words and phrases in this video based on the way they were presented or moved?
Did you notice whether your attention was drawn more to the words or the background?
Did you notice the how the colors in this video made you feel?
Did you notice how the soft edges of the shapes fit well with the message?

What are some other things you noticed? .
(You can go back and watch it again ... I watched it 4 times the morning I found it)

Any ideas on ways we can make use of the things we noticed?
How can we help administrators, teachers, and students make better use of the things we noticed?

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The Beginning of Mobile Learning Communities

What does a classroom look like when every kid has a technology device in their hand?  What can be done in that class?  How do we manage a class such as this?  Is it effective?  Does pedagogy change?  Is a tablet or a laptop more effective?  All of these questions and more is what we hope to discover in our 1:1 laptop/tablet pilot!

This is an exciting time in education because we are moving away from the traditional classroom of teachers and students to a community of learners.  With this paradigm shift comes many shifts in education.  The teacher is now a facilitator and a learner.  The students learn from each other and also facilitate their own learning.  Pedagogy shifts from recalling and remembering facts to evaluating, analyzing and applying content to their own lives.  Students and facilitators are no longer confined to the 4 walls.   Their community now includes 7 continents and a few planets.

Feel free to join us in our adventure of creating this environment for our students.  Join us as we climb to the higher elevations of Bloom's. Join us as our students soar to limits unknown.  We look forward to sharing our ah has and uh ohs.  We also would love for you to join our community and sharing tips or best practices you have experienced in your classroom.  I am so excited to learn this year with our community of learners.  You can follow the community's blog at www.wscommunityoflearners.blogspot.com

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It is not the rover making discoveries ...

When reading about the Mars rover landing, I came across this statement that really jumped out at me:

During the interview, Grunsfeld walks through the “seven minutes of terror” and makes a “bold prediction,” saying, “the Curiosity rover is going to discover nothing on Mars. ... It’s not going to discover a thing.” But, continued Grunsfeld, “people on Earth, the scientists on Earth are going to discover all kinds of incredible things. We’re just going to love it. It’s going to be two years of amazing science.”

~from the Washington Post's Mars rover Curiosity landing: Where to watch and what you'll see

Notice what NASA lead scientist John Grunsfeld says:

• “the Curiosity rover is going to discover nothing on Mars. ... It’s not going to discover a thing. "
• “people on Earth, the scientists on Earth are going to discover all kinds of incredible things. ..."

The rover itself, named Curiosity (which I think is such a great name for it), is a machine and not going to discover anything .... because it is just a tool.

It is the people who are using the tools to make all kinds of discoveries ...

In my mind, that correlates so well with what we say about technology in the classroom ...

Just putting a machine or tool in a classroom is not going to have an impact on the students in that classroom ...

It is the teacher effectively using the tools in his or her classroom that will have an impact on student learning ...



For even more information about the Mars Curiosity Rover landing, see this previous post: Mars, Here We Come! 

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