Category Archives: my classroom

My sixth graders just completed a short, 300-word essay that focused on the suburban town where they live and what issue they would address if they were elected a leader of the community. This was a new project for me and I brought in some local elected officials and the town administrator to talk about local government. Many of my students were quite oblivious to way that decisions that affect them — such as maintenance and creation of new recreational areas or funding for technology for schools — were actually made.

We almost always share out our final writing to the class and this time, I brought in my Blue Snowball microphone (high quality, USB connected) and set up my teacher chair and offered to record them reading their essays. Almost two-thirds of each class volunteered to the podcast, which amazed me. I guess they want their voices heard. The podcasts have been posted on our classroom weblog and are being shared with town officials and parents and school administrators.

Here are a few:

• Group One
• Group Two
• Group Three
• Group Four

Peace (in fostering change and leadership),
Kevin

My sixth graders started out the year in literature class reading the short novel, The Whipping Boy, and worked on a storyboard project that uses the computer and Powerpoint to identify the main plot points in the book. The book is about a prince and his whipping boy and it is set in Medieval times (aka The Dark Ages). The story is a twist on the class Prince and the Pauper story.

This use of Powerpoint allowed me to both introduce the program to the students (and get them using Paint for illustrations) and get a sense of their ability to identify main elements of a story. We shared these via our classroom blog, too.

Click on the pictures or student names down below to view the Microsoft PowerPoint slideshows created by students on the major scenes on the book:

Jessica

Kira

Nick

Peace (in powerpoint),
Kevin

My sixth graders have been working on descriptive writing in class and the culminating project was something called the Monster Exchange, in which our young writers had to create a monster and then write up a one-paragraph story that featured good descriptive writing. Then, everyone got someone else’s writing and had to identify the creature in the story.

I got the idea for the Monster Exchange years ago as part of an online, collaborative project in which students from different schools created illustrations, emailed them to each other, and then wrote up descriptions of the “visiting monsters.” I liked the idea and adapted it to the fact that I have four sixth grade classes (80-odd students) and they kids just love it.

Here is a video tour of the monsters:
Download Video: Posted by dogtrax at TeacherTube.com.

Peace (in monsterville),
Kevin

In this first week of school, I try to get my students on the laptops at our school and introduce them to some simple programs: MS Paint and MS Publisher. These are two applications we will use more in the school year. We work on a writing prompt in which they design a vehicle of the future, and the move to the computer to use Paint to draw it and then Publisher to create an advertising flier. I grabbed some of their illustrations this year for a short movie:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=415531743774331741" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

You can also view two of the ads:

Peace (in exploration),
Kevin

I’ve been busy getting myself and my students situated in Week Two but that hasn’t stopped us from creating a podcast for our class Weblog site. The podcast emerged from a writing prompt on Sept. 11, in which we talked about the impact of change on the world from a negative standpoint and a positive standpoint. We brainstormed ways in which the world needs some help and then they wrote briefly about how they would change the world, if they could.

They did a fantastic job and enjoyed hearing their podcasts the next day (and parents have remarked on the wonder of listening in to the work of the classroom)

You can listen, too:

• How to Change the World

Peace (with the power to change),
Kevin

Although we, as teachers, were back in school last week, today is the first day for our students to return and I am antsy and nervous/excited as always. I already know some of my students from my role as Student Council advisor and through a claymation summer camp that some of them took with me in July. But still …

I have a few goals for this year:

• Continue with Youth Radio podcast site (I was interviewed by a writer from The Reading Teacher journal about the project this weekend, so that is pretty exciting to get some recognition on that level)
• I want to try to use a Wiki for kids to create a Make Your Own Ending story, allowing them to map out and craft a story that jumps from wiki page. Still working on the thinking of that one.
• Since I have moved blogging platforms (from Manila to Edublogs) for my classroom site, I want to try to use the blog even more with my students as writers. I think I will miss the ability to thread discussion but will enjoy the ease of use. We’ll see how the students react to blogging. I intend to try a simple activity this week after an introduction to what a blog is and how you use it, and what responsibilities students have as bloggers.
• We are being required to pump more math into the heads of our students this year and I would like to find some ways to use technology for projects that support the math curriculum at our school.

Peace (with prospects),
Kevin

I think my transformation from the old Manila blog platform to Edublogs (wordpress) is complete now that I have set up a classroom blog for my incoming sixth graders. I even added a cute little fishbowl widget to the site. In my annual letter of welcome, I have encouraged my students to post a quick hello message to our writing community (and asked parents to visit, too), and this morning, I moderated the first three student posts.

It’s nice to have everything on one platform and I continue to love Edublogs for all of its options and security and simplicity. I have written before about my move away from Manila for all of our sites at the Western Mass Writing Project, but I still had my classroom site out there. This makes the transformation complete.

Peace (with new platforms),
Kevin