The Extra Mile Goes Farther

I probably couldn't have come up with a cheesier title for this entry if I'd tried. And the only excuse I can think of right now is that my brain is frozen... even if it is for a good reason.
The last 3 weekends have had the students in the club providing lots of service to our community. On Black Friday, 3 students and my co-sponsor gave up their post-Turkey Day shopping to ring bells for the Salvation Army in front of a local grocery store. On December 6th, some students helped at an elementary school's holiday party, and others went to Red Cross National Headquarters to sort cards for Holiday Mail For Heroes. Today, students spent another 4 hours ringing for the Salvation Army, even though the temperature today didn't get much above freezing, and had a wind chill of about 20 (degree F).
While all of this is going on, the students are also trying to raise funds so they can attend the National Youth Institute this year. A local Uno's Pizzeria is going to host 3 separate restaurant fund raisers for us. The first is this Thursday, December 18. If you live near Dulles Town Center, please consider helping the students in Extra Mile get more training, so they can keep helping just as they have been. You'll need to take this ticket with you to the restaurant:

Grant Equipment

At long last, we can use the technology that we received with the Best Buy Grant! Oh, we have been using it, but its been a piece at a time, and not the whole class/group engagement I had been hoping to see. Without an easy way to move the equipment around, and no place to leave it set up permanently, I had to get creative. After much discussion and angst on my part, I finally chose 2 different duffel bags on wheels, and our library-media specialist helped measure the equipment. We bought a red luggage duffel on wheels, and 3 permanent laptop sleeves (they stay on the computers). Two of the laptops live in the bottom "drop" of the bag, with our 4 digital cameras (also in previously purchased padded cases). The main compartment has our wireless printer/scanner and the 3rd laptop. The outer zipper pockets have all the cords for the equipment, and all the media (DVDs, USB flash). Other pockets store printer ink, mice, and digital audio recorders.
So far, so good. The bag is heavy, but the students are very careful with it, and it seems to be working. The best part was that once the students could see the equipment, and see the student who had been using items earlier they gained enthusiasm! I went from grumbling and growling over the current project, and a number of students not wanting to use technology to do the assignment to 100% using technology and true excitement.

This I Believe

At the beginning of the school year, I was looking for some engaging writing projects (that use technology, of course!) with my students. I found "This I Believe". It is a program from National Public Radio that encourages people to write about their beliefs. There are many samples posted on their website, and a curriculum for using it in the classroom. I decided to have my students write an essay on what they believe in, and then create a presentation. I left the parameters open because I hadn't taught most of these students before, and I didn't want to scare them off... !
When we started, I read them several essays about things that people believed in, and this was also when we did the goal setting & vocabulary wordle activities. I also found a few videos that fit the format of the program.
All of my students have now finished the essay, and several are nearly finished with their multimedia presentations.

Politics Aside...

So, it should come as no surprise that I (and probably every other teacher in the world!) did something with the election today in class. I found a chart at Microsoft Office on-line. Then I went looking for a good map that showed the results. We resized everything so it fit, and using our interactive white board, students filled in the chart with information from the map. Technology issues aside (I somehow turned on Microsoft ActivMark in our Board software, so the pen wouldn't work... I felt like an idiot!), the activity went quite well. The students were involved through the whole thing, and showed a great knowledge of the geography of the United States. The chart has the full name of the state, but the CNN map only had the postal abbreviations. The class handled it with nary a stumble!

Some information about the activity:
We have also discovered that the activity works best in Microsoft Excel 2002 and higher. Earlier versions of Excel seem to get stuck on the chart, and won't load. Last note: If you can see alternate text that says, "Group Box ###", just ignore it. It doesn't go away when you remove the alternate text for a web browser, and deleting the text messes up the macros. And, if you're looking at this well after the election, be aware that the CNN map link may not work...

Tar Heel Reader

Several weeks ago, I finally got around to asking for a password to create books in Tar Heel Reader. I received the little push I needed from the teachers that I've been writing grants with, because they thought it might be a good activity to add to the project for at least one of the grants we submitted. I created one book, and a student in one of the reading classes has been slowly working on a book of his own. I can't get the Flash version of the book to embed, but I'll try again later.
And here are some directions that I made with screen shots. The screen shots are small,because I didn't want to go put it on too many pieces of paper when printed.

My next plans are to do a book about the Red Cross, and to have the students make a few.

Fund Raising

For anybody who might be mostly interested in this for what we do in the classroom, you can probably skip this...
A local Bob Evans restaurant is hosting a fund raising night for the Red Cross chapter that I volunteer with on Monday 10/13 2008(Columbus Day). They will donate 20% of their proceeds between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. to anybody who presents the flyer. You can grab the flyer here, and print it out if you'd like to support our local chapter's disaster response efforts.

Extra Mile Updates

We are off to a huge start this year. In September, during the 2nd week of school, we raised money for the National 9/11 Memorial in NYC. We raised enough to allow the club to purchase a paver stone for the Memorial area, and are looking forward to getting the paperwork filled in for that purchase.

Last Saturday, we participated in the Loudoun County Red Cross' Ride for the Red. Ride for the Red is a motorcycle ride, and has become a very popular fund-raiser for many chapters. The students attending helped register more than 100 bikers, and the estimated total looks to be about $13,000! This is a huge amount, and very much needed for our chapter disaster response!


And we're heading straight for Make A Difference Day, starting this Friday night at our Homecoming. Can Man is coming (as you can see from the photo, he's actually already here!), and only our students can bring him. Our goal is to raise enough money for 6 $10 gift cards for family food baskets, and at least 3 baskets with food for the food bank by 10/28.

Making Brownies

For the last 2 Fridays, I have asked people to support the staff at the Red Cross call center by making a baked item. The first Friday, we had brownies made by the Gourmet Foods students, and last Friday, the students in my Functional Academic class baked. And of course, the teacher in me just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make this more of a learning experience. And so, I created a "How Many Different Kinds of Brownies" can you make activity. We've done some logic charts, and solved a few word problems based on the same concept.
The worksheets for the lesson are on the wiki. Scroll down to "Logic", because that seemed to fit best as a topic header.
One worksheet has the problem (You have 2 brownie mixes, 1 kind of icing, 2 kinds of add-ins... How many different kinds of brownies can you make?). The other set of worksheets is a data recording sheet, and a data collection mat with manipulatives. We cut out the manipulatives (pictures of the items they can use to make the brownies), and put them in the slots on the data chart, then recorded the information on the data sheet. It worked fairly well, and I think the concept has some possibilities.

Today

Today is 9/11. 7 years and four and a half hours ago, I was sitting at a computer in a small room in a school. Today, I am again sitting at a computer in a small room in a school. It is a different school, and I am definitely not the same person I was then.

Within hours of the disaster, I was in a Red Cross Shelter helping keep watch over children who had parents working in DC. Many of them were unable to get home at their normal hour because of the events. On 9/12, I was assigned to the Pentagon as an administrative assistant to one of the job directors. I did whatever needed doing: rolling socks in the Mass Care tents, hanging up cards, poems & pictures from students and families around the world, and getting food for those that couldn't leave their duty stations. I was there for just under 3 weeks; I taught every day, and worked at the Pentagon at night.

Today, I spoke to a small group of students at my current school about my experiences working at the Pentagon, and helped the students in the community service club I run sell red, white & blue braided strands in rememberance of those that not only lost their lives, but those that worked so hard to help everybody pick them up again.

And tonight, before I go home, I will put on the gray & white Disaster Services vest I wore at the Pentagon, and go answer phone calls from people evacuating because of Hurricane Ike. I am proud to be part of the American Red Cross for the last 22 years.

Goal Setting

I mentioned in an earlier post that the students would do another project related to their portfolios after finishing the license plates. We've done those, and so I decided to have the students set some goals. The message I want to send to them is that life takes planning. Live your dream, but be sure you plan how to make it work. To that end, I had them take the goals they had written, and use a thesauraus (we used Merriam-Webster's on-line) to look up words that mean the same things as their goals. Not only was this a good vocabulary exercise, but they were able to see words that betetr shaped their desires in life. After they had a list of words, we copied them into Wordle, and created "Goal Wordles". Here are a few that we've created:

License Plates

This school year, I am teaching a supervised study session. It is a 90 minute block period that is designed to provide students with special needs support and time to complete homework. Parents are not always able to help students, and in some cases, the materials that a student needs to complete a project may not be available. My school decided that this year, since the class is graded and earns an elective credit, we would have the students create portfolios. For those that have known me for awhile, you probably already know that I have my classes make portfolios or scrapbooks frequently! I am also excited because we have the technology to do the portfolios electronically.
So far, we have done a license plate and we'll start another activity during the next class. The instructions for the license plates were to find pictures using Flickr Creative Commons, and use 6 letters or numbers to describe who you are. Here are some of the license plates that we did:

Just in time for a new year...

I really thought I had broken the pattern last year. You see, since 1997 (my second full year of teaching), there have been major disasters every 2 years that have impacted the attendance area of my school in some fashion. I don't remember what happened in 1997, but here's a list from 1999 forward: Hurricane Floyd, 9/11, Hurricane Isabel, and ending with Hurricane Katrina. And so, last August I started biting my nails. I was wondering if I would be teaching during the day, and doing Red Cross work in the evenings as I have done for most of these events. I waited... I just knew something was going to happen... And nothing did. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I went to the Innovative Teacher conference in Seattle, and came back. Still nothing. Woo hoo! The pattern was broken.

And then Gustav showed up. With his friend Hanna. I guess they think that since we didn't have anything last summer, we need a double dose this year.

School opens on Tuesday. Gustav is scheduled to arrive on Monday. Fortunately, I think I'm prepared for the first day.

I am also hoping and praying that Gustav gets bored and decides that New Orleans and that whole area isn't worth visiting. I hope the residents there have been evacuated safely... I've heard from one set of friends, who are safe and outside the area. One last wish, and then back to planning for the start of school: If you've been evacuated from the area, and not been able to reach family & loved ones, please make sure you register with Red Cross Safe & Well so your family and friends can find you.

Wordle

A few weeks ago another teacher shared a site called Wordle. I had tried it at that point and put it aside as something that my students would probably enjoy doing, and that would a decent first day of school activity. This evening, there was a mention of the site on the Red Cross blog, so I went back and did some more exploring.
Wordle allows you to enter your own text to create a "cloud", or an amorphous collection of random things. Del.ici.ous, the social bookmarking site, and others, allow viewing of tags as clouds too. Other options for Wordle include creating a cloud from tags at a social bookmarking site, or as I did tonight, from a blog or any website with an RSS or Atom feed. You can change colors, layout, font, or how you list the words. I see some interesting possibilities for this in the classroom.
Here's the one I made this evening...

Awesome Achievements

There are times that I wonder why I ever decided to become a teacher. Its usually after I've been flipped the bird, or had a string of curse words describe my family & parentage. The feeling also shows up at times with administrators. Its hard not to take those things personally, even though I logically know I should not. And there are other times where I know exactly why I made the choice I did.

Last evening, I was privileged to watch several members of the senior class receive scholarships & academic awards from community groups. At the evening ceremony, I used the camcorder we purchased with the Best Buy grant to video tape the events. This morning, I watched more of those seniors receive awards for participation in clubs, academic & sporting success. A few of the highlights from this morning's ceremony that stuck in my mind: Almost all of the seniors from the functional academic program participated in the senior processional. This particular group was the first class I taught at my current school, and they did a wonderful job. I was able to watch several members of the community service club I've co-sponsored receive awards, including one student receiving the bronze level Presidential Volunteer Service Award.
Today was the last day for most of our seniors, and although the students from the functional academic program will return next year as post-graduates to work on campus and continue their education, its not really the same. Prom is tomorrow evening, and I am sure that, as with the last 2 years, I'll need those extra tissues that I always forget to shove in my purse. I'll probably also need them next Friday at the club's end of year gathering, and at graduation a few days later.

Masters of Disaster---LIVE!

Hm... Okay, maybe that headline is a bit kitschy even for me, but I couldn't resist. This afternoon we had a tornado warning while we were at school. To help make that a little more understandable: A tornado WATCH means the conditions could possibly produce a tornado, and the National Weather Service is keeping an eye out. A tornado WARNING, however, means that a tornado has been spotted, either on the ground or in the sky near you.
We were puttering around in the classroom, packing things up for the summer. I have one student that enjoys looking at the weather, and often does this if he has the opportunity. He was doing that while I was looking up something for another student, so he leans over to me and points at the scrolling bar on the Weather Channel homepage. And I see it: bright red, scrolling slowly, TORNADO WARNING. He has seen it too, and wants to talk about it, but I needed to stop him so the other students wouldn't get scared. I simply said, "If it was for this area, we would be in the safe room, in the position that we practiced." He nodded, lost interest, and went forward. I can honestly say it wasn't more than 3 minutes later that one of our assistant principals came on the PA system and said, "All instruction will cease." I never thought I would hear those words out of the mouth of a principal! He requested that all students & staff report to their assigned safety locations, and then the school lost all power. Now, our school is a Red Cross shelter site, and has generators (I know this because, 3 years ago, before I ever knew I was teaching at this school, I did the shelter survey... it was one of the first things I did for the Loudoun Chapter!), so the hallways had lights as did some classrooms. We stayed in the room for about an hour, and ultimately dismissed all students by 4:15 p.m.
But, I was very proud of my students... they knew exactly what to do, and although they were scared and had some high-pitched voices going on, they did what they were told to do. I have to attribute at least SOME of the ability to what we've talked about in class with the MoD adaptations.

Masters of Disaster Adaptations

For those who heard about the MoD adaptations that were created by myself & the Loudoun County, Virginia Red Cross can look here for the Intellitools Classroom Suite files. The first module, Disaster Safety & Preparedness are available here.
Please note: The current Classroom Suite files are in Version 3. They are compatible for version 4, but once saved in version 4 they will no longer work in version 3. I hope to have time this summer to port the older activities to Version 4 over the summer as well as create the activities for the Fire Safety module.

If you are interested in print activities, and can provide proof that you have purchased a kit (or several kits) for either your chapter or schools & other groups in your area, I'm happy to email you the PDF files. If you would prefer to receive a CD of the print activities along with the IntelliTools activities, please contact me. There will likely be a minimal cost for the purchase of CDs and shipping.
I'm choosing to require proof of purchase for the paper activities in order to protect the copyright on the MoD kit. Groups that use the computer-based activities will typically have students that cannot access the print kit at all and so need more assistance to get this important information to their students & clients.

I would also like to thank the parents who previewed the activities for me before they were released, IntelliTools, Inc. for hosting the files in their activity exchange, and Mayer-Johnson, Inc. for allowing us to use the Boardmaker-PCS symbols in the activities without charge.

National Youth Institute---Day 3

It was really hard to get up this morning after being awake so late for the dance. We were definitely not the only group that was super tired. It seemed like a number of people left early because of travel, but there were still enough there for things to happen. We missed the social media session on Sunday morning (could this be where they showed the videos? I never did see them!) because there was just no way we were getting up at 6:30 for a 7:15 session. After breakfast, we checked out and headed to the conference hotel and our second session.
We spent 4 hours working on our action plans for next year's birthday party project. I'm afraid that I was so brain dead at this point that when the groups started explaining their projects, I became lost. I thought everybody was talking about their clubs, even though I knew from yesterday that most of the people didn't have active clubs! I got some nasty looks from the other groups, which I definitely deserved. I am pretty sure that my brain oozed out of my ears at that point.
When it was our turn to present, I made the youth do it. It seemed to go well, and we had fleshed out some of the ideas we had from the previous work period including specific places to get donations from for the project, and how to present it to our principal.
The only real downside to the presentations was that one of the people in the room was very gung-ho on us being a complete Red Cross club, and felt that she really needed to explain to us how the Red Cross did things. Since this was similar to the problems we had with another service organization, we were all less than thrilled at what we were hearing. I've never really experienced another Red Cross volunteer pushing Red Cross on me, especially not in youth services! I've always run a general community service club, and while the students do things with the Red Cross because I'm active, they aren't required to participate. I was a probably little snotty when I held up my ID badge to explain to the commenter that I was a Red Cross volunteer on my own. I was pretty annoyed, although some of that was purely being tired. I'm still minorly annoyed, as you can tell, since I'm blogging about it... I hope that everything will settle out, since one of the students who came with me expressed an interest in doing things at the chapter as well over the summer the previous evening. Overall, though, the conference was well done. I think we are going to try and go there next year, especially if the price stays at $75. It would be nice if it was a little closer; then we could drive and take more students.

Pictures from NYI Day 3--6/1/08

National Youth Institute---Day 2

In the morning, I went to a conference on writing grants and exchanged some ideas with other youth advisers. One of the better ideas I heard was Tommy the Safety Cat, so we're going to see if the other club members like the idea of teaching the information to students at our local elementary schools. The students went to a workshop on creating and marketing an idea. We had a general afternoon session about writing an action plan, and then spent the rest of the afternoon working in groups to develop a plan. We were one of the only groups that was already an established school club with connections to both school & chapter, so we created a plan for an activity. Many of the other groups seemed to be making plans on how to get more club members. While this is certainly something we need to work on, the decision to find an activity that was recurring and on-going seemed a better to do it, at least for our group. The idea was to have birthday parties for children who are in emergency shelters (not for a disaster). After the workshop was over, there was much discussion and planning on how to handle that evening: there was a strong desire to swim, so we grabbed swim suits, got back over to the conference hotel... and wound up swimming inside because there was another thunderstorm. Then we found dinner, went back to the hotel to eat and change for the dance. The dance was enjoyed by all... especially all of the costumes that people brought with them!!

Pictures of NYI Day 2
Saturday evening, of course, was the dance.

National Youth Institute---Day 1

Today was packed. We all managed to get up and out of the Marriott by 9:00. And, that means that we were late getting to our activities at the Arch, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We left our luggage at the hotel, and our shuttle driver from last night brought it to us at the airport when we were finished.

After we made it to the Metro, we found out that they were only running one track due to construction, and so it took us about 45 minutes to get downtown. We enjoyed the scenery in the park on our walk over to the Arch. I have to admit here that I am totally scared of heights, and really didn't want to go up... But, I figured I probably couldn't let the students go up by themselves, and so I went. After clinging to the side of the arch near the windows for about 5 minutes, I did manage to look out one or two windows before going back down.
When we left the Arch, it was really hot & humid, so we opted for a cab back to the airport and caught the shuttle to the conference hotel. The first order of business after check-in? Taking a shower!!
Then we went over to the conference center, and made it just in time for the opening session and dinner. The students went to a workshop called Spark the Wave, and the advisers went to a reception. We met back up for the swap meet, ice cream social, and one of St. Louis' infamous thunderstorms. The conference center sprung a leak, and had about 53 gallons of water in the front lobby!
Pictures from the Arch
NYI---Friday 5/30/08

National Youth Institute---Day 0 (Traveling to/from)

Update!
The flights home were a little more eventful than the flights out. I was pulled for extra screening in St. Louis. Okay, so that's not a big surprise, but they didn't even accept my letter from TSA this time! As it turned out, there had been an incident of some type at Lambert recently, and they stepped up their screenings. One of the agents did make a comment after I explained that the way we book travel for disaster assignments was how I wound up on the list, and how I knew I was on the list. I was wearing a very obvious Red Cross t-shirt, and he says, "Gee. I guess getting searched like this on your way to help people makes you feel appreciated!". I had to laugh, although he does have a point. The extra screening almost made us miss the flight, but we made it. We almost missed the flight in Minneapolis, too, because the gate agent told us the flight was leaving out of C7, but it was really out of C15. An electric cart driver got us where we needed to go. On the flights back we played Monopoly on my Palm pilot...
Here are all of the pictures from the flights.

Traveling to St. Louis
After a brief delay at Dulles, we finally made it to St. Louis! The delay was because of a traffic control hold at La Guardia & Newark, which caused late planes at gates in Dulles. The only comment on the plane was how SMALL it is...

The Marriott Courtyard is very nice, and the staff was really super helpful! We were especially pleased with our shuttle driver, who helped us find a restaurant when we arrived!
Tomorrow: Visiting the arch, seeing the movie about building the arch, and then on to NYI.

We published a book!

A few months ago, my students started making a book. We actually made two: One as a concluding project for our amusement park research, and another about when we made ice cream during class. Originally, we were going to try and add translations of our English writing with the help of our advanced ESOL classes, but we ran out of time because of state testing. If we had waited, the students would not have been able to see their printed books, and since we have some seniors who helped, I decided that we could always add translations at another time.
We paid $12.99 for each book; I bought one copy of the set, and the librarians bought one copy of the set. The set the library purchased will be available for students to check out. I've also posted them to the blog, using a rather nice feature that MixBook does in creating a version using Flash. I will note that there is an issue with the ice cream book; perhaps the Flash version has a limit to the number of pages it can view. I don't know, but the pages about different ice cream flavors (licorice and bacon & egg with toast!) and how ice cream can be served are missing in this version. They do appear in the print copies we purchased.

http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/travel/amusement-parks-391449?vk=xElW3WBar6

http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/making-ice-cream-353160?vk=8TkAEreXRB

National Youth Institute

The youth conference that I've been yammering about for the last 3 or 4 months is next week. I'm taking two students half-way across the country, by plane. We even have to change planes! On the flight out, we're flying to Cleveland, and then to St. Louis. On our return, we're stopping in Minneapolis before heading back to Virginia!

It seems that one of the interesting activities will be getting to see "commercials" created by the other participants. We decided to go ahead and make one with an America's Next Top Model theme. The two students attending the conference liked the idea, but had to run off so they could go on the band's spring trip to... CLEVELAND (no, I'm not joking!). And so, two of our underclassmen club members, along with a few other students, a guidance counselor and 2 teachers did our best to put this video together... Just ignore the random students in the hallway, and make sure to turn up your volume. I haven't quite figured out the volume control on the new camcorder yet!

Technology Updates

Well, I've certainly been remiss in posting lately! This isn't to say that there aren't very cool technology things going on, but maybe that there are too many really cool technology things going on?

The students just finished their Trip Planning projects. Lessons that I've learned from this? Assign a date for the travel, and the amount of money they have to spend. Don't ask them to find prices for one-way fares, because most of the travel websites default to round-trip, and the frustration isn't worth it. If you need one way, divide the round trip price by 2. Remember that if your students choose a country that doesn't speak English, you will have to find menus they can read so they can plan their meals... The same holds true is they pick a place that isn't using the US Dollar as their currency, because this will make their numbers seem incorrect. And lastly, make sure that they know WHERE they are going... Is it Paris, France, or Paris, Texas? No, its NOT Paris Hilton! And we're not visiting the new Hooter's Bar & Casino in Las Vegas, either!

In the middle of this, we took a break to make brownies for the community service club's Concession Stand sales. You'll find the brownie video here....



My group, the girl's Lacrosse team, and our Band & Chorus groups sold pizza, snacks, soda and baked goods when our school hosted the Odyssey of the Mind competition in April. This was the statewide tournament, and I'm pleased to say that after all the bills were paid, we cleared $450! That's not bad for 6 hours (not counting all the time we spent baking!). Some of the money was used as a donation from the club to the local March of Dimes Walk-A-Thon, and some for our upcoming trip. This year, we were able to give the March of Dimes nearly $200 between walk pledges, selling awareness ribbon keychains, and the concession sale stands. We also had 12 walkers on the day of the event, despite the nasty weather.
We also managed to raise enough money for 2 students to go to the National Youth Institute Conference in St. Louis at the end of this month!

Meme: Passion Quilt

Several weeks ago, Miguel Guhlin shared a meme for a Passion Quilt on a listserv that I read. I think the request was made in February, but between the trip to Texas, the broken wrist, and my computer being in for repair for nearly 3 weeks, my quilt did not get finished. I actually just finished it now, while I was thinking about some recent problems with a colleague. I tend to be rather protective of things that are important to me, and while there are few things that truly upset me, one thing that inevitably does is something that hits one of my passions. I really don't have that many... technology, volunteer work, reading, and swimming. Some may note that I left off "family", but really, my family is interwoven in all of this because most of my passions came from my family as I grew up. I am also thankful for a supportive note I received from a friend when I asked for some help in figuring out the direction that I wanted to go.
Here's the Quilt:


To the best of my knowledge, all of these pictures are public domain, from Creative Commons or taken by myself or students.

Red Cross Convention

By now most anybody that actually reads this blog will realize that after teaching using technology, the other activity I delight in is volunteering with the Red Cross. I've said before that I've always considered myself lucky that my local chapters have been willing to accept my students along with me, because I haven't always been that fortunate with other volunteer organizations.
And, I am absolutely delighted to see that the Red Cross has joined the 21st Century during the 2008 National Convention. They are live blogging, posting updates via Twitter.

Best Buy Grant

I guess its probably time for me to make a blog entry about the Best Buy Grant. Back in September, I filled in the application, and figured "why not?". A lot of the grant was actually completed in the Seattle-Tacoma airport just before & on the flight back from the Microsoft Conference. I sent it in with mere hours to spare. The website said we'd hear in February....

Fast forward to Februrary, and I flew to Texas for the Red Cross training (see: Austin Texas-RMC. Due to weather, the flights landed considerably later than expected, and so I did not check my email until late that evening. I was sitting in the hotel lobby with a few other Red Cross folks and just squealed. Literally. One of the volunteers asked me what was wrong, and I read the email out loud. The next morning, I called my high school before we went into the session, and my supervising principal had just read the email as well.

We received a $2000 grant that will allow me to add audio, and digital video to the student projects that we've been doing all year. I'm still working on coming up with a buy list of hardware; we are definitely going to be purchasing some digital camcorders and digital voice recorders along with some consumable media (CDs, DVDs, etc). The rest is a bit up in the air... we were considering a computer station, but it turns out the school has an XP multimedia machine that we can have, and since they've installed the Promeathean Boards, I should be getting one of the now extra LCD projectors. Those were my two big ticket items, so we'll see. I wish Best Buy sold the interactive whiteboards... I would love to find one that would fit in my room!

If it's good for you, it's good for me-- -- Part Two

In the continuing saga of the issues with my wrist, I've discovered that it's nearly impossible to keep up on all of the teacher required paperwork. When you cannot type and you have trouble writing. Out of desperation, I stopped at Best Buy on Monday evening and purchase Dragon NaturallySpeaking preferred version 9. This was after spending most of Sunday trying to figure out how to use the built-in speech recognition that comes with Vista. Although others have managed to get Vista's speech recognition to work with many programs, all I was ever to able to do was use WordPad, Windows mail, and commands to navigate. I don't think it was my microphone, because the command features worked beautifully. Dragon, however, was not real fond of the microphone I used with Vista, either. Since getting Dragon on Monday. I have written an entire IEP(not without some frustration and not appropriate for public language), since many e-mails, and even managed to move some text boxes around in Microsoft Word. We still have several glitches to work out, but fortunately, I can mouse with my left hand. I don't think that I have the skill to do any kind of photo editing or graphic work, but we'll see later.
As I said in the other posts where I talked about using Word prediction to help my typing. I can definitely see some of the frustration that my students have when they have to use technology to help them. But they don't know how to use the technology yet. There is a definite learning curve when it comes to using these tools. I wonder if we would be better off teaching the students to use the tools before we expect them to use them for academic work?

Challenge Day

The Red Cross chapter that I volunteer with was invited to attend the local Fire & Rescue station's Challenge Day. I have been inside a burn building (a structure that the fire companies use for training; it is a building that typically won't burn down but still allows the firefighters to practice inside a building) when we piloted a different version of the disaster assessment class with another Red Cross chapter. But, this was an opportunity to see things as they unfolded. Despite the rain, and discovering that you really do need two hands (see: If it's good for you, it's good for me) to climb into a passenger van, and to take pictures, it was good to see. I wish I had been able to attend the whole event. Thanks to those that helped with the pictures!
If you would prefer to see just the pictures, they can be found on Flickr, here. We discovered that to see the different sizes, you do need a Flickr account, and the photos are too large to send via email.
Here's the slide show and, I don't think we need to play Guess the Theme Song this time; its probably obvious!

If it's good for you, it's good for me

As a teacher, I often find myself in the position of having to recommend tools that I think would make learning and work easier. And an equal number of times, the student complains, usually because the learning curve makes the learning temporarily more difficult since they are learning 2 new things instead of just 1.
Well, as it turns out, I have an opportunity to use a word prediction program. While I was in Texas, it seems that I broke my wrist. My right wrist.
The pluses: By using standard accessibility features in Windows, I have fewer problems. I am using Mouse Keys, and Sticky Keys. For typing I am getting some assistance from WordQ version 2. Its definitely not as fast as I usually am, but it does make things easier for longer writing, and my students were encouraged by seeing me use tools similar to what I recommend for them. It doesn't necessarily ease the learning curves, or the frustration of looking different, but it might help a little.

Iron Chef meets High School

Last week, not only did my school host a version of American Idol, complete with versions of Simon & Paula, but we engaged in a little Iron Chef action too. Each year the school hosts an award ceremony near Spring. It is a little different from many award ceremonies, in that teachers nominate 1 or 2 students, and then the students have the opportunity to nominate one teacher that has changed their life. Students can nominate a teacher from any grade, and school. If the school is part of our system, the teacher gets an email invitation. If not, the school makes reasonable effort to find the teacher. The evening also includes a multicultural dinner. Each grade brings a dish, having been assigned the type; IE, 9th grade brings a vegetable dish, while the 11th grade nominees bring an entree.
Each year, the students I teach make 1 dish, and a dessert. This year, we took pictures, and of course, made a movie!

Austin, Texas & RMC

Last week, I spent some time doing training for the Red Cross. Before I left, my students asked me if I would take pictures for them the way I did in Seattle, and send them. I did, but unfortunately, only managed to get one set of pictures into the slide show and sent off. I've put the whole thing together now, so I thought I would share it with everybody. The bulk of the pictures are from our tour of the Response Maintenance Center. The RMC is where all of the technology that the Red Cross deploys for a disaster assignment come from, and go back to. We have satellite dishes, satphones, antennas, and more radios than you'd ever want to know about! See... I can make EVERYTHING into technology! We're also going to play "guess the soundtrack song". If you know it, leave a comment. :)

RCT 3

Two of my students have started working on RCT 3 parks with me, and one student is using RCT 2 on his own. The parks in RCT 3 are working very well, although I am controlling the mouse in order to reduce the possibilities of information overload. As I said, the hardest part is getting the paths laid correctly. One student has made it all the way to the Tycoon level challenge in Vanilla Fields (the starter park), and another has made it to that section in the Splash-Water Park expansion. I asked the one student do to Splash because his research is on Sea World. We've also had some trouble connecting the slides to the pool complexes, but I don't know why. I think it might be the terrain being uneven. We'll keep working at it.
I will post some screen shots of the parks in a week or so; I neglected to bring the CD home with me this weekend, so I can't run the game.

Technology to Make the Job Easier

I have Mary Poppins singing "A Spoonful of Sugar" going through my head right now. Last week, the job coach that works with a lot of our students had the idea to label the shelves in the cafeteria kitchen so that the students could be sent to get something when they are working. She wondered if we could do it on the computer. And, as I mentioned, my duty this year is to provide tech support to the special education department. We looked at different label templates available in Word, and then the job coach and a student went back over to measure the front of the shelf.
The next day, the student came down with a list of items they had found by inventorying the shelves. I set up the template for him, and he started typing. The student already knew how to find clip art, and digital pictures, so only needed minimal assistance for that. In fact, he was able to get about 15 done in the period, with pictures, and ready to print. He only needed help when the picture wasn't clear.
The benefit to this, beyond the students being more independent, is that a lot of our cafeteria staff are not native English speakers. It will also help keep things organized on the shelves. Oh... and the student also learned a very valuable skill which he is starting to generalize to other areas.

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 & Camtasia

Back in November, TechSmith was offering Camtasia 3.3 to teachers for free. Unfortunately, the offer is no longer available. I see lots of possibilities for Camtasia, though I could wish it was just a little easier to use. I think one of my problems is that I have a wide screen laptop, so when the software tries to set a region automatically, the measurements are off.
I then used Camtasia to record my screen while I played with RCT 3. I've never been really happy with the tutorials in the software, because they are very limiting, and in this version, require a lot of text to be read. It is hard to go back if you miss something, and there is no audio. In the past, I've tried to record the action on the screen using an S-Video hook-up to a TV with VCR, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. I was able to produce a basic video that shows how to place a "ready made" ride, and some facilities. The version here is of low quality so it won't take forever to load: the original is 1 GB without audio. I just figured out how to do the audio, and so will probably try that next. Now, if only getting RCT 3 learned was that easy; as with the other versions, the thing I find hardest is placing the paths.

Pizza Crust!

I am still working on the more accessible tutorials for RollerCoaster Tycoon III, I decided to post our pizza making session today.
When the students chose the kind of bread that they wanted to research, I told them that as they finished, we could make each kind. I already posted, either here or on the wiki, or maybe both, the videos for pita bread (unleavened bread) and leavened bread. Today, we made pizza crust. I admit that we cheated a bit and used the Pillsbury refrigerated crusts... But, I don't think that really changed the experience of making the bread. After all, we measured and mixed and kneaded for the other two kinds of bread. We'll measure and knead when we make pretzels later... I think we'll do those in 2 or 3 weeks, because pretzels are a food you can easily find in an amusement park.
As usual, we took pictures. I did the work on the movie this time without help from the students since they dismissed due to exams.

Amusement Parks

Somewhere around 1999-2000, a video game called RollerCoaster Tycoon showed up. I remember first seeing it at an "educational" toy store that sold mostly videos and computer software. I purchased a copy, but found it too slow and too difficult for the students I had at that time to use. A year or so later, and I find myself covering for the 7/8th grade science teacher at my middle school who is on maternity leave. It was after state testing, and the 8th graders were antsy. In a few weeks, they were going on the annual trip to Six Flags for Physics in the Park, so I thought having them explore the science behind the rides might grab their attention. It did... We had two different software packages, a roller coaster simulator, and RollerCoaster Tycoon. I was surprised at some of the work that was turned in, and ultimately turned in the unit plan as the subject aligned lesson plan that my school required. Fast forward another year, and I was teaching technology education. On a cart. In 2 buildings. I decided to have the students do a unit using the software, and purchased 5 licenses of RollerCoaster Tycoon II. I created tutorials for the software, purchased several videos that showcased both the science around the rides, and why people went to the amusement parks. The students also had to create a PowerPoint presentation about a theme park they chose to research. Overall, the project was a huge success, and one group of students had the opportunity to present their projects at a student technology conference. Since that point, I have done at least one part of the project (usually the PowerPoint) with my students each year. The class is currently completing a webquest to find different things about amusement parks on-line, which we will turn into a simple slide show. Then, students will work on the research for an amusement park they've chosen (this year's parks are: Dollywood, King's Dominion, Six Flags, and Walt Disney World), and finish by creating parks in RollerCoaster Tycoon.
We'll be using 2 versions of the software: RCT II, and RCT III. For II, we have both expansion packs, and for RCT III, we have the waterpark expansion. Both groups of students have tried out RCT II on our older laptop, and we'll be doing RCT III together since it is only available on my laptop. I'll post a few of the files over on the wiki, feel free to take a look and/or use. The files that I've posted tutorials and such for are older versions and all matched to RCT II. I hope to get things created for RCT III soon.
Check out another post (in a few days) on an idea I had for making the tutorials more accessible to my students...

More Community Service

As I've shared before, I am one of three sponsors for my high school's Key/Community Service Club. We partner with a local Kiwanis group, and the local Red Cross (of course: how could I do any kind of volunteer work with students and not get them involved with the Red Cross???). We are trying to raise money to attend conferences. As of right now, we have the funds and permission for 3 students plus one advisor (likely me) to attend the Red Cross National convention in Baltimore. We are hoping to come up with funding for 5-8 students to attend the Key Club District convention, and for students to attend a Red Cross Youth Leadership seminar in May. This last one is going to be tough as it is in St. Louis and will require buying plane tickets. Plane tickets are really expensive, especially to the parents of a high school student!
Our local Red Cross has supported this effort by giving us things to put in the Exam Kits that we are selling. Exam kits are little bags that have some junk food, candy, a little stress-reliever, a pen & pencil, and a bottle of water. The local Red Cross provided the water to us, and then also threw in some very nice CD cases that we had been given as a promotional item. Students in the club stayed after school to finish the bags. We're also selling candy bars.
Mind, now, selling junk food really does go against my better judgment, and I've never allowed students to sell candy before, so I feel a little guilty about furthering the bad eating habits of some teens. Hopefully, the guilt will be worth it as the students get a chance to attend training sessions and network with other teen volunteers.

Masters of Disaster, Part 2

The Masters of Disaster activities that were uploaded to the IntelliTools Activity Exchange seem to be popular. I must admit that the more popular activities are the ones that are generalized to teach other skills, such as AM/PM Sorting or Peanut Butter Sequencing. I am hopeful that some of the more disaster-safety specific activities will continue to be downloaded (and they have been, just not at the same rate as the others). After several requests, I have also posted the ZIP files for the IntelliTools activities to my wiki. If I get permission from the Red Cross, I will post the paper-based activities as well.