I created this photostory to be an introduction to geometric art and tessellations for my Geometry 10C class. They really seemed to enjoy it. Some even asked to see it twice. I'm quite proud of myself.

Leadership Conference with Room24

Global Learners: Please join us on Friday May 2nd for a Leadership Conference with Room24. (cross-posted on my blog)

My students have been learning all about leadership during a unit entitled Follow My Lead. Each student researched a great leader (some researched a negative leader) and they spent some time identifying the qualities that made them leaders. Now it is time for students to make some connections between those great leaders and ourselves. We will spend some time this week addressing these four questions:

1. What is leadership?
2. What problems exist in my school or community that could be solved if I were a leader?
3. What obstacles stand in my way that prevent me from being a leader?
4. What goals can I set for myself to get past these obstacles?

We will present the answers to these questions on Friday by publishing them on our class blog (room24.blogspot.com) and Tweeting them throughout the day(follow room24). Please comment on students' blog entries and tweets.

I also invite you to join us in a live conversation on Friday morning from 9:30 - 10:30 mountain time. We will be broadcasting live from our classroom where students will be presenting the answers to their questions and asking additional questions of participants. Join us by clicking on this link to WiziQ. You will need to set up a free account. After that you can type comments or talk to us directly using a microphone or webcam.

You can join us and interact with my fourth graders by:

• Addressing the questions above by thinking about yourself when you were young (maybe you're still young!).
  
• Give some advice to the future leaders in Room24.
• Share a story of a great student leader.
• Do any or all of the above on our blog, via twitter or via WiziQ.
  

Email me directly if you have any questions. jdlewis@acsd14.k12.co.us

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

Free Web Conferencing Tool

Last week (April 24) I hooked up with Jeff Lewis and his awesome Room24 students for a live web conference using WizIQ. We got good results sharing video, audio, text chat, and a whiteboard. Room24 will be doing a leadership conference using WizIQ Friday, May 2. Please contact Jeff or myself if you would like an invitation to join Room24 for the live conference.

Use WiZiQ's Virtual Classroom for
synchronous online teaching and learning. Equipped with live audio/video, text chat, document/whiteboard sharing, and session recording capabilities, this web conferencing tool is available for unlimited free use.

Attention all SmartNotebook users

Tomorrow (April 15) Smarttech is releasing the new version 10 of the smartnotebook software. I have been using the beta version 10 and really like some of the new features. Among Notebook 10's new features are a variety of composition, presentation, and creativity tools, including a tool for creating tables; "Magic Pen" for spotlighting, magnifying, and zooming images; an "Active Alignment" tool for aligning objects accurately; and a new pen for creating shapes freehand. It also includes additional multimedia features, such as the ability to animate any Notebook object and to record and play back presentations step by step.

You can download the new version 10 beginning April 15, 2008 on the Smarttech site.

Book Groups Blog

~cross-posted at: http://mstaylorsthirdgradeclass.blogspot.com/~

My reading group created book reviews after reading a chapter book with a book group. The goal of the assignment was for them to enjoy reading fiction, discuss the book with others, and create a book review after reading so they could synthesize the experience and bring closure to the 10-week long project. In order to make it more meaningful and exciting, they published their book reviews online on a book group blog, and some also created podcasts which I posted on my classroom website. The students loved it! They put a lot of time and effort into their book reviews and enjoyed putting them online. They also enjoyed leaving comments for other students in the class on the blog. Please visit our book groups blog and read some book reviews. There is also a quiz to take. Also you can listen to some podcasts on my classroom website. We'd love for other students to leave us comments on the blog and take the poll also! Have you done anything like this with your students? Any suggestions for improvement? Thanks!