Flat Stanley Does Haiti Relief

Flat Stanley Does Haiti Relief is an inspirational video by Carol Claypool that she made after her last trip to Haiti. Carol, who is a first grade teacher at my school, created this video so that her students could gain a better understanding of the needs and lives of the Haitians she has come to love. From watching the video her students also see pictures of the actual families their teacher and friends are helping. All of our K-5 students now see where the school's donations go and more importantly, how desperately help is still needed. This six (6) minute video is ready to translate into other languages on dotSUB. dotSUB is a web based system used to upload and view videos, create subtitles, translate into other languages and share on websites. It is easy to translate the subtitles from the video transcriptions. Flat Stanley Does Haiti Relief - now on dotSUB is ready to share, view, translate and even embed on your site. Please consider translating the subtitles and forwarding this request so that more students, educators and parents can see for themselves too. For those unfamiliar with Flat Stanley, here is a synopsis of Flat Stanley's original story and projects at Dale Hubert's The Official Flat Stanley Project .

The BEST Reason to Skype

Today I told my favorite teacher about using Skype in our classroom. Since she has been out of the classroom for many years, she was really astonished that our computers are used to talk to someone outside of our building - especially for the reason I was telling her. Everyone needs to be doing this - she insisted - you need to tell them. Although I know of others who indeed do, I promised that I would give it a try.

We have many classroom conversations on the web using Skype. In the past years my technology classes have had many good reasons to hold conversations on the web: Native American studies, water conservation, weather, goals for the future, insects, our state, other states, another country, our schools, field trips, animals, poems, and a variety of books. With kindergarten through fifth grades we have had many ideas to share, and plenty of questions to ask.

This year is different. We have a goal of connecting all of our classes through technology. To integrate technology such as web conferences, videos, podcasting, wikis and blogs - I have busied myself with finding contacts, comparing topics, researching standards, adjusting plans, and scheduling conversations with other educators. But this year is different.

It started being different last month. A fellow teacher came to me with a request from a parent. They wanted to know if we could use Skype to keep one of our students connected to school. The family had set up Skype at home for their child. This precious student will be at home much of this year. He will be in the hospital too. With cancer treatments some days are better than others. For now he cannot physically come to school. But this year is different - he can come to school virtually - thanks to a little bit of technology and encouraging classmates.

We immediately set up the best reason for Skype for his classroom teacher. A few students in our school use Skype at home and others have been in our Technology class video conference sessions. This was our first time to use video conferencing with a classmate who is at home. Everyone was excited.

During his first classroom session, our virtual student learned from his classmates and with his classmates. New and old friends warmly greeted him and then two students gave him a tour of the classroom. They explained the routines of the day and described the special learning areas in the room. Others showed close-up environment models on camera for all to learn about a new social studies project. With his supportive mother by his side, our virtual student shared his time and his smiles with us.

When it was over, we all agreed it was a success and made plans for more. His guidance counselor and I are also ready for more sessions so he can join our class times, and learn with more of his friends. Our virtual student has the option of joining us by video and/or audio. He can turn his camera and sound on and off as needed. Although it was fun for the star of the day, his image can also be on a computer monitor in our room instead of the huge SMARTBoard display.

We are always learning more about teaching with technology. 1) Take turns. Since schools need to be concerned about bandwidth, we all understand that we must keep informed about each other's web conferences. 2) Be nice. Talk with all of the stakeholders about safety, privacy, and etiquette on and off of the web. 3) Be flexible - you may be pleasantly surprised. Sometimes the best laid plans must change, so plan for change. We also found out that our document camera and sound system work very well as a webcam (surprise!). 4) Be clear. Video conferences help us all practice better communication skills.

Students and teachers are still learning together...wherever they are.

PS: Here's to our first favorite teachers - our moms.

Scratch@MIT Conference

We just returned from presenting at the Scratch@MIT conference at MIT in Boson. If you are not familiar with Scratch, it is a new programming tool developed at MIT. Students imagine, create, and share games, animations and more. This past year we used the software in my fifth grade elementary technology classes. Also, students formed a club to continue to learn more ways to program using Scratch. I did not realize how important Scratch has become and what a huge impact Scratch has had world wide until this conference.

Participants all over the world ( US, UK, Australia, Russia, Korea, Taiwan, Poland.....) shared ways we incorporate Scratch in schools and groups in elementary through high school levels. Great things happened each hour including new ideas, resources, research partnerships, and collaborative plans for the new school year.

Four students from various countries were featured during Mitchel Resnick’s Opening Keynote (see video). My students will be surprised when I come back with videos and photos of famous Scratchers. More than once these students heard that they were like rock stars of the Scratch community.

The organization of the conference had other choices that were new for me. One way that worked very well was to have three presenters in a room. In one hour, each presenter gave a 10 minute talk. The rest of the hour was a Q&A session with the audience.

My first session choice began with Tracy Ho sharing her case study of student performance using Scratch. I was most interested in her findings of the patterns of events in which students learn, transfer, and apply Scratch. Tracy is a professor in the music department at Taipei Municipal University of Education, Taiwan. Jeanene Bluhm de Carvajal, founder of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, shared how they implement Scratch to help develop student creativity in their schools in Mexico. Krystof Haber, who has spent eleven years teaching Indigenous students with the last eight years at Antarringinya Centre in Australia, shared his unique teaching experiences with the audience. We were incredulous to learn how he uses Scratch to keep students engaged in having fun learning. His Australia Aboriginal students come and go, so Scratch offers the tools of engagement that he needs and that they love.

Friday at 9:30 am, we (JoNelle Gardner and Audrey Cageao) presented with a professor originally from Spain and another presenter from Russia. With three presentations for the hour, the audience got to hear and talk to:
• Teachers who use Scratch in their technology classes. Audrey shared how she introduces, guides, and supports students in their Scratch experiences. I (JoNelle) added how I integrate Scratch with science, math, language arts and technology via student wiki websites http://isurffer-friends.wikispaces.com/Scratch
• Creator (Juan Carlos Olabe) of a supportive website that has and extensive lists of Scratch video tutorials http://learnscratch.org/
• Head of a laboratory and coordinator of www.letopisi.ru (Yevgeny Patarakin) and learn how young programmers in Russia are using Scratch

Other conference sessions were also incredible. It was great listening to educators of all levels and regions of the world who are ready to lend a hand and work together.

I met educators and high school students from Arizona who are involved with Kimberly Scott’s wonderful program called COMPUGIRLS. http://compugirls.asu.edu/home.php These girls use Scratch with themes of social justice – very inspiring. We exchanged contact information to video conference with my computer club this year.

During Karen Bennen’s (from MIT Scratch Team) Scratch-Ed session, she brilliantly led the group in sharing, learning and supporting professional development for an upcoming new website for the community of Scratch educators.

I’ll describe more sessions in the next blog entry. Until then you can see more about the conference at http://scratch.mit.edu/conference/index.html
Conference Program: http://scratch.mit.edu/conference/Scratch_Final_Program.pdf

A HUGE THANK YOU to the Scratch@MIT TEAM!! Mitch and his team are marvelous. They all are an enthusiastic bunch and show a genuine joy for what they are doing and sharing with us.
And ooooh my… to the fabulous caterers too - you are the best!!

Let Us Put YOU on the Map!

We have become fascinated by the growing number of red dots on our ClusterMap.

ClustrMaps is the widget you can always find on the right side of this webpage. Go ahead and look for it- double click it and see the details too. It shows locations in the world where someone is checking out this blog. I know who and where a few of the dots are because we are collaborating on projects - more news on those projects as they progress.

By our calculations, we are averaging 4-5 new locations in the world each week!

We need more projects to help our students learn more about their geographic world (and not just to prepare them for any eventual question on a game show – or a pageant….). This is where you come in to the picture – literally.

If you are reading this outside of Fort Mill or Tega Cay, SC, please drop us a line - we would love to hear from you. We want to put YOU on the map! Our classroom has a world map on the wall, and it will grow as our ClusterMap grows. If you are inside Fort Mill/Tega Cay - drop on into our technology lab. We would love to hear from you too.

-JoNelle Gardner, Technology Teacher/Specialist gardnerj@fort-mill.k12.sc.us

Podcasts and KidPix

What do podcasts and Kidpix 4 Deluxe have in common? They are two technologies that help our students learn in all subjects while having fun. There are two ways you can help!

Podcasts are great ways to boost reading and writing skills. Students will create podcasts or webcasts - audio and video "shows" that will be posted on the internet. Parents will even be able to subscribe to their shows. These shows can be heard/seen on your computer, an MP3 player, an ipod, or even burned to a CD. We have what it takes to make basic webcasts in our room - and we want to do even MORE! With help from donations to this project, we will create our podcasts outside of our lab - we can create anywhere.
DonorsChoose is a special not-for-profit web site where "teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals, whom we call Citizen Philanthropists, choose projects to fund." On behalf of GHES technology lab, I have submitted two proposals for your consideration. One for creating podcasts/webcasts, and the other is for KidPix 4.

KidPix 4 is a versatile software that is great for all subjects. Read more about what we can do with this excellent program in our technology lab! Ask your student about KidPix projects!

Please help get the word out about DonorsChoose - a great way to know exactly where your donations go and how they help your child learn.

Welcome to GHES Blogger

We have exciting goals in Technology for 2007-08!
Blogging, podcasting, and wikis are new additions to Technology this year. Not sure what these mean? We will explain these here in our blogs and in our podcasts. For now just double-click on a word to find an answer!

Stay tuned and learn along with GHES. Communicating and learning with our terrific GHES families are important to us. The next few entries will explain how this will work for students, parents, and teachers this year.

While you are wondering...help us name our Blog and our Podcast. So far we have

GHES iSURFFers

for

GHES StUdents Ready For the Future

We also need a logo and a mascot!

Sounds like we need some input from YOU!