Tech Happenings @ LvHS

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong.html Hear the director speaking before a preview at the end of his talk. Amazing project! Here’s the final product: http://youtu.be/6WhWDCw3Mng and here’s the first project: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/a_choir_as_big_as_the_internet.html A school in Cape Town is trying to do this with children. Here's a quote from her letter: "Should children from your school wish to take part in our International Virtual School Choir Project, kindly email Catherine Morrow (cmorrow@parklands.co.za) by 15 February 2012. Further directions about how to go about participating will be emailed to you." Let me know if you know any interested children, they do not list an age group so I may ask her.

All teachers should be using LanSchool to monitor and restrict what students are doing in class... there are other more appropriate times to shop for prom dresses, work on art, and look at pictures of their favorite stars. But POLLING is a really great way to engage all of your students, and for you to use formative assessment. Simply use the VOTE button on LanSchool to send everyone a question, and you see the anonymous results as they are submitted. You can even prepare questions ahead of time and load on the fly so you are not typing them in while students wait. Please ask Laura or David (or Jamie!) how to do this. Or give it a try in class, it's simple. We have other ways to poll students , like PollEverywhere .com, but they take more time to setup. However PollEverywhere can be a web link that students access 24/7 for out-of-class polling.

The first 5-15 minutes of class is often spent taking attendance, passing out papers, checking homework, etc... here's a way their laptops can keep them quiet and engaged from the moment the bell rings.... Set up a daily routine that requires the laptop FIRST THING... Use your class page to post instructions for the day, and to provide links if needed. Set up a week/month of these at a time so you are on autopilot each day. Make it something they must be accountable for, like a daily blog entry, Gizmo activity or QUIA quiz. Message board discussion/debate/reflection. Geography search/answer. Listening to a podcast with headphones then posting a relevant question. See Laura for more ideas! Set a stop time so they must engage quickly and not waste time. You can always extend it if needed but keep that a secret :-) This came up in one of my many quality discussions with Patty. I'd been noticing that many of our frosh/ soph laptop students seem to feel they only belong in class...

Even seniors need a review of good ol' PowerPoint, as several of them feel out of practice. But after a few minutes they felt ready to tackly their projects. I hope to see the results! I told them that even though it is an "older" technology, it is still prevelent in business and college classes. Those using Keynote on their Macs will have to be creative when submitting!

1. Content: most important is what students DO in class after what they do at home 2. Reading and watching video is not instructional (YOU are not teaching them). Students can read about or watch different perspectives via online videos at home, and then actively compare and discuss in class. 3. Be creative with what you do with your class time. 4. Students should be engaged in creating, etc. in the classroom while learning to learn on their own, a good skill! 5. Stay student-centered in the classroom, rather than teacher-centered. Tools that can help flip the classroom: Google Apps LiveStream for broadcasting Khan Academy - lectures from physics to economics...with exercises that link back to lectures

A good read! All students have the program Comic Life to easily create comics and short graphic novels as assignments or projects. And I know the graphic novel Maus has been used here, perhaps still? http://www.edutopia.org/blog/graphic-novels-comics-andrew-miller

Students created digital stories and recorded their voices (speaking French, of course!) using PhotoStory. They had researched artists and already had written answers to questions, making it easy to produce the video. Students were able to produce the products with about 15 minutes of software review at the beginning of class. they are amazing!