Summer Classes

This summer, I decided to take two on-line classes that explore using digital portfolios and Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) tools. Arguably, I'm already using Web 2.0 in my classroom, but I am hoping there are some positive suggestions on how I can incorporate the tools in a more structured fashion. The students enjoy doing it, but I think the quality of some of their projects leaves a bit to be desired. I'd also like to be able to use the tools without feeling like I'm being sneaky. Logically, I know that I'm not doing anything wrong as long as we don't publish anything, but still... It seems a shame that my students can post and get feedback.
I'm not talking SecondLife here, or Facebook, but blogging would be really nice. So many of my students need to work on writing, and they hate it. I might get more response to vocabulary activities or summaries or resumes or job research if the students could post to a blog and then get feedback.

I've also become heavily involved in my Red Cross chapter's social media efforts, and regularly blog about events the chapter has participated in. We have everything connected through Facebook, and I have another volunteer & friend helping with the tools. We also have a volunteer that goes to the scenes and takes photographs for us to include. I see this as a good way to show the citizens of our county what the chapter does, and how we provide services. I'd like to step it up a bit, too, though, add a little spice to some of the posts.

And, of course, coming up with a way to incorporate the digital portfolios. I really think these would be a fantastic way for my students to have input at their IEP meetings, but the goal of most of the meetings is to get done as soon as possible. I have some problems with that, although I do understand why getting them done & over is important. But I really bought into the self-determination thing when I was in grad school for transition planning.

Ideas are, as always, welcome!

Flat Stanley: Flying Back

Dear Friends,

I had to get up very early this morning (and it was tough because we were at Disney until 1:00 a.m.!) to catch our plane back to Baltimore. I almost got left behind at the hotel, but fortunately one of the teachers with the group found me. It would have been a very long walk from Orlando to Baltimore.

It was cold this morning in Florida. Our flight left Orlando very late, and so we missed our connection in Atlanta. We did not get back to Baltimore until after 4:00 p.m., so everybody was very tired by the time the Red Cross picked us up at BWI. We saw snow flurries on the way back (and its APRIL!).

When we made it back to the high school, the group had a present for the Red Cross staff that picked us up: a Mickey Mouse light saber. How cool! It even lights up in rainbow colors.

As soon as the teachers have all the pictures of me done, they are going to send me home. I can't wait!

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! :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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. :)

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.