Jim Henson and the Muppets on Display

I love the creativity of the late Jim Henson. His work transformed entertainment for young people (and their parents) in ways that still affect us today. He knew you didn’t need to talk to down to kids. You needed to reach them in meaningful ways using powerful characters, sense of humor and lessons that did not hit you over the head (unless you were being chased by the Swedish Chef). Puppets provided the outlet for Henson and his crew, and that energy is something I try to bring to my classroom of young writers and performers when we do our own puppet unit each year (see the Puppet Website from this year).
I found this neat video that I needed to share:

Peace (without strings),
Kevin

The First of the Digital Science Picture Books

This week, our digital science book project will be coming to a close as deadlines loom (and get extended). This is the first book that has been completed. The audio is not online, but it is a good example of some of the work being done by my students as they create digital books with cell mitosis as a theme for adventure:

Peace (in pictures),
Kevin

The Comic Protest of the Five PP Essay

This week begins a series in my Boolean Squared webcomic about the Five Paragraph Essay and its relevance for young writers. In a world of communication and connectiveness and authentic writing for real global audiences, isn’t it worth a wonder about why we still teach this style of rote form writing? (Of course, I know why – organization, development of thought, etc).

You can read the comics as they are published at the local newspaper or grab the RSS feed or go to my homesite of Boolean Squared for all the comics from this year. I have about one more month of comics and then I will end Boolean for the school year. I am not sure about the future, but that is fodder for another post soon.

Peace (in protest),

Kevin

The Wonder of the Google Wonder Wheel

I don’t mean for this to be an advertisement for Google, but I has been hearing about the Google Wonder Wheel for a few days now and decided I wanted to see what it is. Although still in the beta stage (I think), the Wonder Wheel is part of the search engine, showing semantic connections in a search query. In other words, you can see concepts branching off from the main query.

For example, I used Google to search for “Graphic Classroom” and the wheel expanded in any number of directions — showing me sites with lesson plans, books for reluctant readers and more. As I began to journey on the wheel, I found “adult graphic novels” and followed the thread to Neil Gaiman.

How do you get to the Wheel? This blog site gives a nice overview, but essentially, on the Google Search page, type in your keyword, and then one of the links at the top of the pages will be “show options” and then down on the left column, you can find “wonder wheel.”

Pretty nifty use of visual search technology.

Peace (in the wheel),
Kevin

What Queries Guide You?

This week, Day in a Sentence became Day in a Question. I’ll just let the questions speak for themselves this week. (What? No answers?)

  • What impact did I make on the lives of the twenty-one WCCA seniors who graduated Friday night? — Cynthia
  • When much of what we have taken as truths are being questioned, how do we prepare our students for an uncertain future? — Mary F.
  • Through what hoops will the state make us jump in order to make sure we haven’t left any children behind? — Chris
  • Why does it pour when it rains? — Eric
  • Do I avoid a stressful situation I seem to have extricated myself from (a football team worthy of a box-office dramedy screenplay), or jump back in with the promises from them that it will get better? — sara
  • Is the craziness surrounding Portfolios really worth the product? — April
  • Who helped you in your learning this week? Tracy
  • What are the elements of a class’ atmosphere that the students would say are most important for a feeling of safety-in-learning, collaboration, creativity, comfort, joy, and risk-taking in learning?Connie
  • What is the sound of 100,000 teachers not clapping? — David
  • If I stop engaging with the Luddites, then how can I help my organization move forward? Kathryn
  • At this time of the year I always wonder if being in a child centered project based classroom this year will really prepare my kids for the lecture based teacher centered classrooms of high school?Paul
  • How do you put aside a “blah” week and start anew? –– Me.

And two sketchcasts from Jo and Ken:




Peace (in collaboration),
Kevin

More from the Digital Book Project: The Mitosis Rap

So, as some of you know, we are in the midst of writing and creating digital science books on the theme of Cell Mitosis. I keep extending the deadline, but early this week, the completion date will be final. It’s an odd balance of pushing them to keep making progress and leaving enough time for good quality work. I want them to be proud of what they are creating, but we can’t take months to do it. (Technology almost always adds a time element that is difficult to judge).

One group has been working on a rap song video, which they will be embedding inside their book to be viewed by the characters of their book. I was hoping more groups would move in this direction, but not too many have done so (more time?). Many are adding audio elements to the books and there is plenty of animation going on (more than in the past).

I have a Google Form that they will be using as their final reflections and then we will work on sharing the books with other students in our school (at least other sixth graders and maybe we will invite in fifth graders too. These books are not for younger students, however. The science is too complex, I think).

So, here is the Mitosis Rap from two very creative girls — take a listen too:

Mitosis Rap

Little Johnny fell down
And scraped his knee
Started screamin’ like crazy
Sayin’ someone help me
Sure his mama patched ‘im up
With some tape and glue
But the mitosis part is up to you

Let’s here you say!
Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase,
Anaphase, Telophase, and somewhere
In between comes Cytokinesis

You’ve spent most of your
Life in Interphase
Floatin’ around
Duplicatin’ DNA!!!!!!!!!!
P-P-P-P Prophase
It’s the time when the
Nucleolus disappears Along
With the nuclear membrane!

Let’s here you say!
Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase,
Anaphase, Telophase, and somewhere
In between comes Cytokinesis

After the spindle fibers
Start to form
It’s time for Metaphase to
Come on strong
Linin’ things up like a
Drill Sergeant

Peace (in cell division),
Kevin

When the teachers sing … in protest of tests

The other day, I shared some lyrics I was writing for our school Talent Show. Each year, a bunch of staff members get together and perform. I re-wrote the words to Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” to become “I’m So Bored” to offer up some solidarity to our students now in the midst of many hours of state testing.
We performed last night. Here we are (that’s me, with the soprano sax):

If you want to read the lyrics I wrote, here they are.

Peace (in protest),
Kevin

Day in a Question?

Welcome to this week’s Day in a Sentence — which is turned on its head to become Day in a Question.
I’m using Sketchcast this week for my introduction. Sketchcast was around for a while, then offline, and now (thanks to a reminder from Larry), it seems to be back. The site allows you to create a virtual whiteboard video of sorts. (Although it does seem to be quirky still, as an earlier version with audio failed to play. So, this one is a “silent movie.”)
Anyway, your job is to boil down your week into a single question (an essential question, if you will), add it as a comment to this blog post and I will gather and publish all of our reflective queries over the weekend.

Peace (in sketches),
Kevin

The Writers going Undercover

This is the second in my series of using Writer figurines for stopmotion movies (see post about the first movie). In this one, they are about to head out on an adventure with the National Writing Project. The little writing dudes (and dudette) are being shipped to various NWP sites over the summer as a “spy mission” to learn more about the work of the NWP’s Summer Institutes and they will be reporting back via a blog.
President Obama is also in this one, and I am sure he is proud to be involved (hahaha)

Peace (in movies),
Kevin