Privileged and Valued

I was excited to attend the SMART Exemplary Educator Summit, but I thought I knew what to expect. I spend a lot of time going to conferences, and I have been to a summit or week long training almost every year for the last fifteen summers. Every summit is a little different, but somethings are common among all good summits. Every summit I have attended, this part has been the same. It is also the reason I seek at least one week long learning experience each summer. You learn from your peers; you learn from your hosts; and you contribute to the learning process by giving up some of what you know. Spending a week with like-minded educators always ends with friends, and luckily with Facebook and twitter these friendships continue on long after the conference. Your personal learning community (PLN) expands and your pool of resources expands along with it. All in all, this part alone is pretty awesome. At the SMART Summit, one thing that made it stand out, however, is that the new friends and new resource pool was not coming from just the United States or even just North America. Attendees were from all over the world. I met people from Finland, Sweden, Norway, German, Austria, England, Scotland, Australia, Uruguay, Chile, Canada, France, and Spain. I was so fascinated that I could not stop asking questions about their countries and their cultures. I am a grown-up and a teacher. Imagine when I expose my students to their students. Imagine how curious they will be! Imagine the doors of communication and knowledge they will open. Imagine students researching other countries, not because we assigned them to, but because they want to know more about them, because they have new friends that live there. That's how I felt when I left the summit, and I know my fifth graders will feel the same! Another thing that made the Summit different from other summits was the way we were treated. That is not to say I have ever been treated poorly at any other conference I attended. As a matter of fact, I would not continue attending summer week long conferences if I was treated poorly. However, I always felt privileged to be able to attend those conferences. The SMART conference was different. Day after day, in so many ways, they told us how privileged THEY felt that we had attended their conference. At times, I felt almost uncomfortable and undeserving of the kind of attention they paid to us. At other times, I just felt proud and...well, privileged to be there. They had an amazing white hat ceremony to thank us for attending the conference. This is my chance...THANK YOU SMART...for caring about teachers, for listening to teachers, and for making us feel valued.

First Blog as a Techno Tiger

Each year my class comes up with a unique name. Last year my class was the Global Gorillas. The Gorillas were a tech savvy group. They created wikis and blogs. They started their own digital sports program that was published on iTunes. Their knowledge and use of Web 2.0 tools was outstanding, and they used this knowledge to create weekly literature circle responses. The Gorillas dabbled in podcasting and video production including the use of green screening.

The year before the Global Gorillas my class named themselves the Cyber Chickens. They were also no stranger to technology. They hosted a blog and a podcast about “The Series of Unfortunate Events” books. They created a blog to teach others about cyber bullying and another to help others prepare for the Pennsylvania State Assessment. The most impressive feat of all for the Cyber Chickens was the work they did to force a local company to clean up their hazardous waste mess near our school. They published their work on a Project Trinity wiki and a Project Trinity blog. The Cyber Chickens had a pretty impressive resume.

The Historic Hippos were there the previous year, and they were no slouches in the technology department, either. In their day, they were cutting edge! They were the first class to produce and publish their own podcasts on iTunes. They had their own email accounts on Gaggle and they were the first class to have a wikispace.

A new year has begun, with a new crop of students. They have named themselves the Techno Tigers. The Tigers have big job ahead of them. Will they be up to the challenge? What new ground in technology will this class break? I’m not sure, but I can’t wait to find out!

Techno Tigers

Global Gorilla Blog Roll

Global Gorillas

Cyber Chickens Blogroll

Cyber Chickens

Managing a 21st Century Classroom

The following is a post I made to my Authentic Learning Blog about a year ago. At the end of the post, I will explain how a classroom like this is managed.

What does a 21st Century Classroom look like? About ten minutes before lunch today, I looked around my classroom. I grabbed a pen and paper and walked around the room recording what students were doing.

1. Three students sitting at a laptop using Audacity to edit a podcast they made for literature circles.
2. Two students adding titles and descriptions to Morpheus Fortuna's Flickr page.
   
3. A student typing his blog entry on "What is Project S.C.A.T.?" (Stop Contamination at Trinity)
4. Three students quietly reading newspaper articles to research for Project S.C.A.T.
   
5. Two students using laptops to research the history of the Trinity site (taking notes in Microsoft Word.)
6. Two students looking up Trinity stock prices on Yahoo Finance and recording in a table on a wiki page.
7. Three students down the hall using an iPod and Tune Talk to record an interview with a teacher whose father died from asbestos exposure.
8. Two students sorting through printed material and dispersing to students according to topic.
9. Two students researching the chemicals Trinity dumped on our school's neighboring lot.
   
10. Four students using laptops to research and record websites and small blurbs on a wikipage
11. Two students saving pictures to network folder

I rang the classroom bell to let students know it was time for lunch and I heard a collective groan as students slowly pulled themselves away from their work.

Do you think that's what a 21st Century classroom is supposed to look like?




A year later, my classroom looks much the same, but the tools have expanded exponentially. For example, instead of just creating podcasts, students are using a flip video to create movies. Blabberize, Voki, Voice Thread, GoAnimate, ToonDoo and Glogster are just some of the web 2.0 tools students use to demonstrate knowledge of the content areas.

How is this possible in a fifth grade classroom? What are the management techniques employed? First of all, this doesn't just happen. Students don't arrive on the first day of school knowing how to use the tools and knowing how to work independently and collaboratively. This all takes time and patience. Starting out small in the beginning of the year, teaching mini lessons, and raising expectations as the year progresses are critical.

Behavior management is key. I am lucky in that the school I teach in has quite a few programs in place that produce respectful citizens. A program called Responsive Classroom is employed district wide. By the time students reach fifth grade, they have had five years of morning meetings and are well-versed in what it means to be a community learner.

In addition, our district adopted the Olweus Bullying Prevention program. This is a comprehensive program designed to reduce and prevent bullying problems among school children. DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is another program taught at the fifth grade level that not only teaches students about avoiding the dangers of drugs and alcohol, but also uses play acting to equip students to resist peer pressure.

With the combination of all of these programs coupled with the interest students have in what they are doing, I can honestly say behavior issues are minimal in this 21st Century classroom.

Dog for Obama

The Obama's have chosen the new "First Dog." Check out our research to help them make the decision.

Dog for Obama

(Special Thanks to my partner Denise Whiteman.)

Click to learn more about Hypoallergenic Dogs.

Check out past President's pets.


Click to view our wikispace.

Wikis, Blogs, and Diigo

Web 2.0 has changed the way we as educators look at technology integration in our classroom. I used to think I was so tech savvy, because I had a website and my students made Power Point presentations. Web 2.0 tools opened my eyes to a whole new way to use the world wide web to make my students not only more tech savvy, but global collaborators. Below I will tell about two tools that are ever present in my arsenal and one more tool that I haven’t opened up to my students yet, but plan to now that I know the possibilities.

I discovered wikispaces about two years ago at a conference, and since then I can’t believe I ever lived without them. Wikispaces can be used as an easy website interface, as a place to provide links for students, a place to provide information for parents and a place to showcase student work. There is no html code and ftp uploading or any of the other things that make web design so awkward. An example of a wiki acting as a website would be Mrs. Abernethy’s Global Gorilla Wikispace.

Wikis are much more than glorified websites, however. They can be used to collaborate. Students can work together to create a website even if they’re not on the same computer, in the same room, in the same city or in the same country. My first experience with interactive wikispace work was on Project Lemonade, an international collaborative project my students participated in last year. As a part of the project, my students worked together collaboratively to create their own interactive wikispace called Project S.C.A.T. The collaborative nature of wikispaces is what makes them a true web 2.0 tool.

Here is a great video on how and why to use wikis in a classroom.
WIKISPACES


Wikispaces provides their own interactive tour on how to get started. Included is an introduction and how-tos on personalizing your wiki, adding files and pictures, and personal settings. Wikis can be as open or as protected as you choose. For use with young students, it’s best to set up the privacy settings for them to be sure they are safe.

BLOGS
Blogs can be used in a multitude of ways. They don't always have to be for typical journaling. I create new blogs for topics we are learning about. They make it simple to embed student projects or provide a place for students to interact with each other's projects by leaving comments. This year we have created blogs for our class election, for the Revolutionary War, for Literature Circle projects, for Science, for Pi Day, for PSSA Preparation and more! The students enjoy being able to share their work with family and friends. They really love it when someone leaves a comment on their blog!

When first setting up a blog, it is important to set up the correct comment protection. I choose comment moderation and allow anyone to comment. That way you are not shutting out opportunities to collaborate globally with people who may read your blog. On the other hand, no comments can be viewed on the site unless you approve them first.

Allowing students to blog creates another set of concerns. Gaggle provides very safe blogging that can be opened up to the public or closed off to just the classroom or the school. Regardless of what avenue you take for student blogging, it is the teacher’s responsibility to approve or reject all posts before they are made public.

Here are some tutorials (one for Blogger and one for Word Press.)





DIIGO
I have been using Diigo for about a year to accumulate, highlight, and code websites for my own consumption. Only recently have I realized the possibilities for classroom use. Creating a group with my students can change the way we collaborate and share resources on research projects. Jennifer Dorman is an expert at using Diigo in the classroom.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Diigo Tutorial

View more presentations from Jennifer Dorman.

NETS

In addition to all of the academic standards, meeting the National Educational Technology Standards NETS is a challenge all teacher face in this 21st century. It may seem a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. With the help of Web 2.0 applications and the access to global participators, we have all the tools we need to create projects rich in content and skills that meet all the standards.

Many teachers get overwhelmed and frustrated as they try to meet and check off each standard on a lesson by lesson basis. This is not the way to do it. By employing project-based learning, online and offline collaboration and web 2.0 tools students and teacher can meet dozens of standards at once and create a love of life-long learning in their students that reaches far beyond the classroom walls.

Last year, my students participated in an international collaborative project. As part of the project, students decided to go after a large corporation who had abandoned a site neighboring our school. The company was charged with dumping hazardous waste, and my students decided to go after the company to clean it up. (See the Project S.C.A.T. post on this blog for more details.) In this project, students made a comprehensive plan, created multimedia products, wrote letters, researched history, interviewed local citizens, researched chemical compounds and more. In one project, they met almost every NET standard in addition to reading standards, writing standards, Social Studies standards and Science standards.

Is PBL Worth it?

In my last post I justified the use of Project Based Learning (PBL) in the classroom with the help of my fifth grade students. In this post, I am going to take a deeper look at reasons some say PBL is just not worth it.

Collaboration Issues: Some say that teaching students to work collaboratively can be impossible. I disagree. If we don’t teach our students to work together when they are young, they have no prayer of working together to change the world as adults. Paying particular attention to the makeup of groups at the beginning of the year is crucial. As the teacher gets to know her students and as they become a community, this becomes a less important factor. Mixing it up from project to project is one way to keep students from falling into bad habits. In my classroom, collaborative groups can be formed a number of ways including student choice, random draw, or teacher choice. Because we are a community of learners who have learned to respect each others’ strengths and weaknesses, we rarely have problems. When we do, it only takes a gentle reminder to get students back on track.

Content Acquisition: Some say that students working on a piece of a project only learn that piece. What about the rest of the content? When my students are working on a big project, it is true that we generally divide the topic into manageable group topics. For this reason, different groups of students become experts on a piece of the overall topic. However, when the project is pulled together in the end, students share their knowledge with the rest of the class. They learn the rest of the content from their peers. Of course, they will always know their piece best, because they have not only learned the content, they have taught the content and in the end they own that content. Knowing the part their piece makes in the big picture only makes the content more understandable.

When I speak of PBL and how it works, I am generally speaking in terms of my own fifth grade classroom. Since it is April, my students truly have become a community of learners. When given a topic, they get right to work brainstorming ideas, collaborating with their peers, and creating awesome projects.
Just recently students completed a collaborative project on the Revolutionary War. Each student was responsible for researching an event that happened during the War. They were required to complete a “Who, What, Where” worksheet and take that information and write a summary. From there the students were on their own as to how we would present the information.
The wheels started spinning. They brainstormed ways to use all of their favorite web 2.0 tools in order to create a cohesive project that tied all of their projects together. Below is their final project. The timeline includes all of their summaries. In addition, each student chose a web 2.0 tool to expand on the summary. The links to their projects are included. (Works best if you click for full event details.) Please explore and enjoy.



Here's one of my favorite projects:

GoAnimate.com: Revolutionary War- Battle of Saratoga

The Proof is in the Project

Project based learning is deeply seated in research as an effective way to engage students and produce better test scores. As the body of research builds, I decided to do a little research on my own. What is Project-Based Learning (PBL)? If you’d like to see PBL in action, spend some time with Mrs. Abernethy’s Global Gorillas. Whether students are reading, performing science experiments, or preparing for the state standardized test, students are deeply engrossed in a collaborative, project-based environment. How do they feel about this type of learning? View the results of a recent survey below.

Survey in a Google Document

Survey Analysis

1. When asked whether technology has helped them learn better, students responded unanimously, “yes.”
2. Given the choice between a paper-pencil test and a project for a grade, 83% chose project.
3. Students were asked which they would prefer to do the most to help them learn. Their choices and responses are as follows: read a book (15%), have the teacher tell you (12%), or work in a group (73%).
4. Students were given a list of projects they participated in this school year, and they were asked to choose the project they liked the most. A description of the projects and the results are below:
a. Class Election: Students participated in a simulated election. Click to see how the election worked. Students participated in a primary, held convention parties, gave speeches, planned campaigns, and participated in debates. In addition, the electoral vote process was employed in the actual class election. Before the election took place, students went to the polls to see firsthand how it was done. Later in the week after watching Barack Obama get sworn into office, our new class president and vice president were sworn into office, too. To learn more about this project go to our Election Blog.
b. Literature Circle Projects: Students are required to read one novel per month. Each week students create projects to demonstrate comprehension of the novel they are currently reading. Students are given latitude to exercise their creativity and they really do. From web 2.0 tools to paper-pencil, regardless the medium, students show what they read. To learn more, please visit our Literature Circle Blog.
c. Dinosaur Collaboration: Our class does quite a few collaborative projects with Mrs. Blazosky’s first grade class in Clarion. This is one of those projects. Students have been collaborating to build a Dinosaur Blog. My fifth graders created projects to teach her students about dinosaurs. Her students responded with projects of their own. From movies to Toon-Doos, the multimedia is rich. In addition, the fifth graders edited posts done by their younger collaborators.
d. Morpheus Fortuna: A traveling bog turtle, Morpheus makes his rounds to various classrooms around the state of Pennsylvania. Students enjoyed their visit with Morpheus and created movies and more for his blog and wikispace. It was meaningful to them that other students in their state would be reading and viewing their projects.
e. PSSA Projects: Students created their own projects to give tips for PSSA test taking. They created movies, interactive Power Point presentations, and other media rich projects. They shared their knowledge with other test takers across the state on a PSSA Blog.

Student results were as follows:
a. Class Election: 34%. Although this project was done at the beginning of the year, students chose it as memorable. Some reasons given were personal in nature. For example: “We got to choose our class president.” “…I got to run for Class President and we got to do awesome commercials.” “I remember doing signs and voting for Cassie.” ”I was a candidate till the primaries.” In reality, the students probably remember this project so vividly because it was so real and correlated with real life happenings (the Obama election.)
b. Literature Circle Projects: 23%. Some comments include: “What made this project memorable was that you had to do one every week. And I would always try to make the best one I could.” “Because we did them so often and their were so many different things to do.” “I’ve done tons of stuff for it, easy and hard. I’ve done things I’m very proud of during Lit Circles.” In my opinion, the variety, the hard work, and the use of web 2.0 tools will be very valuable skills for these students in the future.
c. Dinosaur Collaboration: 19%. Student comments: “Dino project because I made a video.”
d. Morpheus Fortuna: 11%. Student comments: “He was awesome and so much fun to do projects on.” “…I liked taking him to music and gym..”
e. PSSA Projects: 11%. Student comments: “Because I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and I got to work with a friend.”

(To view more complete answers and answers to other questions, please take time to view the Google Document.)

What all of the student comments have in common is an enthusiasm for learning. Students enjoy working collaboratively with other students in their classroom and with others via the world wide web and video conferencing. In this day of state standardized testing, how do you justify project-based learning? Let’s turn that around. In this time of testing, how do we justify not using it? If you need further proof that project-based learning is effective, meaningful and worthwhile, please visit our website, and take a look around.

Exemplars of Project Based Learning

Exploration of Three Exemplars of Project Based Learning featuring:

“More Fun Than a Barrel of . . . Worms?!” - Diane Curtis, Edutopia

“Geometry Students Angle into Architecture Through Project Learning” - Sara Armstrong, Edutopia

“March of the Monarchs: Students Follow the Butterflies' Migration” - Diane Curtis, Edutopia

The Edutopia examples of project based learning run the range from first grade to high school, but they all share some common themes. Engaged learners, collaborating in real life problem solving abound regardless of the project or the age of the students. The projects cross multi-disciplinary boundaries and teach the learner a multitude of process skills. These include and are not limited to: planning, setting goals, researching, reporting, brainstorming, synthesizing, and presenting. In a project-based environment, content is based on what students wonder about. The curriculum is student driven and affords the learner real world experiences. It is an “I wonder” curriculum based on what students wonder about.

Although the projects appear to be student driven, the teacher plays a very real guiding role. Responsible for infusing curricular standards while maintaining a facilitative role is much more difficult than standing in front of the classroom. The teacher must be willing to think outside the box. Making connections from student interests to real world application and curriculum and standards don’t just happen. Time management and outside planning are crucial. The role of the teacher is to be supportive, encouraging, open-minded, and flexible. The art of active listening, providing resources, and process monitoring are just a few of the skills the facilitative leader of a project-based classroom needs. They need to be able to give up their own power for the good of empowering the learner. Creating life-long learners becomes the goal of a good facilitator. All in all, the teacher is a mentor and a coach that impacts student learning by creating authentic experiences for the students.

The students in a project-based classroom have a different role, too. No longer are they the passive digester of spoon fed knowledge. They must take responsibility for their learning in a way the traditional student never did. The students need to develop a desire to learn and key into their internal curious nature. The learners need to become creative problem solvers. The textbook no longer gives the answer to the problem. Communication, collaboration, and decision making are skills important to all students in a project-based classroom.

In all aspects of the three examples, students were given meaningful learning experiences. The projects they were a part of became a part of them. Given a paper pencil test at the end of each experience would most likely show that the students learned the skills teachers deemed necessary to meet curricular standards. What this paper pencil test would not show is the realistic relevance and depth of the student learning. The final products including verbal explanation and tangible products gave a much wider view of their learning. These were not experiences that would easily be forgotten after the “test.”

Creation of a Schoolyard Habitat

About nine years ago, my students and I embarked on a PBL (Project-Based Learning) experience. While learning about animals and their habitats, the class decided to create our own habitat for native species in our schoolyard. We began with a persuasive writing exercise to convince the schoolboard and administration to allow us to transform a part of school property. This was only the first of many letters the students wrote during the project. Letters to local business owners afforded us the opportunity to buy tools and plants for our project. Students even convinced businesses and individuals to donate plants, mulch and tools. A newsletter created by the students went home with with everyone in the school explaining the project and making the plea for help.

In addition to writing skills, students did research on multiple topics. They learned through the National Wildlife Federation that we could become certified as an official Schoolyard Habitat. I learned as an educator that there are national standards that can be met just by doing the project. I now had justification in case anyone questioned the validity of our project. After researching the requirements to become a certified schoolyard habitat, students began researching plants and animals native to our area. They also used mathematical skills to map out an area of the schoolyard to create the habitat.

After a lot of preparation, in the spring of 2000, the students were finally ready to break ground. A year later, the habitat was certified as a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Students were recognized in the local newspapers and we were interviewed on television by a local broadcast station.

The schoolyard habitat still lives today, and is maintained by my fifth grade class each year and students who volunteer to help during recess and after school. In addition, there is a schoolwide cleanup of the habitat in the spring on Earth Day. Go to our website to learn more about our Schoolyard Habitat or click below to watch the powerpoint.


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by jabernethy

CountriesThat Visited

Above is a Wordle created at worldle.net. The countries found in the wordle are the countries that visited Mrs. Abernethy's Global Gorillas Classroom Website in 2008. The size of the country correlates with the number of visits from that country. Therefore, countries that visited more often are larger. A total of 67 countries visited in all!

Just Jan's Blogger Award

It seems many of the blogs I follow are sporting a nifty little badge lately. It's the Emmies...no...the Eddies...well, actually it's the 2008 Edublog Awards. What that means to us is a chance to choose from some of the best educational blogs on the web!

I have taken the liberty of reviewing a few dozen blogs and I've narrowed my favorites down to the following:

Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs: This dynamic teacher includes links to some really great sites and actual files you can upload for use.

Teach42: Steve Dembo's blog. If you read no other, his is a must! Ideas you can use right out of the box.

Teachers Love Their SmartBoards: and so do I! This blog has links to ready to use SmartBoard sites and files, in addition to great ideas for using the SmartBoard in new and creative ways.

Education Investigation: I stumbled upon this blog, and I don't even know this guy's name! Great ideas and great sharing, though.

Classroom 2.0 : A must see collaborative site where educators meet to discuss education and help each other

ICT Teaching and Learning: This blogger is from New Zealand, and boy does she have a lot to share!


That's all I'm going to share with you, but I can guarantee there are some real beauties I haven't even mentioned. Don't take my word for it! Get over there and check it out for yourself, and start filling that Google Reader with some really great blogs!

The 2008 Edublog Awards

...and the Just Jan Blogger Award goes to...Sorry, there are just too many great bloggers out there to pick just one.

The Cyber Bully Battle

My students are fifth graders, and after an informal poll I determined about half of them use instant messaging chat programs. About three-fourths of them own cell phones and send texts to their friends. None of them have been formally taught how to use these social networks in a respectful and ethical manner.

As teachers who use technology, we have an added responsibility. It is our job as educators to educate our students about possible dangers related to social networking and the ethical responsibility of using social networks. If they aren't taught, we cannot assume they will know.

Based on discussion, it was obvious that all of the students were aware of the dangers of giving out personal information and talking to strangers over the internet. What they weren't aware of however is the dangers of cyber bullying. Below are a couple of videos I used to begin the discussion.





We discussed the videos and several others. You can find more here: http://cyberchickens5.wikispaces.com/CyberBully. During the discussion, I was surprised to see some of the students squirming. They admitted that they were guilty or knew others who were guilty of "cyber bullying."

Some important points discussed were:

-Forms of cyber bullying include but are not limited to abusive text messages, hate sites, poisonous emails, and rude instant messaging.
-In addition, spreading rumors and forwarding what someone says is also unethical and disrespectful.
-If cyber bullied, students should save evidence and tell someone right away.

Most importantly, I told my students that now that they know about cyber bullying, they have a responsibility to teach the world. With a global audience, a blog on the internet seemed the perfect venue to do so. Students took the challenge and after some further research, they created podcasts, Power Point presentations and digital movies to portray the dangers of cyber bullying.

Below is an example of one group's project.


To view more, please go to our Cyber Bully Blog at http://stopcyberbully.blogspot.com/

Connecting Outside the Classroom

Teaching fifth graders poses a challenge in terms of how much to expose them to online social networking. Should they have a My Space page or Face Book? In my opinion, absolutely not! They are, however, right at the cusp of socialization, which makes it the perfect time to train and prepare them for it.

About seven years ago I stumbled upon an online email program created for students and teachers called Gaggle. I needed my students to have an email address for an online Moodle course I had created. This seemed like the perfect solution. After obtaining parent permission, I set up an email account for each student in my classroom.

In Gaggle, I found not only an email address for my students, I found a safe way for them to communicate. With a built in filtering system, Gaggle allows little or no spam. The program also bounces all incoming or outgoing email that includes inappropriate language. Another nifty feature Gaggle has is a built in digital locker for each email account. If students are working on a project at home, they can transport it in their digital locker .

Over the years, Gaggle has expanded from an email program to a full communication program. Included in the package are blogs, message boards, digital lockers, chat rooms and profile pages. Teachers are in control and can decide whether the blogs, chat rooms, etc. are open to the district, the school or just the classroom. With my fifth graders, I always choose "just the classroom."

There are two versions of Gaggle, the free version and the paid version. The free version includes all of the options for keeping students safe with the following limitations. There is a limit to the amount of space students have in their digital lockers, teachers can only control fifty accounts, and there are annoying flashing commercials on the screen. I put up with those limitations for about six years, and the only real issue I had was having to boot students out of the system every two years. Even though they were in seventh grade by then, the students were disappointed to give up their account. I was proud that I had kept them safe from all of the unmonitored email accounts for a couple of years, and it really bothered me when I had to cut them loose.

Last year I convinced Gaggle to provide me with a free account (just for being such a loyal and veteran Gaggle user.) I also promised to work on my district to provide accounts for all students. This year my school district bought accounts for the middle school and high school. The teachers are amazed by the convenience and the ease of the program. They are also excited to integrate all the features into their classroom.-

In closing, I would like to share a creative way I used Gaggle last year with my classroom outside of school time. Before we went on Christmas break, my students and I made a pact to get into our class chat room to discuss our presents. We set the time for noon on the day after Christmas. About twelve students remembered to log onto the chat room that day and one teacher forgot! When I realized that I missed our "chat" I was disappointed and logged into my account. A wonderful feature with Gaggle is that every chat that occurs in your class chat room is saved in the teacher account. I was able to read the entire chat. I was amazed and proud of the way my students discussed their Christmas presents (and their missing teacher.) They were respectful and appropriate, just as they had been taught in class to behave in a chat room.

As teachers who introduce and open up the world of technology to our students, we have a responsibility to not only keep them safe, but teach them how to keep themselves safe. Instead of shutting their world out of school, we can use programs like Gaggle to enter that world and educate them.

If you are interested in checking out Gaggle, here is the link.
http://www.gaggle.net/

Creativity in the Classroom

Students in my classroom are all part of a literature circle group. Groups are formed because the students are all reading the same novel, or the books they are reading are from the same series or perhaps they share a favorite author.

Literature circle groups come with some responsibilities. Students are required to complete at least one novel each month and they must respond to their reading each week. Time is given during the week for literature circle groups to get together to discuss the books they're reading or just to do some shared reading. The coveted day, however, comes at the end of the week.

On Fridays, student share their literature circle novel responses with the class. This began for me as an exercise to determine who was reading their book and who was not. A list of mundane ways for students to respond were provided for the students, and none of the assignments required a whole lot of creativity. In my original plan, students shared their responses with their group only.

Something happened however. Students began asking me if they could go outside the box and perhaps do something a little different than the choices provided. Of course, I agreed. The projects that began arriving at school on Fridays became increasingly more creative. It wasn't enough for these students to share their projects with their groups. We began sharing them as a class.

I was so impressed by some of the projects, that I began taking pictures of them. The collection grew and suddenly I realized...these projects are too special to keep to ourselves. We decided to share them with the world.

Below are some examples of projects the students have created. The one thing I didn't mention is that these projects are only worth ten points. Please remember that when you look at the projects. You decide what is motivating the students!

A pair of shoes: Two students reading the same book split a pair of shoes and each decorated one of them with story elements from the book.



A response to Superfudge: This student made a BUCKET of dirt (the dessert) to share with the class. The summary of the book she was reading was taped to the bucket and the characters' names were on sticks in the dessert.



This student created these pages on Microsoft Publisher. He changed them to jpg files so we could put them on the site.



This is just a small sampling of the projects students have created. To see more, please go to our blog by clicking on the link below:
Literature Circle Blog

If you're impressed, please leave a comment for the kids. They love them!

Project S.C.A.T. (u03a1)

Each year my class chooses a community service project. The students always come up with good ideas and worthy causes, but last year's project was a "once in a lifetime" experience. It all started when we agreed to participate in an international online project called Project Lemonade. The project was inspired by the four-year old girl named Alex who raised over a million dollars for pediatric cancer research. The premise was that kids can accomplish anything if they work hard enough and if they work collaboratively, there's nothing they can't do.

My class, Mrs. Abernethy's Cyber Chickens chose to take on a large corporation that had polluted property next door to our school. Wait! I'll let them tell you about the project.




The project was definitely interdisciplinary. Students researched the history of the site all the way back to the early 1900s. They found community members who used to work at the plant and they interviewed them, recording them on a podcast. They summarized dozens of articles they found on the web. The local newspaper was not on the web and they researched articles from this paper in the community library's archives. They also researched the chemicals found on the site.

Students created a wikispace and blog to post all of their research. After working on the project for a few weeks, the local newspaper published an article about a "task force" and the students not only joined the task force, they were an integral part of the town meetings.

Students instituted a "letter writing strategy" in that they developed a list of people they wanted to write letters. Their list included Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, DEP, Governor Ed Rendell, Phil English, Trinity Industries and more. Each week each person on the list received a letter from a different student. A google calendar on their wikispace kept track of who needed a letter.

The last week of school, their hard work paid off. They received a letter from Trinity Industries. The company acknowledged the students' concerns and told of a plan they had to clean up the site. This school year, workers can be seen from our playground. When I see them, I have to smile, because I know that a group of children can make a difference!

Blog on Digital Media (u02a1)

The next theme in my reading series is called "In the Wild." It begins with an excerpt from Semour Simon's book called Wolves. As a proponent of integration of content and skills across the curriculum, I simultaneously begin a unit in Science that includes the study of animals. Sub-topics include animal classification, habitat, open loop, close loop, adaptations based on environment, and ecosystems. The goals for Language Arts include reading, writing and understanding expository text. Fact and fiction and the use of literary devices are also explored.

Since animals is kind of my thing (check my website: Mrs. Abernethy's Global Gorillas), this happens to be my favorite topic. We spend a lot of time on wolves in particular, because of their nature and the controversy surrounding them.

While browsing the hundreds of clips about wolves on Discovery Education Streaming, I knew I hit the jackpot when I found Mammals of North America: Predators and Prey. This little jewel meets ELEVEN assessment anchors for science alone! With eleven small clips all adding to a total of 17 minutes, this clip is ideal for a variety of multi media projects.

The first, albeit, the most obvious is to use the clip as an introduction to the unit. Playing the video straight through, however, would probably not hold their interest, and since it's so jammed pack with content, much would be lost. (So, don't count this as one of the five ways!)

In my classroom, this is probably how it would go:

To get the most out of the clips, they would need to be viewed more than once. The first time would be as a teacher-led activity. The clips would be shown in their segments as various topics are being taught in class. Students could break into groups after viewing a segment and discuss various things they noticed in the video, perhaps challenging the groups to come up with as many facts as possible and then coming back and sharing them with the whole group.

At the end of the unit, students could work in small groups of two or three. Each group or partnership would choose no more than one of the clips. Their job would be to create a multimedia project based on the content that they could bring back and share with their classmates. In addition, they could research the topic further. This allows students to gain a deeper meaning of the content, take ownership of it, and learn from their peers.

The following are some possible student projects:

1. A podcast done as a radio show with the host interviewing experts on the subject of wolves and their habitat or any of the other various topics found in the videos.

2. A jeopardy game show including at least five categories of questions with five questions from each category. Students could hyperlink their answers in Power Point presentation or create a live game the whole class could play.

3. Students could use Windows Movie Maker or Photo Story to tell a digital story about the content in their chosen clip

4. A wikispace webpage could be created by the group, then opened up to the class for further collaboration on the topic.

5. Students could start a blog and each group could post about their topic. Then students could go in and comment on each other's posts.

6. Pull the clip into Windows Movie Maker, mute the audio, and students could narrate the clip.

7. Students could make up a skit and perform it for the class using content from their chosen clip.

Honestly, this list could go on forever. However, I must say that the best resource for ideas doesn't come from us. It comes from the kids. When we are doing major projects in my classroom, I generally have a class meeting and we brainstorm all the possible ways they can show what they have learned. Their ideas always far surpass mine in creativity.

On the topic of wolves, a few years ago the students put together a talent show for their parents to raise money to adopt a wolf. They charged their parents admission and charged for food (that their parents had donated.)

In conclusion, it's great for us to come up with these ideas and it does allow us to provide our students with choices, but ultimately, don't forget to ask the kids!