Collazo Cove

Today we watched a great video on Discovery Education about weathering and erosion. I am always looking for interesting and creative ways for my kids to digest and respond to things we are learning, especially when the learning comes from a video. I think very often we sit kids in front of a video and they zone out, having learned nothing and having wasted 20 or 30 minutes of opportune learning time.

So during the video, the kids were asked to write down at least 8 interesting things they thought the video shared in their science notebooks. They were then asked to go to Vocaroo and record their 8 items orally. For those of you who have never used Vocaroo, it is the most user-friendly, awesome, online recording tool out there! No login is required, and you receive an embed code of your recording for wonderful sharing opportunities. We are also in the lucky position of being a 1:1 netbook classroom, where all of my students also have a headset with a microphone (although it works just as well with our netbooks' built in microphones!).

So after recording their audio weathering and erosion information, some sitting outside on the benches for less background noise, they learned quickly how to upload their recordings onto their Kidblogs!  And as if that wasn't magical enough, the real magic is happening tonight! My computer email is dinging off the hook as the kids (and parents) go in and listen to each other's recordings! They are leaving the sweetest comments for each other! What a great way to reinforce the curriculum. Not only will they probably remember the facts THEY recorded about weathering and erosion, they are listening to each other and picking up some things they may not have caught while watching the movie!

I'm so proud and psyched! Please check them out and leave some comments, they'd be thrilled.

The first great find was discovered as I searched for some informative, yet fun activity for one of our 5th grade teachers.  She is putting together stations for the 100th day of school, and the whole theme uses pennies!  100th day isn't just for Kindergarten!  She is very innovative and wanted one of the stations to be technology-based, cool!  So in my searching, I came across the US Mint's Kids' site!  What a treasure-trove!  Although I only had a chance to look at a few of the activities and links in their "clubhouse", it is a very kid-friendly place!  The section I think we'll use for the station is one of their interactive cartoons called, "Birth of a Coin" which walks you through exactly how the coins that end up in your couch are made!  Very neat!  I had no idea!  Since so many grade levels' SCOS includes the teaching of money concepts, wouldn't this be a great place to pique student interest!

The second great find came as I read Wesley Fryer's post, "Singing, Not On the Test".  Take just a minute to click on the NPR link and listen to the 2 minute song.  You will chuckle and shake your head in dismay at the same time!

Picture:  Fountain of Wishes

Was going to continue with my New Year's Resolution to blog more, and answer the meme tag from Danita.  Having read the "big guys'" (guys to Yankees includes women!) answers to the very popular meme circulating the blogosphere, I tried not to curse when I got the tag!  But that will have to wait another day.

After meeting with Lee and Debra today and talking about projects we could develop for the iPods, I think Will Richardson's post today is very timely!  He writes:

It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that the convergence of all of this will fit in our pockets. It has to. The culture is demanding mobile computing, and it’s being driven by our kids. And I think we need to start looking at ways to leverage that ability.

Where to start? Experiment. A first step might be to go to Mogopop and put together a lesson that can upload to an iPod.  Not a phone, I know, but that ability will be here sooner than you think. It’s an easy way of getting your head around how it might play out.

So I visited Mogopop for a short time... may be worth looking into!  What do you think?