Donor's Choose

Right around the time of semester exams, I was notified that my Donor's Choose grant was fully funded! For those who aren't familiar, Donor's Choose is a website that allows teachers to post ideas for projects they would like to do in their classroom, but for which they do not have funding. It was started by a New York City Public School teacher and initially was only open to teachers from that district. In the years since, it has grown, and been recognized as a great resource for teachers. It is really designed for the teachers in moderate or high poverty schools to try and get materials they need that can't be provided by their school or school district for whatever reason.
In September, when I started my new position teaching students with autism spectrum disorders (those who are in the academic program), I realized that my classroom probably wasn't as friendly as we would like. It was VERY bright due to the fluorescent lighting with the white cinder block walls, and a white linoleum floor. It also had no windows, which meant the room was very dark if we turned off the lights so the students could see our interactive whiteboard. The size of the room meant there really wasn't anywhere for the students to go to cool down if they needed. I decided to ask for some lamps, lightbulbs and a carpet. With the help of some friends, and some people that I've never met, and probably never will meet, we now have ALL of these items... plus the district found funding for an exercise ball, some weighted aromatherapy animals, a weighted lap pad, several different kinds of stress balls, and some curriculum materials.
We're still kind of hoping to find a loveseat or small couch to put back there, and I'll likely have to buy more of the aromatherapy animals because even my students with "just a learning disability" want to use them!

The Sims 2: In MY Classroom?

I teach high school students with a wide-range of special needs from learning disabilities to autism. I've used RollerCoaster Tycoon in all its variations (we're using Gold/Platinum editions of version 3 right now) for several years in many ways. I make my own materials for the RCT units, including tutorials that the students have to go through before they can actually start the project. The students also get rubrics and have checkpoints where they have to show progress; at the end they fill out a reflection paper and do a presentation. My students have enjoyed it, and started campaigning to get me to use the Sims for the next project. I was hesitant---we have 3 laptops, so the students have to work in groups of 2 or 3, and the laptops can't connect to the school network for Internet access. Price is always a factor, so we definitely won't be using Sims 3. I've purchased Sims 2 to try out.
If I do wind up creating a unit based around the software, I will be shuffling groups (I do each quarter anyway), and I will be making each student responsible for a specific section of the tutorials. All students will fill in all questions, but each packet will have a letter or number that codes to questions they are required to do. I think this might prevent some of the "lazy man" I see, and the lack of actual team work in some groups. I know there are some this won't help, but we'll see if this is a step in the right direction.
Now to see if the download code has shown up and to begin the search for materials...

Reading for Information: Amusement Parks & Board Games

The 2nd quarter project for Basic Skills involves a reincarnation of my amusement park unit. Instead of a PowerPoint project, the students have to create a game board based on the amusement park they've chosen and researched. You can find the worksheets here, and some of them are fillable and savable in Adobe Reader.

The groups also have to create an amusement park in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. We have several licenses of the software installed on laptops we received 2 years ago from Best Buy's Te@ch grant program. A note: If you own the original copy of RCT 3, you cannot purchase the expansion packs for the water parks or zoo. The expansion packs do not install properly. We had to purchase RCT 3: Gold, and RCT 3: Platinum. The Gold & Platinum versions install and run well.

At the wiki link above, you can find tutorial worksheets for RCT 3. I did not make the worksheets fillable, because it would be too hard to fill them out on the laptop while engaging in the software. The tutorials for RCT 3 require significant reading ability, which is something that most of my students have this year, but if your students do not have a 4-6th grade reading ability, you would be better off doing the tutorials as a group. You can do this by hooking a laptop to a TV with an S-Video output, an interactive whiteboard (if you're lucky enough to have one!), or an LCD Projector to a screen. I plan to give the game a shot on our interactive whiteboard, just because it seems like a really cool way to play.

The worksheets also include a rubric for the amusement parks, and the game boards. I allowed the students to choose the kind of game; many chose a Monopoly-style game, although 2 groups chose PowerPoint games: Jeopardy and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The last thing that is now available is a PowerPoint webquest for students to complete. The new version has added questions, and a box at the bottom of the page to put the link where they find the picture or text. It also has a project reflection sheet included. My students will likely be using this for their mid-term exams if I can get laptops.

Commercial Advertising Projects

In early November, my students wrapped up their commercial advertising projects. Several of the groups REALLY got the concept, and created an actual advertisement for their products. Overall, it was a success, but there are some things I would do differently. I've implemented some of the changes for the 2nd quarter projects (now almost over... the fall has been chock-full of emergencies and bad news), which I'll detail in another post.
In the meantime, here are some of the best of the group videos:

The Smart Guitar: A guitar that comes preloaded with songs, all you have to do is pretend to strum!


Flavored Air in A Can: The solution for decidedly smoggy, polluted city air!


Flava Flava: Custom sodas for your enjoyment. The soda version of Coldstone Creamery!


The Suit: Clothing that grows with you!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Commerical Advertising-Classroom 2.0 Style!

Over the last few weeks, my students and I have been closely examining both television commercials, and print ads. The students have used a form for responding to the commercials they have viewed, and also to print ads. You can find all of the materials for the project (and as fillable/saveable PDFs, no less!)here.
The final project for the unit has the students inventing a product (they can use a basic one already created, a soda perhaps, but there must be something unique about their item) and then using Animoto to create a commercial. Animoto does have educational accounts available so you can use the full site without paying.

We started off with each student individually watching commercials and using the television response sheet. All of the commercials are from YouTube, and I downloaded them ahead of time to avoid school computer issues. I found a variety of old and new commercials. After that, in groups, students used computers to examine print advertisements with a response worksheet. The print ads were mostly from Flickr's Creative Commons.

Students have truly been engaged in the project: the group work has been amazing, and the discussions have ranged from defending a choice of product, and to how things have changed in TV & print ads since the students were children, and since the teachers were children. One group has decided their product is "flavored air"... how often do you get that kind of creativity?

Project Red, White & Food

I've already shared many times that I'm an active volunteer with the Red Cross, and last year on 9/11, I shared my story from that day... and the weeks that followed as I served at the Pentagon with the national Disaster Relief Operation. Last year was also the first year that community service club I co-sponsor created an activity for this day.
This year, in recognition of the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance, club students created Project Red, White And Food. Our school colors are red, white & blue, so the name was both recognition of the school and of our chosen project. We chose to make sandwiches to donate to the DC Central Kitchen.
The club set up stations during all of the school lunch shifts, and each student had the opportunity to make a sandwich. Everybody that made a sandwich received a foam sticker in the shape of a piece of food as a thank-you. We made 374 sandwiches before running out of lunch meat, but we were able to donate the additional gloves, hand sanitizer, and bread to the Kitchen, along with some fresh produce.
At the end of the school day, we had a pep rally, and the students ran relay races where they have to put together sandwiches made from one of the play food kits. The senior class showed their class spirit by making the most sandwiches, and winning the relay race at the pep rally.
The project would not have been possible without support from Whole Foods-Reston, Wegmans-Sterling, and Giant Food-Sterling. Thank-you!

Coming Up Next: A New Year

I've dived into the deep end this year... Somebody should remind me to look next time! This year will probably be hectic, and interesting. I'm not sure yet if interesting is a good thing or a bad thing, but give me a few weeks and I'll see if I can't figure it out.

I have two new roles this year at my school: autism resource & team-taught history. My school has had some success integrating the principals of Universal Design into science classes, and so now they would like to try history. Its not exactly a secret that I have a laptop welded to my back while at school, but I wasn't aware anybody knew about my secret passion for non-fiction documentary-style books and movies, especially 20th Century history. Or that I worked at a Renaissance Faire, and minored in history in college. Guess I need to hide that weakness a little better...
The autism resource is also really not a surprise: I worked as an autism teacher for an extended school year program when I started teaching, have always had at least one student in my classes who had an autism spectrum disability, and spent 3 years working at place known for their work with kids with autism.

School opens for students on Tuesday, and so I've been creating materials for Basic Skills this weekend, and trying to help the general education teachers I'm teaming with adapt materials for history. The students who have had me for Basic Skills before know that I like to do projects... This has not changed. Our first project will have them invent a product, research a real version of the product using Wikipedia. Side note: Do NOT twit at me about using Wikipedia in school; if we don't show the students how to use it properly, how will they ever learn? Just like we need to teach students about advertising, we need to teach how to use other media resources! The last part will have them create a commercial for their product. Originally, I was going to have them make a commercial of themselves, but decided to do the group thing. And, while I have access to a video camera, I'm not sure if doing that first thing in the school year is a good idea... Thanks to the UD Tech Toolkit I found a cool site called Animoto. There is a version of Animoto for schools to use, but I created this in about 5 minutes using the regular site. Very, very cool. So, I may use this for their commercials. It is a lot more structured, and much easier to use than actually creating a video themselves.