Women of Web 2.0, Cheryl Oakes, Jennifer Wagner, Sharon Peters, & Vicki Davis have asked me to be a guest tonight on their live webcast. On their web site they describe themselves as:
“…four women who not only love using the tools of the Internet but also love sharing the tools with others.”
I’ll share what my class has done and is doing right now using Web 2.0 tools and more. That’s tonight (Tuesday) 6:00pm Pacific Daylight Time – 9:00pm Eastern.
One of the tough things about teaching at an “At Risk†school is the turnover. In the last 4 weeks we gained a new non-English speaking student and lost 3 (almost 4) students. I’m rolling my current class to fifth grade next year and came to realize yesterday that out of my current 25 students only 14 will be with me next year. A few have already moved out of our attendance area and had to be issued a variance in order to finish out the year here, and 6 more students will be lost to the new boundaries they’ve drawn.
One of the students we lost 2 weeks ago has made a reconnection though. I woke up Saturday morning and checked my email and there was a new blog post waiting for approval and some comments. They were from Maija:
*I Miss You All!*
Hey you guys I’m here on my computer, and I had nothing to do, so I thought, hey I should go on our class blog!!!! So I did, and I started commenting people (if that’s okay Mr. Crosby?)!!! And I decided to write a blog saying I miss the good times we’ve had together!!!! And I really missed that!!! Like Mr.Crosby said “Has any of you gone to a new school?†I have and I know how it feels now!!! I was nervous, and scared! But once you get used to it you’ll be fine!!! Thanks Mr. Crosby!!!!
I’ll talk to you guys soon!!!
I guess it is about the connections.
Connections are messy?
It’s actually good news.
I was finishing getting ready for students this morning when in walked our counselor, Celest and her mom. They had news, Celest won’t be needing to Skype into class anymore because as of today she is a showing-up and-sitting-in-a-chair-in-class-like-everyone-else member of class. The doctors surprised them last week with the news and they decided to surprise us. So we’ve gone in a matter of weeks from a possibly life threatening infection. To Here’s your seat right here. How cool is that!?
Heres the proof: Pink shirt, just to right of center.
A picture I really didn’t think we’d take this year!
And below taken in January.
Learning is messy!
Tonight was the 7th annual Lumiere All School Film Fest here in Reno. My friend Paul McFarlane, an English teacher at Hug High in Reno, started and continues to make this superb festival happen (Yes, Hug High School, named for Procter R. Hug, a local judge).
My sixth graders from last year won for best science film for their movie about fossils. And my current fourth graders won for their “Inclusion†movie – (downloaded now over 50,000 times, but only viewed on YouTube about 14 times since I posted it there last week). Congrats class!
Celest was back today after an almost six week absence. She rang our Skype bell just as students were entering at nine and except for recess and lunchtime – and a short break to take a blood draw, she was with us all day. She got a chance to read the 28 comments left for her by her classmates, and many of you, on her blog (she read non-stop for over twenty minutes – she really enjoyed them – thanks). Mainly for her benefit we spent a little time brainstorming topics for future blog posts, she even started one.
Next, we got her started on our animal wiki pages project, a tie-in to the field trip we went on 2 weeks ago – she’s never been there : ( . We also did some multiplication facts practice and explored angles online. All-in-all a good day.
About 10:30 though Celest dropped a bombshell on us when she explained that she has been told that she will be able to attend “regular school†next year!!!! – we’re not sure where yet – maybe here, her area has been moved to another school’s attendance zone … so we’ll see.
There was one scary part of the day though – not long after Celest came on I noted a mark on her cheek about the size of a half-dollar. It was brownish-red and seemed like a sore. My vice-principal came through not much later and noticed it right away … we gave each other sad looks … and she left. All was well though … when Celest turned her head a few minutes later the “sore†turned out to be a press-on decal of a cat with a red bow. Whew! She let me take a picture of it –
I got word today that Celest is home much earlier than expected from her hospital stay out of town and feeling good. I’ll report back when she makes it back to class (via Skype). We haven’t seen her in about a month.
My school district is re-doing the attendance boundaries of the schools here because they have gotten out of whack because we are growing so fast. Where Celest lives is one of the areas that have been moved out of my school’s area – she is zoned for a different school and we have been told we cannot take “variances” which allow students to attend a school they are not zoned for. However they are willing to make an exception in Celest’s case because we offer her services she is not apt to receive at her zoned school. Since I’m rolling this class next year to fifth grade she could still be in my class and we could still Skype her in. That’s the good news. Now we just have to get the right people to fill out the right paperwork to make that happen.
Zoning is messy!
Update: 4/29/07
Find a link to the podcast below (my first ever podcast btw).
Friday, Grace Corrigan “graced” our classroom with a visit, and that might seem like just a cute play-on-words, but if you had been there you would agree. Grace is Christa McAuliffe’s Mom (Teacher in Space tragically lost on the Space Shuttle Challenger debacle). I was told to expect her about fifteen minutes after school started and she appeared about fifteen minutes before school started, so much for my, “We’ll get the students in and settled first” plan. But it didn’t matter. They came in and found their seats, some said hello – I had explained to them the day before that because we were Skyping her visit and trying to record it and video tape it, that I would be busy and they would have to monitor themselves and each other – they did a great job!
Lee Baber and I (mainly Lee) got the Skype connection to work – we had planned on meeting over Skype the day before to check the connection and discuss what to expect etc. – but both of us were so busy that that never happened. We did manage to connect about an hour before, after I managed to interrupt another Skype session her students were doing.
We had a bit of a tentative start, I intro-ed from my end and then one of Lee’s students did an intro for the podcast they were doing – and Grace was off – well for a few minutes anyhow. Right as Grace was engaging the students, our school’s morning announcements began. But that didn’t stop Grace, she just kept on going right through – today’s lunch menu, Thought-for-the-Day, and a scolding for leaving too much trash outside after, “outside lunch” the day before. I noticed at this point that Lee had sent me a text message on Skype, “Brian, we seem to be picking up some kind of noise; what is that? “Just morning announcements,” I texted back. “Oh,” replied Lee, who I’m sure was really impressed at this point at the professional manner in which the presentation was going. And that impression was reinforced a few minutes later when the office called me over the loudspeaker to tell me to do my attendance (even though it was done). You have to understand that we complain all the time how loud things come across our PA system, but there is no way to adjust it or turn it off.
Anyhow, undeterred Grace continued – she showed them a short film about Christa and continued on her theme of “Reach For The Stars!” She took questions for about 25 minutes, took a photo with the class, shook hands with any student that wanted to, autographed a picture of Christa for us, and was gone. I scanned the picture and printed out a color copy for every student in my class. 18 of my students were able to ask her a question, and at least half that number of the YouthBridges students asked a question too.
I want to thank Grace Corrigan, Lee Baber and her students and Paul McFarlane a high school English teacher that started and runs the Lumiere Film Festival – and he teaches our school district’s Digital Video Class with me – he chose my class as the one for Grace to visit.
My class began blog posts about the experience and their field trip the day before to Animal Ark. Lee emailed me that she thinks the recording went well – thanks to her and her students. All-in-all a super experience for all involved. As soon as the podcast is edited I’ll put a link to it here. Once I get a chance to edit the video, and if it is any good I’ll post it. I just wish Celest could have been a part – a few students mentioned that too.
Podcast – Click here for podcast of Grace’s visit.
Recorded 4/27/07 Length: 31:51
I’m afraid this week’s update is not good news. Celest has been sick from her Chemo for weeks and that has developed into an infection that has progressed to the point that she was airlifted to a San Francisco Bay Area Children’s Hospital that specializes in treating leukemia last week. Now we hear that she will probably be there for a month … at least. This is a potentially life threatening infection. She has had this happen before and come out OK. Please keep her in your prayers.
Celest has not been feeling well for weeks now. The doctors have changed her chemo and apparently it is not sitting well with her. Thusly we have not had her “join†us via Skype on a very consistent basis lately : (
We decided today to send Celest a kind of “Cyber†get well card – so most of the class managed to post a “feel better” comment to her lone blog post. They think it would be helpful if as many people as possible would also leave comments – so if you can leave her a short “get well†comment and/or a word of encouragement and tell her where you are commenting from It would be appreciated. You can read the comments her classmates left her so far also.
We have been blogging and commenting quite a bit this week also, so check out some of the other students’ posts as well if you have the time.
I heard about this earlier today. Google is offering free wifi that is easy enough that you can install it yourself (or you can opt for professional installation for a price). What implications will this have for schools and learning? How will school districts react? What about the general public? What is your reaction? Almost to good to be true! Share any thoughts you have about how we could leverage this to make a difference in students’ lives.
Learning is messy!!!
