Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

In my new position as a technology coach one of the things I try to do is provide sample projects that teachers can do in their classroom with their students. Since my interest is science I tend to pick projects for that field. The video above is one that I worked on with a group of fourth grade students. It is based on a video style used by Common Craft in their In Plain English Videos . They are very good very simple videos put together using paper creations. Other teachers in other districts have done this and one even put an instructional video on YouTube to help students understand the process. To prepare the student I had working with me on this project (which we did end of year after state testing) I made them watch one Common Craft video and the instructional video. I then showed them the three videos below that someone made (about the difference between banks and credit unions) based on the same style to give them a sense of the playfulness and "acting" they shou...

Whew! Another end of the year has come around. I apologize for the lack of posts this year. I didn't mention it but I took a new position this past year (and again into the coming year) as the technology coach for two elementary schools in the district. I thought I would still be able to post notebooking items on a regular basis but learning this new job has been a bit overwhelming so my posts have been hit or miss. I've acted as a mentor for several teachers working on notebooking this past year and plan to continue in the coming year. My favorite moment this year has come from a teacher (shout out to Mrs. Maroney) who moved from third grade to fourth grade to take my position. I had been trying to talk her into notebooking for several years and she wasn't quite up to it. She was very happy to use all my notebooking stuff in the new grade level and liked it so much she has already started to work on material for next year (she is rotating back down to third). I can'...

Our school district recently purchased SAM animation software and pushed it out to all our student computers. It is a very easy program designed to make stop motion animation videos. Right now our kids are "playing" with it to learn the software but I can see some very practical applications using it in science. In this video you will see the kids "playing" and then it actually being used as part of an experiment. I was in the room helping with the video taping with the children and it was very easy for the kids to set up. Today one of our first grade teachers were talking about some eggs they are hatching in the classroom and I immediately thought that would be a great use for the software. You can program it to take pictures (using a web cam) on a specific time schedule around the day the eggs are suppose to hatch. We had a lively debate about plants moving in my classroom. The kids could use the program to set up an experiment to see if plants move. The free demo...

Here is a video of the game being played.

Here is a video of one of the children explaining the game.

I went to high school last week in our district that has computer center that is pretty cool. One of the things that they had the visitors do is play a game called "Dance to Advance". On the floor were dance mats like "Dance Dance Revolution". You stood in the middle and looked at the interactive white board. A question popped up in the center and you had to jump/touch the square with the correct answer. It was automated for two minutes with questions coming up and the mats - which were connected to the interactive white board - recording who touched the right answer first. It was a lot of fun and I definitely want them for my classroom. Sadly four mats plus a site license cost $947 (which isn't a lot considering but in our budget crunch most likely would not be approved). I told a friend of mine about the game and we put together a "red neck" version of it to play with her extended learning math class (extended learning is offered to students during...

We have just started Spring Break here in Beaufort, South Carolina. Sadly our weather is not cooperating with rain and cooler then normal temperatures forecasted for the week (no beach on this break! In fact I have been wearing a sweater for the last couple of days.). I know this doesn't quite fit into the science, education, and notebooking theme I have going here on this blog but I thought I would share anyway :) About two weeks prior to the break I call the local cosmotology and massage schools in the area. They give reduced rates for the services with pedicures running $10, facials $15, and massages $35. I book what I can during the week that I am off. Typically they offer their services during the school day so the only time I can take advantage is when we do go on break. They book up EXTREMELY fast in our area, hence why I have to call at least 2 weeks out in order to get any services done. They rarely run services during the summer and holiday months (when they are on break...