Guest Blogger

Starting on Thursday, April 2, ITC Fusion will be hosting Flat Stanley as a guest blogger on the site. Flat Stanley lives with A & his family. Flat Stanley has come to visit us because the students in the Extra Mile club (the community service club I co-sponsor)are going to Florida.
We'll be attending the National Youth Institute, which is co-sponsored by the Red Cross, visiting Kennedy Space Center, and Walt Disney World. It should be an interesting trip...


But, we'll let Stanley tell you about it as he experiences it. We will also take pictures of Stanley (and the students!) while in Florida! :)

North Dakota

For those that do read this blog, you're aware that besides teaching, my other major activity is serving with Red Cross Disaster Services. I work locally, and when I'm available, nationally. The Red Cross is a grassroots, community-based charitable organization. The majority of the people who provide assistance during a disaster are volunteers, with other jobs, just like me. Please consider helping your local chapter right now: it may not seem like much, by an hour answering the phones is a huge deal!

With that said, I also wanted to share that I am so pleased to see that the Red Cross is automatically doing videos & pictures and making those available as they post news & updates about national disasters. There are so many people in this country who either cannot read English, or have difficulties with reading, that getting the information out in so many ways is important. Kudos to them for embracing new technology that makes getting the word out to ALL people.

Long Overdue

I haven't updated the blog as often as I should have in the last few months... I was feeling a bit guilty because we have been doing some interesting activities. One group completed all of their This I Believe essays, and have moved on to working on a recipe project. Students were instructed to find a recipe that meant something to their culture or their family. They were then required to complete a worksheet about the recipe, and a research worksheet that asked why the recipe was chosen. For the research worksheet, students also had to use websites to find the origins of at least 3 foods. The food origins was harder than it should have been; I will need to find better websites for the students to use for this portion if I want to do this activity again. I've included a link to the worksheets on my wiki. All of these projects are easier to do with the grant we received from Best Buy last year.

In another class, students are working on identifying deductions and earned income, fixed and flexible expenses. For years we did this activity using a postboard with velcro and "pieces" that attached. This year, I've updated the activity so it works on Classroom Suite, and I might also do a version that will work in ActivStudio on the Promethean Board. Of course, to do that part I really need to get the software installed on my laptop. Right now there are also worksheets to reinforce the concepts learned in the hands-on activity on my wiki.

The students in the club have been busy as well, and we had 9 students work the 2009 Inaugural, and 12 students completed training in order to serve. We have 8 students going to the National Youth Institute in Florida in a month, so we have been fund raising like mad. We were very fortunate to get some local corporate and individual sponsors that enabled us to get the students to the conference! Just last week one of our students spoke about what we have done this year, and what volunteering and being in the club has meant to her to the Disaster Action Team in our county. We showed an incredibly cheese video I made of their activities after her speech.