It was a great experience! 45 students and 15 staff participated, writing a total of over 6,000 lines of code! Some of the students liked it so much that they are learning more through Code.org's Computer Science curriculum with Mrs. Tharp. We can't wait to see where this new adventure takes us!
This year we participated in the Hour of Code! Here are some of our thoughts. Makayla: I liked to learn how to make the game. I liked the videos too. I also liked my friend's scratch game. Madisyn: I like the hour of code. I finished the angry birds and plants vs . zombies lessons. I wrote 77 lines of code. I did like it so much. It was easy to play on my computer, I did it 3 times. Dannielle: I like learning the Hour of Code because it was fun learning how to make your own code. I like all the bright colors that you can use. Raiden:I thought the hour of code was awesome. I liked the Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies. It was a great experience! 45 students and 15 staff participated, writing a total of over 6,000 lines of code! Some of the students liked it so much that they are learning more through Code.org's Computer Science curriculum with Mrs. Tharp. We can't wait to see where this new adventure takes us! Fun Update: We have recently learned that our superintendent completed the hour of code too! Thank you for joining us in our learning Dr. Godshall!
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We had a great chat with Ms. Roeder's class in NYC! We both took part in the Global read aloud and we tried to Skype for weeks, but had trouble scheduling it. We were able to do a twitter chat together (@PCSlibrary) and that was really fun. We read each others blogs, but we still wanted to talk. Finally it worked out! Even though the global read aloud was finished we still talked about our favorite parts of the book. We had fun telling them about our side of the state. They were the first class that we Skyped with in NY! We found that we liked some of the same kinds of music and the same books. They were really nice and we hope that we can talk to them again.
We have had two twitter chats about the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. It was fun to tweet. This was new for us. We talked with different classes about the book. Teachers would ask a question i.e..Q1 "What is your favorite character and why?" #GRAOOMM, and we answer A1____. Our teacher said that this is usually how teachers chat on twitter because it keeps things organized. We had to learn a few things before we started like we have to carefully choose our words because we only have 140 characters to say what we want to say. We learned that the way to say that you liked something was to "favorite" it by clicking on the star on that tweet. We also learned a few things once the chat started. We learned to introduce our class with the first tweet. We learned that we could answer a question, reply to someone else's answer, or both. We learned how to watch for tweets to us so that we could reply back. We learned that the chat can move quickly and it can be hard to keep up with all the questions and comments. We learned that sometimes when you are having a "side conversation" with someone you can miss a question or two. Mrs. Tharp says that is alright because it is about connecting and communicating with one another, not just answering all the questions - we could do that by ourselves. We learned how to end a chat. Finally we learned that it is a very fun way to connect with lots of students as one time! We connected with classes in: South Carolina, Ontario, Quebec, Wisconsin, and New York. Students from Austrailia were able to get online and answer the questions the next day. Their teacher, Mr. Sky, put it all together in a story. You can read what we are thinking about the book so far. We have to be the luckiest class in the Global Read Aloud! We were able to have back to back Skype calls! Of course it doesn't normally happen that way, but due to schedule changes and time zone differences it just happened to work out that way. We were beyond excited. We first Skyped with Mrs. McAdams class is St Louis, they were wonderful because they gave up their lunch to talk to us! It was so fun to talk to them about what they liked about the book. We also discussed our favorite characters. They were very friendly and fun to talk to.
Then we talked to Ms. Cypert's class in CA! We did a quick mystery Skype it wasn't hard because we both live in states on the ocean - just different oceans! Their class is VERY big, 34 students! We don't know how they do it! They are very nice and have been leaving fabulous comments on our blogs. They are thoughtful and encourage us to be better writers. It was fun to put faces with names! We haven't been able to keep up with commenting on all of their blogs, feel free to visit them. We know they would appreciate it! Mrs. Cobb's class joined us for both of the Skpe calls and so there were a few more of us. We all had so much to say. Only a few of us were shy. We are having so much fun connecting with other classes! We hope that we can talk to these classes again. We will have to because our teacher forgot to take a picture! It is really unbelievable because she takes pictures of everything! Now we have to talk again! We have our own class twitter account now! One of our teacher's twitter friends, Ms. You @PeelMzYou, helped her set it up. She teaches in Ontario, Canada and her class has an account, @DolphinlCOM, so we had someone to tweet with right away! Thank you!
We also connected with Ms. Bauer, @girltraveling, right away. Our classes had a mystery Skype before the Global Read Aloud started in September. We were hoping that they would want to Skype again and talk about the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper, so we asked them.
Hooray! Ms. You's class wants to Skype too and we are really excited about that! We are lucky that our teacher has so many great teacher friends. It's been a very exciting year and it's only October! We can't wait to see what will happen next! You can follow us, @MrsTharpsClass, and watch us learn.
We had our first Mystery Skype of the year this week. We had fun and want to do more! We Skyped with Ms. Bauer's class. We discovered that they were in South Carolina, near Greensville. It was great to meet all the students in her class. One of their Principals, Mr. Champlin, even stopped in to say "Hello". We noticed a few things, some of them had a fun southern accent, and they have a bigger class than we do. We have a lot in common too. We like sports and music. Their teacher Ms. Bauer grew up in Lockport, NY! We thought that was amazing - it is a small world! We are going to be reading the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper together for the Global Read Aloud! We will be talking on edmodo about the book. It was fun to meet them before we started! Our teachers even tweeted about it. Ms. Bauer took a picture. Surprisingly, our teacher was so excited she forgot to grab the camera! We think it would be fun to Skype with them again to talk about the book. Thank you for a great time!
We celebrated Dot Day this past week. It is a day to remind us to celebrate our creativity and to make our mark on the world. We loved making dots. We talked about how to make our mark and make it matter. Here are some of our ideas: Makayla is going to help her neighbor and her friends. Brianna is going to help take care of her neighbor's dogs, and help her mom with her little sister. Noel is going to help people that with jobs that they can't do themselves. Thor is going to say kind things to people to encourage them. Andrew is going to be nice and kind to students and teachers. We really liked the ColAR app that turned our dots into 3-D masterpieces! Thank you! How will you make your mark? This is going to be an incredible year. We are off to great start. We have many returning students this year and it has been fun to find new challenges for them. We have registered for the Global Read Aloud that begins on September 30th and runs for six weeks. We will be connecting with many classes across the country and world as we read a book together. We will be blogging, using edmodo, and Skype to connect, share our thoughts, and discuss the book. We will be reading Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. It is a fabulous opportunity to be a part of such a large movement, at this time there are over 100,000 students registered!
While I was sure that this would be enough to keep us busy this fall, the class had other ideas. They remembered that the Student Blogging Challenge occurred 2 times each year and they were determined to be a part of the challenge again. I reminded them of all the writing work that would be required to participate in both projects, but they assured me they were ready! In an effort to prove their point they completed the first challenge before they were even registered. Several students, Makayla, Noel, and Madisyn, are using their own blogs to participate in the challenge while others are working on our class blog posts for the challenge. I have an amazing class! It is a privilege to work with them. Please encourage them by commenting on their posts. Thank you! Before we start posting about our learning this year I think that we should pause and take a look back at what we learned last year. I have had all summer to reflect on this past school year. I thought that time would give me a more objective perspective, but I still have only one word to describe it - AMAZING! It was a year of tremendous growth for my students and myself. So many incredible things happened, but I am going to highlight just a couple.
It began by systematically infusing technology into instruction. We started with edmodo and digital citizenship. They learned to take control of their own learning both in and out of school. We participated in our first global project through edmodo and wikispaces with Crazy Crazes. Where they compiled our “favorites” and “crazes” and presented them in different ways. They became deeper thinkers as they searched for information on subjects and curated it with the help of Livebinders. Communicating their learning came next and they rose to the challenge! We then started a class blog to better communicate with our families, friends, community, and world. It wasn't long before they had their individual blogs. They took to it like fish to water! We decided to participate in the Student Blogging Challenge this past spring and that really springboarded their writing. They learned to help each other, using their combined strengths to be better together. If you haven't already done so, please take a minute to visit their blogs an witness their learning and creativity. I have a class that loved to talk and share so why not try backchanneling? It was a fabulous addition to our discussions on the novels Touching Spirit Bear, and Wonder. They used todaysmeet to discuss questions that they wondered about. Finally, we had the opportunity to participate in our first mystery skype. It was challenging, but fun. Especially because we were able to be part of the first Teach Like a Pirate Day at Utica Junior High School with Prinicpal @McLane_Ryan. It was fun to watch their faces as the other class guessed towns so close to ours. We will certainly start with map reading this September! A big Thank You to my students parents for entrusting me with their children. They are truly a blessing! Their desire to learn permeated each day and their enthusiasm energized me to find new and better ways engage them. I look forward with great anticipation to this year! |