Last year, I joined Lisa Parisi and Christine Southard on a wiki called Time Zone Experiences. The fifth grade students learned so much and had so much fun that I've decided to work on the project with my new fifth grade students. When I mentioned it to Lisa, she just said I should make sure to invite others and hopes we get many participants. Here is an explanation of the project.
The Project's Beginnings Lisa was talking with Jo McLeay about needing a way to figure out what time it was in different parts of the world. As they spoke, they began to talk about the difficulties in explaining time zones to students. I joined Lisa in the summer of 2008 to set up the wiki and send out the message that we were looking to invite classes from around the world to learn about time zones and seasons.
Students Lead the Learning This project is intended to give students time to investigate the concepts and create projects to show their learning and comprehension. I've started the project this year by having the students write a short paragraph in Word about our current season: fall.
After everyone had a chance to finish their paragraph, we discussed their concept of the seasons. We live in New Jersey. We talked about whether it was fall in Pennsylvania, California, and Florida. I asked them if they thought it was fall in England or Australia. This led to a discussion about the Earth in relation to the sun.
In our next class, we began talking about time. I had them answer a short survey about when they go to bed and wake up. There are questions about whether they have traveled to a different time zone and how their families communicate with others outside their time zone. We will use this information as the students complete the time zone chart in the coming weeks.
With this background information behind us, we took time to research GMT on the Internet. We worked on the Activboard to generate a list of search sites the students use to do research for their teachers. The students sat at their individual computer to try to learn what the letters GMT stand for. As a hint, I told them that we have been speaking about time and seasons. The letters have something to do with these topics. Last year, students were getting confused with other topics that use GMT as an abbreviation.
Each class is forty-two minutes long. This past class I had the students try to find out why Greenwich Mean Time is used, where Greenwich is located, and if they could find out what time it was in New Jersey if GMT is 11:00. We spoke about their research and then began to learn about military time on the Activboard. They began to get a feel for 0:00 being midnight and 12:00 being noon. Everyone had a chance to convert a time on the board.
Next Steps I will be assigning a time period to each student. They will have to determine what is happening in our part of the world at GMT 0:00 through GMT 23:00. This is an example of what the students did last year. We will then roll the information into entries for the Time Zone Experiences table for 2009. Here is the time zone chart from 2008. Last year, the students created audio podcasts for various time periods and months. We will do the same again this year. The students really enjoyed using Garageband.
Reflections Once all the student work is completed, we will add to the Voicethread reflections Lisa set up.
Independent Project This is a project that relies on participation from other schools so that the students can appreciate other student perspectives around the globe. The nice part about the project is that we do not have to have any particular deadlines. Classrooms can participate and add to the wiki as it suits their needs. We will also be able to look at last years work.
Is It Something You'd Like to Do? If this project interests you, please let me know via this blog, the wiki, Twitter, or any other venue in which we connect. I will add your Wikispaces id to the wiki. You do not have to update the tables on the wiki with your class information until you are ready to update the table and begin adding your student's research and creative content.
Gimp is a great tool for creating images. One of the problems that I encounter in class is losing tools because students close the windows. I finally took the time to learn about the preference that controls the windows.
Gimp's Standard Tools When Gimp is first installed, it comes with several very useful tool windows activated:
Most of these tools are used in our sixth, seven, and eighth grade Gimp projects. It is frustrating to the students when a window disappears. Today I took the time to look at Preferences.
Gimp Versions Depending on the age of the machine, I happen to have a few versions of Gimp running. In Gimp version 2.4.6, I found the option under File - Preferences. In version 2.6, preferences is on the Edit menu. I plan on spending more time looking through the preference settings, but the one I required to fix my disappearing tool windows is located in Window Management.
Window Management
The first thing I did was to click the Reset Saved Windows Positions to Default Values button. I quit Gimp, restarted, then positioned the windows exactly where I wanted them on each computer. It varies depending upon the type of machine and its monitor size. I quit again, so that it would save the window position when I exited. Finally, I restarted Gimp and removed the x from the Save window positions on exit option.
I'm really looking forward to starting Gimp with the sixth grade! All the headaches of disappearing and rearranged tool windows from previous years are behind me.
One of the first series of lessons I created as a computer teacher were for the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. I had seen many presentations in my time in the business world and found most adults did a fair to poor job. They had too many words, their images were blurry, they jingled change in the pockets as they spoke, and they had many other little "sins".
First Year The first year, I created a project I called Dinner with Famous Guests. I got the idea from a book I had purchased. Unfortunately, I don't know the name. It asked, "Which four famous people would you invite to dinner and why?". I asked my friends and family the question at dinner one night and it became quite a lively and interesting conversation. I used that question as the basis for this project.
All three grade levels had a great time creating and presenting their four guests.
Second Year The second year, I had to come up with a new twist to researching and creating a presentation. I had become familiar with the students and thought it might be interesting to learn more about them. The Something You Probably Don't Know About Me project was born. I have learned about the many talents and interests of my students. Each year, I start the project with my own presentation and I've come to rotate them based on the group of students. I either share my minor ability to play the piano, my travel to visit my father's family in Ireland, or the collection of paper money from around the world that I started when I worked for the container ship company, Sea-Land Service.
This presentation helps the students review the PowerPoint skills and talking in front of a group.
Third Year Finally, I had to find a project for my eighth grade students. As they enter high school, they may have to create a more research-based presentation. I had found a web quest called the Time Travel Agency. It was the jumping off point that I needed. I have the details on my wiki. It is called Welcome to My Decade. In order to be fair, I group the students with one or two partners. I find out who is interested in a particular decade. If only one group is interested in a given decade, it is theirs. Otherwise, we draw from a hat. They are to gather research to make the idea of traveling to another decade the most interesting. After the presentations, we vote on which decade the most students would like to visit.
Changes From Year to Year At the beginning, my rubrics were related to the operation of the software. As time has passed, I've become more interested in the stories the students are telling and how they relate to their audience.
This past year, we were very lucky. We received two Sony digital video cameras. I had the students learn to use the recorder. I dumped the video to my hard drive and edited them so that each student had one short video. I paired the students up and had them watch their video and their partner's video together with a rating sheet. You'll find the rating sheet on the wiki in the sixth, seventh, or eighth grade PowerPoint section.
Next year will be the first year the students are armed with a reminder of their previous year's presentation. It will be interesting to see what impact it has on their presentation style.
More Improvements for the Year Ahead This past year, we received 20 tablet PCs from the Win a Wireless Lab promotion. It has run every year for the last six or seven years from January until early May. If you are not aware of the promotion, it is amazing! Be sure to enter every day.
As a result of presentations given to the eighth grade social studies teacher, I learned that the lessons I am try to teach about keeping words on the slide to a minimum and images to a maximum are not translating out of the computer lab. I will have to make a bigger effort in leading a discussion around this topic. I will probably show the video at the top of the screen to the students before we work on PowerPoint this year. The comedian, Don McMillian, has a newer version on MySpace video. Since MySpace is blocked at school, I will have to use Zamzar to download the video. It might make sense to start with the newer video before our work. As a recap, I can show the video at the top of the screen to close out our work. They can complete a self survey at the end to rate themselves on how successful they were with their slides.
Every year, I try to have a theme that extends through the discussions all year. Last year, the students in the middle school grades worked on the concepts of copyright, fair use, and creative commons. This year, I want to work with all grades on creativity and sharing through the computer.
Multiple Intelligences I have a real interest in the concept of multiple intelligences. At one point in teaching middle school math classes, I would end each chapter with a chapter closing project. Each was small in scope. My intent was to give the students a choice in demonstrating their knowledge of the concepts in that chapter. I never discussed multiple intelligences with the students. It was interesting to see the types of choices they made.
As we discuss creativity and sharing, I do want to make an effort to give the students an opportunity to learn about the idea of learning styles. I found an interesting multiple intelligences inventory online today. It is from the Learning Disabilities Resource Community. I took the inventory and it seems like the students in the middle school should have no problem with any of the questions. I might try it with the fifth grade students, too.
Creativity There are so many ways to be creative with various computer components and applications. As we work on each project, I would like to talk about how we are being creative. Whether it is the written word in a word processor, logic when building Scratch projects, musical in Garageband, spatial with the GPS, or any other number of projects - we are being creative!
Sharing Another overarching theme I would like to work on is "How Are You Contributing to the World's Knowledge". There are several resources the students have created over the last eight years. Most recently, the work has been more public. I will be able to show the students reflections and work from students who are now in high school. I want them to think more about how they, as students, can teach others.
Planning I'm in the planning stages right now. I like the fact that everything we usually do in K-8 will fit into this framework. As always, I'm excited to be planning for another new year!
I've spent the last couple of weeks going through my lessons from the 2008-2009 school year. It's a good time of year to review what each class has accomplished and begin planning for the 2009-2010 school year. I have the Kid Pix and Word lessons pretty well updated (see side bar on the web page). Now, I've decided it's time to add the Gimp lessons.
Gimp and Middle School I am sure fifth grade students could handle Gimp, but I really don't have a need for the program below the middle school grades. Kid Pix is fine. In the middle school grades, I like to introduce the students to a program that is a little more sophisticated. The Gimp web site states: "Gimp is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring". I like to use it to create GIF animations with the students. I begin to acquaint the students with the program in the sixth grade.
Lessons Online I am working to update my lesson plan wiki now with the lessons for sixth through eighth grade. The sixth grade lessons are complete as of today. I will begin writing up my GIF animation lesson this week for the seventh grade students.
In previous years, I started using Gimp with the seventh grade. This eighth grade class will be the first to use Gimp for three years. I barely scratch the surface with the avatar creation and the animations. I'm looking forward to planning a new project for this year's eighth grade computer class.
Image Citation: Avatar created in Gimp by my son, Stephen.
Last year, I joined Lisa Parisi and Christine Southard on a wiki called Time Zone Experiences. The fifth grade students learned so much and had so much fun that I've decided to work on the project with my new fifth grade students. When I mentioned it to Lisa, she just said I should make sure to invite others and hopes we get many participants. Here is an explanation of the project.
