Category Archives: my classroom

Another fine Glog Project

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I am working on building a Yola website for all of my students’ Three Cups of Tea online posters, via Glogster. Some are just so well-done and interesting that I feel that I might be sharing here now and then. I gave them some final time yesterday to complete their work and all of the projects are now graded and most are ready for publishing.

One thing I did like about the closed glog network is that I could message the students directly, note any spelling errors or content omissions or general comments, and then they could work right from the site to edit their projects.

Here is an examplar project, in my mind. The design works for the project, their audio was a nice touch, the video complemented their work and they were thoughtful in their answers.

Peace (on the poster),
Kevin

Making Change Through Music

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I am knee-deep in planning a pretty large concert in two weeks that was spurred on first by a request from a student to conduct some community service and then by our reading of the Three Cups of Tea book.

First, a student of mine came to me to say that his church was talking about the great need — the continued great need — of schools in New Orleans for books, as many have not recovered from Hurricane Katrina. I told him that in the past, we did do a big benefit concert for Katrina and we raised a lot of money for disaster relief.

We both thought: maybe another concert?

Then, we read Three Cups of Tea, and the fifth grade at our school read it, too, and our school became involved in collecting coins for Pennies for Peace. It is a tangible way for our students to engage the book beyond the page and make a difference.

So, as we talked about Pennies for Peace and the book, the concert idea popped up again. What if we pulled together student and staff musicians and asked folks to donate a gently-used book and some coins, and then, put on a night of music?

Let it be so.

Our Concert for Change comes up in less than two weeks and I love the mix of performers — from staff colleagues, to current students (one of my students even wrote an original song for the event), to past students coming back to get involved. I am even trying to get a large group of fifth and sixth graders on stage for the grand finale, singing the song “Three Cups of Tea,”  which our music teacher has spent time teaching them all. It’s a gamble, but I think it will work, and I figure, even if it doesn’t come off completely in tune, it will be a great way to end the night.

I love how music can really galvanize a community.

Peace (in the songs),
Kevin

That book on the shelf is a dictionary

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Yesterday, we began our unit on the origins of words, with me using my Prezi show to engage the students in discussions about where they think our language comes from. Most had never even thought about it, so they were pretty focused on our discussions. They all laughed at the high school that has banned the word “Meep” because of overuse (or disruptive use) by students.

I finished the overview up with a talk about the dictionary. I asked: how many of you have used a book dictionary to look something up in the past two months.

Out of about 75 kids (in four classes), about a dozen raised their hands.

Then, I asked: how many of you have used an Internet-based dictionary in the past two months to look something up?

I got about 95 percent of the kids with hands in the air, although one student reminded us that “you can’t always trust what you find on the Internet.” We had a discussion about the pros and cons of online versus paper dictionaries.

  • Online: you can click the speaker and hear the word
  • Paper: You can stumble across unknown words
  • Online: You use a search engine
  • Paper: It’s always available
  • Online: Links to other resources
  • Paper: a reliable source

I acknowledged that most of us now turn to the Net for ways to gather information but that a dictionary is still an important source and we then spent some time going over how you “read” a dictionary — skills they clearly were lacking. We talked about guide words, pronunciation, syllables, parts of speech and even the origins of words.

The activity they had was to spend a few minutes looking through the dictionary and find a word they did not know, figure out the pronunciation and read the word and definition to the class. You would not imagine how much fun they had with this simple activity. They were laughing, looking and sharing left and right. It was a blast.

As an interesting side note: at the end of the year, when our sixth graders move on to our regional middle/high school, they are presented with a gift from the local Mothers’ Club: a beautiful dictionary. We’ve been trying to decide if this is still a useful gift, given the times, and after yesterday, I still think it is. They need to know and understand the dictionary, even if their use of online resources grows.

In case you missed my Word Origins presentation the other day, here it is:

Peace (in the book of words),
Kevin

The Origin of Words prezi

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Today, my students will start exploring where words come from and I decided to pull together a Prezi overview of some of the areas that we will talk with and work on in the next week or two.

Peace (in the prezi),
Kevin

Literature Projects on Glogster

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Today, I am hopeful that all of my students will finish up their Three Cups of Tea literature projects on our Glogster site. (see my earlier reflections on the process). We’ve run into time issues (not enough of it) and some audio issues (difficult to upload podcasts and the other day, all of the audio files got jammed up at the Glogster site), but for the most part, almost everyone is on the verge of completing their Three Things about Three Cups of Tea project.

And I need to get this done because now, in science, they are going to be using Glogster to create posters for a bridge as part of their Engineering class and part of their Bridge Construction/Destruction project. My science teacher colleague has been tinkering with Glogster this weekend, gearing herself up for the plunge into technology.

Here is one of the student’s Three Cups of Tea Projects. My goal now is to figure out a way to publish all of the projects in an easy format — a website of some kind.

Peace (on the glog),
Kevin

20 Puppet Shows up and running

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I worked feverishly to move the video performances of our class puppets shows from my digital camcorder to a website this week, so that I could have the site up and running for students and their families this weekend (There are 20 puppet shows, with one still to go — it was delayed due to sickness of one student). I succeeded, but in order to do so, I had to abandon my plan to use my new classroom Mac to make the movies. I returned to familiar ground with my PC and Moviemaker.

Next time …

If you are wondering how I went about creating the puppet show online site:

  • First, of course, my students had to write and perform the plays. This began in early December with brainstorming, collaborative writing, puppet making, and then moved into January with performances;
  • I used my digital camcorder to record them, keeping the rest of the class quiet (which normally is difficult, to be honest, but for times when we are recording, they are wonderful). I keep considering the value of using my Flip Camera for this part of things, but I would have to download between classes, and that doesn’t seem feasible. Plus, I like the quality of video from the camcorder. The sound abilities of Flip are not quite there yet. Of course, sound is always an issue, and my digital camcorder does not have a jack for an external microphone, so kids need to be loud to be heard.
  • I moved the videos from the camcorder to my PC (I am still on XP, by the way), and then dumped the raw videos into MovieMaker, where I added a quick title.
  • In MM, I created a small video file movie (I use the 2.1 m output, which is good for web). This part of the process — creating 21 small movies, essentially — is the most tedious and the longest part of the entire process;
  • I uploaded the videos into my Vimeo account. I pay for an advanced Vimeo account because I want to do different things, including removing all returning links to Vimeo. I just want to the video for embedding and that is it. But there is a free Vimeo account you can get and I have been happy with the hosting of all of my videos there, so far;
  • I went into WordPress.com and set up a free blog site (actually, I returned to the site I used last year, and made a new theme for this year). One of the nice things about WordPress is that it integrates perfectly with Vimeo, so all you need to do is grab the video number from Vimeo and use a macro shortcut [vimeo xxxxxx] and the video embeds automatically. I also tinker with the settings of the WordPress site so that there are NO auto-generated links to other related sites. This means turning off the option for making my site available for search engines. Since we are talking a school site, I don’t want any unsavory links to other sites popping up. Now, with WordPress.com, there is a possibility of advertising, but none of the handful of sites that I have used have had any advertising on it. Probably, there is not enough traffic. But it is something to keep an eye out on. (I also have an adblocker, so if you see ads at my site, please be a friend and let me know)
  • I add the videos under “categories” so that I can group them by class (I teach four classes) and then archive the previous year’s puppet shows under its own category.

And, the Puppet Show site is ready for viewing!

Peace (in the puppets),
Kevin

PS — Here is a funny one — Sit On Your Head Day:

Nearing the End of Puppet Season

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All four of my classes performed their puppets shows yesterday and they really shined. Even the groups of reluctant writers and reluctant performers were able to rise to the occasion and entertain a room full of young kids (our audience were students from preschool through second grade).

What I find amazing is how charged up my sixth graders get when something they have written strikes a chord with the audience. It really brings to the forefront the concept of an authentic situation — writing for a real purpose and not just for me, the teacher.

Today, they will reflect on the entire puppet experience — from the initial brainstorming, to cooperative writing, to making puppets, to performing. This is how we end our Puppet Unit — with reflective writing. (And then, we are back to the Glogs for our literature project).

But my work goes on, as I am now creating videos of each puppet show, uploading into my Vimeo and then need to revamp our Puppet Play WordPress blog for the new shows. This allows us to share the plays with the world, their families and also, themselves. They will be able to see their own plays in action for the first time.

Peace (on a stick),
Kevin

It’s Puppet Season!

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Since mid-December, my students have been working on writing play scripts for puppet shows. The holidays and other things (ie, the other parts of my curriculum) transpired to keep pushing the puppet show finales off into the distant future. The future is here … today and tomorrow, we either videotape the plays or perform them for younger grades in our school.

The cooperative writing groups had to write a play with the concept of an imaginary holiday built into the storyline, develop a clear plot, and create protagonists and antagonists to move the story along. It’s not always an easy process for young writers, and the plays are sort of mixed-quality (depending on the make-up of the groups), but it has been a blast again this year.

Now, we are ready (as we ever will be) to perform. Yesterday, we did rehearsals (putting off our Glogster work, which would have been difficult anyway because of shaky Internet access in our school) with me saying over and over my mantra: “You must be louder! You must be louder!”

I also took photos of the puppets on our hand-carved puppet stage and popped them into Animoto. Check it out:

After I videotape the shows (there are 21 puppet shows), I will create videos and create a website to host them. One of the negatives of puppet shows is that the performers don’t get to see their own shows, since they are behind the puppet theater. (You can see last year’s puppet shows here). I might even use my new Mac this year for editing the videos. Yikes.

Peace (with puppets),
Kevin

Day Three of Glogging: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

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We finished up our week yesterday with a good amount of time on our Glogster space as students worked on their posters about Three Cups of Tea (while also practicing their original puppet plays, which we will perform for younger students next week and also videotape).

The two mini-lessons I showed them were how to add a podcast to their poster and how to import videos that are related to the book project. I did have a conversation with one student who wanted to have some media about Monster Trucks and he tried to defend it by saying that he wanted to show the differences between cultures. Nice try, but no dice. (But I told him he could make another personal Glog after the project and that satisfied him).

Now, you can record and embed audio right with the Glog, but in my test in the morning (Note: always test technology before letting the kids in the house!), that didn’t work. I’m not sure if it was the microphones (we have a bunch of fairy cheap mics), or the wireless data flow, or what, but it didn’t work for me. So, I turned to the trusty Microsoft Sound Recorder, which I often forget about but which is an easy way for students to record audio (sound recorder is in XP, under Accessories and then Entertainment). The sound quality is mediocre but workable. Students watched me walk through it and then they were off to the races. (They are recording a short book review)

I also showed how to embed videos, and even gave a list of URL addresses for videos like the Three Cups of Tea song, interviews with Greg Mortenson and others. I reminded them again that just because they can do something doesn’t mean they should — there should be some rationale and there is no reason why a poster should be plastered with videos just to fill the space and just to be cool. I think they got the message.

So, things were moving along during the first three classes, but in the fourth period, just as they were logging in and getting down to work, the entire Internet of our school crashed. I could tell something was wrong as hands began shooting into the air. “Mr. H, this isn’t working,” became a familiar refrain. After realizing what was happening, I quickly shouted out, “OK, everyone move to recording podcasts now,” which is the moment when our principal walks in for a quick visit to see students at work in the classroom.

Ha. Now imagine the scene: hustle and bustle, with one group shouting out puppet play lines behind our puppet theater (they are practicing using loud voices for performances), as other students are scrambling to record podcasts and a few still working on their Three Cups of Tea questions. The noise level is, well, pretty high. For me, it is pretty normal for tech-related projects. There is a lot of activity going on. I know some principals would be wondering just who the heck is in charge here.

I am lucky. My principal doesn’t ask that question. He quickly called the office, and asked that our tech person figure out why the Net was down, and then he wandered around, listening to the students at work on their podcasts. We chatted for a bit, discussing how the video that he showed at our recent staff meeting (I can’t remember the title, but it is the one about children needing to use technology to learn and be ready for the future — they hold up signs, etc, and look depressed) and how it was met with a decidedly mixed reaction by our staff.

Then he left the room, and we kept on working. I just wish the Internet connections had come back on. It never did.

Peace (on the posters),
Kevin

Day Two of Glogging: Getting Down to Work

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Yesterday, my students got deep into Glogster as they began working on their Three Cups of Tea assignments, where they are addressing such questions as culture, character traits and challenges. The day of play on Wednesday really helped and I am giving them the option of pairing up with another student, if they want.

I offered the pairing up for two reasons. First, for some students, working with others is a great way to learn (for others, though, it is a distraction so it’s a fine line and I not afraid to pull teams apart). Second, I am a bit worried about wireless bandwidth with Glogster. For the most part, it has been fine, but the site has gotten gummed up during various class periods as data is streaming on our laptops. Teaming up means fewer laptops running, which I hope will reduce the load (particularly when we start using microphones to podcast the book reviews).

One other difficulty some students ran into: they had to do some trial and error on finding the right kind of sticky pad for the text they had, as some of the options allow a lot less text than others (it creates a scroll down bar, which is not great). Other than that, the technology learning curve had very few bumps in the road yesterday.

I began the class yesterday with this great video of Greg Mortenson’s daughter, Amira, singing a song that she helped compose (according to the interview in the book) and performs. I love that she is about the age of my students — they can relate to her on some level — and that the music video shows footage of Greg in the villages that we read about. My kids loved the video and were singing the chorus of “Three Cups of Tea” as they worked on their glogs. A few asked how they could bring the video into their glog (that’s for another day, I told them, but I like that they saw that possibility).


Peace (in more than just pennies),
Kevin

PS — On another note, my science teaching colleague heard all of the students talking about glogging and her interest was piqued, so the two of us are going to brainstorm how they can create billboard-style posters for the Engineering a Bridge project now just starting. And my co-teaching colleague set up his own Glogster account for his pull-out students, and then told his wife, a teacher, about it, so she went and set up her own acc0unt and is now working with her high school students. You might want to check out Glogster, too. It’s free and easy to use and very engaging.