New Program- Alternative Graduation

Jessica, Halie, and Katronella
Originally uploaded by The Blake Slate

The WCS BOE approved our school's new alternative graduation program. The final details are still under consideration. The bottom line should be that the graduation rate for our students will increase. Our goal is to provide our graduating students with the number of credits required by the State Board of Education and meet all their credit requirements for math, science, English, and social studies. This program has specific acceptance requirements. Participants must have approval from our school superintendent and principals.

EduCon 2.0

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.

And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School
2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we
want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the
future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas,
facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:

1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.

2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen

3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.

4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate

5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

Call For Conversations

In addition to the many informal conversations we believe will be a big
part of EduCon 2.0, we do want structured sessions in the following
broad strands:

School 2.0 -- What are the schools we need to prepare kids for the world to come?

Classroom 2.0 -- What are the classrooms our students need -- today and into the future?

Student 2.0 -- How should the student experience change in our schools?

Teacher 2.0 -- How should the profession of "teacher" change?

Innovation 2.0 -- How do we best act as agents of positive change?

Library 2.0. -- What is the role of the library in the future and what does it looks like, act like, feel like?

Conference proposals are due Nov. 1st. Please submit proposals via Survey Monkey -- Call for Conversations.

All proposals should include:

Title:
Conversational Strand:
Conversational Focus / Main Idea / Presentation (in 250 words or less):
Conversational Practice --
How will you make this an conversation, not just a presentation?
Skypecast? Conversational Protocols? Building a wiki together?

For more ideas, visit Stephanie Sandifer's post on Conference 2.0 Resources or the wiki page "Protocols Examples".

Conversation Website (Optional):

Presenter(s) Names:

Presenter(s) Afflilation:

Contact Email:

Source: http://educon20.wikispaces.com/

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Friday Seminar- Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

"The desire of humans to break from the
earth's surface and fly like the birds.  It is the story of the Wright
Brothers and their dedicated and inspired approach to a prob-
lem that had stumped many of the finest scientists of their time.
It is the story of how two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, careful-
ly and meticulously conducted a true scientific investigation
without the benefit of formal training or prior experience in
such structured procedures.  They intuitively and creatively uti-
lized their skills of observation to rethink and craft an approach
to a problem that scientists and inventors had faltered over for
years.  Theirs is a true story of inspiration, skill, devotion, cre-
ativity, and a desire to accomplish a very specific goal.  That
goal was to successfully build a heavier-than-air, motor-pow-
ered craft that would lift off the ground and travel forward a dis-
tance to a position no lower than their starting spot." source: Teacher's Guide Colgren Communications
Written by John Colgren.

STUDENT OBJECTIVES (NCSCOS Goal 1)
After viewing the program and participating in the lesson activ-
ities, the students should be able to:
• Identify the key problems of flight that faced the Wright
Brothers.
• Identify how the Wright Brothers gained insight and knowl-
edge about the principles of flight from the studies of those sci-
entists and inventors that came before them.
• Recognize that the Wright Brothers were successful in their
endeavor to conquer the skies because they made careful obser-
vations, conducted their own experiments when they were dis-
satisfied with the data of others, and worked as a team.

Links:

• http://www.kitty-hawk.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hawk,_North_Carolina
• http://www.firstflightcentennial.org/
• http://travel.howstuffworks.com/airplane.htm
• UnitedStreaming - Login to view "The Story of the Wright Brothers: From Kits to Kitty Hawk"
  

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EstuaryLive 2007

This past week, our high school biology students participated in this fall's EstuaryLive event. This had to have been the best EstuaryLive ever. Bill Lovin and Cris Crissman teamed up with the North Carolina and South Carolina folks to knock this year's episode out of the park.

I used the application from Apple called Grab to capture over one
hundred images from the live streams. I have never been a fan of RealPlayer, but the software was stable and images from the Charleston, SC were out of this world. The best part of this year's event had to be the guests. They keep the segments informative and interesting. The close up shots showed up nicely on the 15 inch monitor of the four year old PowerBook. My MacBook Pro remains out of service in the wake of last May's vandalism. I am still holding out hope that our technology department will find the funds to repair the monitor and power cable. But that is another story.

My students used Google Earth to locate Charleston, SC and looked at the coastal features. I encouraged my students to think about a question while they were watch the streaming video feed. They had so little knowledge of estuaries that this was a real challenge. I should have spend more time studying and preparing them for the sessions. They enjoyed the fish and shrimp segments.

Video project in my science classroom

Instead of just watching a Power Point lecture about birds of North Carolina and taking a test on it to see what students have memorized, my students are using digital tools to create short reports. The hooks was I showed them an animation of a character similar to the South Park characters. After seeing the intro animation, one of them mentioned that they would like to learn how to make their own animations.

I need to take the time to write up the instructions on how to do this. Instead of giving the students written instructions, I used a digital projector and modeled each step on a screen. The most interesting aspect of this activity was that a couple of students finished their project and volunteered as peer tutors.

Students had to present their project to the class using a digital projector and telling about their birds as a oral presentation.

Students used a performance rubric to assess their projects and learning. This video below is not complete. However, the other individual projects will be posted on Google Video.

Parents Being Involved

Dear Teacher,

Your student has found a really cool site www.scrapbooksthatteach.com that has been created by a teacher for teachers, students, and their parents. As a colleague, go ahead and take a look at academic scrapbooking. It can be used by individual students as a response to an assignment from you, by you in cooperative learning groups, and by parents who want to maintain a family scrapbook. You will enjoy using academic scrapbooking-- in teacher lingo, it falls under differentiated instruction and is the perfect way by which to include all the students in your class. And best of all, it is a management system in itself because it will keep the kids focused the entire class period and you don't have to adjust your assignment. The kids will be creative enough to figure out how to meet your high expectations for the assignment. Mine always do! Go ahead, log on now! Follow the Teacher Tag once you reach the home page. www.scrapbooksthatteach.com

Parents Being Involved

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Tobacco - The Golden Leaf of Days Gone By

When I was going up here in Chadbourn, the sites and smells of the tobacco market was always something we looked forward to. Farmers finally had some money to spend on cloths and necessities. I remember that successful farmers drove new pick-ups around town. Folks around here referred to the local economy as "the farmers plan". The merchants would charge groceries, fertilizer, feed, fuel for their trackers, tires for their vehicles, and just about everything--and when the tobacco market opened and the tobacco farmers sold their crop they would pay off their creditors.

Tobacco leaves 2

Yesterday, I noticed in the local Chinese restaurant in Chadbourn, a sign that reads: "Visa and Maste Card Only No Checks". As I stood there in line and chucked at the spelling lesson I wanted to make out of the poster, it came to me that we are not on "the farmer plan" economy any more.

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Bungie Jumping Barbie

While scrolling through the tweets generated today on Twitter, one caught my attention. Glad2be twittered: "Home from day of 'laying the foundation' Pre-AP workshop. Labs were fun, we made Barbie bungie jump." Glad2be also commented that there are some different Barbie bungee labs -- this one is similar to the one used in her workshop: http://oak.ucc.nau.edu/smg224/401pdfs/BungieBarbie.pdf

This looks like something my students would like. Commando Ken, or, I have it...Astronaut Ken taking a walk to repair the space shuttle.

Note to those of you reading this and snickering- they are not DOLLS, they are ACTION FIGURES.

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Record High Temp Today

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The question is, will Thursday's temperatures actually be higher than today's? We will see. Staying cool, watching STS-118 launch.

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New Feature in Twitter

I have been using a third party Twitter client and have not been using Twitter's web based app. Just a few minutes ago, I got an email notice that I had a direct message via Twitter. I as happy to see the pull down menu on the Twitter.com page. (see image)

I have really enjoyed sharing tips with fellow educators the last few days on Twitter. The experience is similar to being around the water cooler or teacher's lounge. However, it is better. It is hard to describe why it is better, it just is.
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Interesting tech for my classroom

Time to start making a list of instructional needs and wants. Put this first item under the wants category. We looked at a competitor product last year.

• SMART - AirLiner wireless slate

With the AirLiner slate you can interact wirelessly with your SMART Board interactive whiteboard or Sympodium interactive pen display from 52 feet (16 m) away. The battery-free tethered pen lets you control any software application, write notes and highlight information in digital ink

SMART’s AirLiner wireless slate enables you to teach from anywhere and allows students to interact with information from their seats. Multiple slate users can write at the same time as someone at the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

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mySkitch

I hope to find more time to brainstorm on how my students can use mySkitch to learn science. After downloading it, the first feature that I liked was how easy it is to transfer photos from the MacBook to my wife's Palm PDA. I have several PDAs but none of them supports bluetooth.

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More later...I know, nothing new, still doing the same activity

Teacher bugging of colleague bugs me

A news story from Flushing, Michigan caught my attention this morning. The incident seems to have been centered around a dispute between a middle school science teacher's child and another teacher. I say-- Oh, my Lord to this one. The science teacher seems to have placed a wireless listening device on the back of the chair of the other teacher. This is high tech spy novel stuff. The science teacher ended up apologizing to the "fellow teacher" and following her plea of no contest, was sentenced to six months of probation and 75 hours of community service and fined $250. This was a reduced sentence from attempted eavesdropping, a misdemeanor with up to a year of jail time.

I feel bad for the kid in this story. I am sure she never wanted mom, the science teacher to bug the other teacher's desk. What did her mom not believe that she had a problem with the teacher? Was the teacher that big of a butt hole? Why was the principal not in this deal? Was the school so large and relationships between teachers so crappy that this cound not have been worked out with conferences and friendly conversation?

TALK TO EACH OTHER PEOPLE!

I would have never taken my fellow teacher to court of an electronic bug, I would would have been so mad, I would have probably gotten fired myself from such a sneaky act. I am not sure what I might have done. It would not have been as civil as taking the teacher to court. But, in the country, we sometimes settle disputes with a more physical edge.

I am not happy with this and I think the principal should have been more proactive. The article says nothing about what all went on in the school as far as mediation of this episode. In our small district, the Superintendent would have been involved from the beginning. Let me guess, Flushing, Mich, and a middle school, it probably have over 2,000 students. Folks, this just goes to show that big schools spell trouble with a T. But what do I know, I am just a teacher.

The last thing I have to say about this article is that a comment that was posted really got my goat:

Hockeytown_Blueliners

She got PAID leave for breaking the law?!?!?!? Typical of the education system. Teachers are already overpaid, now they get rewarded for being an idiot. I always wanted to be a teacher and get overpaid for working half a year..but I'm not lazy enough.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:33 pm

"Teacher are already overpaid". What planet is this commenter from? And to say that teachers "get overpaid for working half a year". I am not sure how ignorant this person is, but it sure shows. Honeytown_Blueliners you must live in a van down by the river. People, teachers do not work half the year. When teachers go home, their day just begins. We have lesson plans, papers to grade, parents to call, extra curricular duties like clubs, athletic events, coaching, parking lot duties at dances, ball game duty, School Improvement committee meetings, Positive Behavior training, bus duty, professional development meetings that last 'til after 5, continuing education, recertification, preparation for open house, parent nights, graduation duty, prom decoration committee, exceptional children IEP meetings, parent conferences and on and on... After a school year, of this, on top of teaching those Hockeytown_Blueliner's and or his/her darling children about the finer points of how to use the Periodic Table or AP Calculus based Physics, I say to Hockeytown_Blueliner-- You can't do nothing but complain in a post to a newspaper article online? Talking about lazy, get involved in your community, volunteer in a school near you this coming school year. Walk through the metal detectors and by the gang graffiti into the more than likely crumbling building and see what is going on-- if you are not too lazy.

Teachers make a difference. Even when things go so bad, there are still thousands of teachers in the classroom every school year. I will not try to quote the wonderfully strong words of the former educator and poet Taylor Mali has to say about what teachers make. If you have not seen it or heard about it, read the transcript at this location. Or better yet, read about Taylor Mali on his web page. If you have PayPal, buy the pen he sells for teachers and give it to your favorite teacher.

In the end, teachers are just people. Parents will do almost anything for their children. This case is just a tip of the iceberg for what is going on in the lives of all our students. It is a challenge that we all need to work on.

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Almost at NECC 07

Bonjour
Originally uploaded by David Warlick

Take a close look at this image from David Warlick's flickr photostream. On the Buddy List, I can see my name. This is as close as I got to this ISTE's NECC '07.

Charcoal Grill and July at the Lake

Read an article about how to have a safe summer cookout. Ground beef should have an internal temperature of 160 degrees F. Ok, since this is a science teacher blog, what temperature is 160 degrees F in C? No cheating, do not copy and past 160 degrees F in Google and key in the word convert. Get out your slide rule and make the conversion. Oh, too young to even know what that is, too bad.


A way that you will never forget just remember that 0'C = 32'F

Now

0'C + 1'C = 32'F + 1.8'F = 33.8'F

0'C + 2'C = 32'F + 2(1.8)'F = 35.6'F

0'C + 3'C = 32'F + 3(1.8)'F = 37.4'F

and so on.

If you want to change take 23'C into 'F

0'C + 23'C = 32'F + 23(1.8)'F = 73.4'F

thus the formula to convert 'C to 'F is as following

x'C = 32'F + x(1.8)'F

Let us work back

0'C + x'C = 32'F + x(1.8)'F = 73.4'F

do it your self and find the value of x

you will get another formula that converts 'F to 'C

Charcoal Grill and July at the Lake
Originally uploaded by The Blake Slate

Almost Free Stuff for Science Teachers

I know bloggers are not suppose to post stuff like this. But if you have any science teaching friends, please share this info with them.

ALEXANDRIA, VA - In support of Earth Science Week 2007 (October 14-20),
the American Geological Institute (AGI) is publishing its "The Pulse of
Earth Science" Toolkit to enable teachers, students, and the public
alike to actively participate in this year's event.

This year's Toolkit includes a wide array of resources, including a new
edition of its popular Earth Science Calendar filled with activities and
important geoscientific dates.  These activities, supplied by AGI member
societies and other organizations, engage students in learning about the
earth sciences. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has provided both
"Facts on Disc," a CD-ROM which includes all of the USGS fact sheets
from the last twelve years and the brochure "USGS Education Resources
for Teachers."  The Toolkits also contain materials from NASA including
the CD-ROM "Exploring Ice" and an "Earth and Space Explorers Series"
poster.  ESRI has provided a copy of its "GIS Solutions for Education"
CD-ROM.  NOAA is also providing information on student opportunities and
careers within the earth sciences. 
read more...

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Edublog Updates- Moving from Good to Gooder

I have been using EduBlogs.com and noticed James Farmer's latest blog post:

The more discerning of you may have noticed that there’s something a little different about your Edublog backend as of today.

In particular I suspect you’ll rather like what you see when you visit your Presentation tab (uploadable, ahem, croppable, headers anyone… 20 new themes, perhaps?)

Or check out the multi-blog management drop-down menu that your blog name (in the admin area) has become.

Then, you might enjoy the extra helpful links in your Dashboard… and notice that the site is swanning along at quite a nifty pace.

And, while you’re at - upload an Avatar… you’ll be happy you did (and there’s even a widget to pop it in your sidebar).

More information (and funky functionality) coming very soon… told you we’d make this worth your while, didn’t we!

I have spent hours tinkering with my P2LS blog Changing the header photo is a real snap. In my iPhoto program, I setup a custom crop that previews photos that I might use on the blog. Changing the photo may cause some confusion, and change the look of the blog, but who cares. No one visits you blogs anymore. If I want to read what Steve Dembo is thinking about, I follow his Tweets on Twitter.com. David Warlick uses his smartphone and texts messages to Twitter. If he sees a quote in a presentation, he twits it and Twitterrific pops up and I can read it instantly. The Chris Pirillo shots out twit posts like a machine gun. As for blog posts, I use RSS readers to aggregate them. I have been trying out NetNewWire, but keep coming back to Bloglines. I tried Google Reader. GR is just not easy for me to read for some reason.

I never take time to visit the blog sites. Today, I took the time to edit my Blogroll. I used the links on several blogs that I enjoy reading and using their lists of blogs, and the WordPress javascript linked them to my P2LS blog. Now that was a cool activity for a hot summer day. I should have been out working in the garden or trimming the hedge or heck no!...it was too hot outside.

I do not remember who posted the question, but someone asked what bloggers cut out now that they are spending more time reading and twitting all the time? I have cut out reading DIGG. I have deleted DIGG from my RSS readers.

I digress- Edublogs.com has updated their multi-user site. It was good, and now it is "gooder". Sorry about that- I am not a scholar.

Using Wikis for Relevant Resources

In thinking about how science teachers can make instruction of middle school topics, I ran across the TeacherTube.com site. The site has many useable videos. However, when I searched the web for topics like plant cells, or chemical change, I keep getting YouTube references. I have used YouTube in my classroom, but found that after students played the video clip, they wanted to immediately search for Rap, wrestling, or anything to "entertain" them. YouTube does a great job keeping middle school students, and adults, clicking on their site. Clicks equal revenue for YouTube and I understand all that.

I found a neat little trick when embedding YouTube clips. It customizes the embedded clip. After making your selection, copy and paste the embed code above. The code changes based on your selection. Select "Don't include related videos." This trick lets the video play and then when the clip ends, other "related" links do not appear. This takes a couple of extra steps, but it well worth the effort when trying to keep my students on-task. I thought about using the online sites that convert YouTube video, but that takes hours and lots of storage space.

How will students relate to the videos and are the concepts they show verified for authenticity? What strategies did I use to evaluate the information?

On-line sources such as radio archives can turn up news stories that you can play using streamed audio players. Listening to a speech by a major science figure can provide nuance and context missing in printed accounts. Streamed video make it possible to watch television newscasts and documentaries archived on-line. Chat can be a frustrating and uneven tool, but used properly, it can help you find tips or even quotes relating to a story.

In looking at YouTube and trying to evaluating a clip, I used this basic strategy. Hypertext establishes links to banks of information, leading to the assumption that ideas are always backed by evidence. But a hypertext discussion can be manipulated by the choice of those links. What appear to be inevitable connections to related facts are actually *choices* made by page designers and video producers whose views are reflected in their selection of links and scenes. A key component of digital literacy is wariness. The links that are missing from a web page or video clip can tell you as much about the author's intentions as the links that are present. Notice whether the links made available point both to other sites as well as to the site you're looking at; if they're all inward pointing, you may want to ask why the site's developers haven't chosen to contrast their work with the ideas of others. I also used the North Carolina Standard Course of Study and searched YouTube, TeacherTube, and other sites using keywords from the objects.

Skype on a cell phone near you?

This is be nice:  When in DC, I would not use my cell phone due to my local plan and roaming charges.  My daughter travels and she will be trying to call her friends all the time from out of state.  She needs her own phone line, but until then, this would help.  The only problem is that her friends would have to use Skype on their computer.  Hum, I need help figuring this out...

Nokia says adds Skype to N800 Internet tablet | Technology | Reuters

Nokia, the world's top cell phone maker, said on Wednesday it has made Skype telephone services available on the Nokia N800 Internet tablet.

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Wireless Devices and Field Trip Adventures

The Best FCC Regulation, Ever ~ Chris Pirillo

The Best FCC Regulation, Ever July 11, 2007 at 2:07 am · in Communication · Comments New rules could rock wireless world, literally: Coming soon could be a wireless broadband world in which consumers get to pick any smartphone or other device and load any software on it - not have to take what the wireless carrier wants to sell.

Dude. DUDE?! This can’t be true. I simply can’t believe that this is actually (possibly) happening. Of course, I’d imagine that Apple’s lobby won’t let it fly - but if they really, truly cared about users - as they claim - they won’t have a problem in opening up a little bit more and playing along with the rest of the consumer electronics world. The carriers and phone manufacturers must become more interoperable.

This would be great for when students are away from school or on their way home on a school bus. However, in a recent conversation with a middle school teacher, she told me why this is not such a great idea. My fellow educator told me that a group of middle school students participated in a field trip to a North Carolina city. Their educational goal was well documented and communicated with parents and students. Students asked permission to carry their Sony PSP and Nintendo DS gaming devices to play on the bus ride. When the students got bored walking around the scheduled educational venue, the middle schoolers began to explore on their own. They used their DS and PSP wireless Internet access to access their own entertainment. Mark one up for "disruptive technology". Lesson learned: wireless Internet on cell phones would be very disruptive on a school field trip. FaceBook, YouTube, AOL Music. I can hear it now-- "HEY! we are on school field trip...if you wanted to just play on the Internet you should have stayed home."

While attending the Model Schools Conference, I keep hearing that educators need to focus on Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. My question is this: How can educators motivate students to use their problem solving skills when learning about how to analyze variables in scientific investigations?

Until I can get a handle on the pedagogy-- Sony PSP and Nintendo DS are not welcome on any of my potential field trips.

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