Produce that FUEL!!

It was a nail biter for me today. CRCT started and so did the Move that School Bus project. Wasn’t sure in Mr. Ham was going to make it to assign the students with the project, but just in the nick of time he did. He was great! He really did get the kids all fired up and excited. I spent the rest of the day discussing the project with my students.

My students seemed most shocked when I told them I was no longer their teacher. I was a student just like them. I explained that I have never really made biodiesel either and that we were going to learn together. I explained that I would be a facilitator to guide them but that I couldn’t tell them if they were right or wrong.  I believe that this will be an amazing adventure that we will take!

Let’s Move that School BUS!!

Biggest Take Away from Multimedia and Web Design

Walking in to the new semester, I thought I knew it all! Ha! I was wrong. I have always maintained a teacher website but it was created in a WYSIWYG. Using the WYSIWYG there were times when I would get extremely frustrated because I couldn’t get things to look the way I wanted. Now that I have a better understanding of html code, I am able to fix things to get them to look the way I want. Not that I am a control freak of anything :)Knowing the basics, has helped me to fix things like color, font, and size. Using html code as also helped me to keep the same style and look of new pages I create. I used to cut and paste templates, but discovered that information didn’t always maintain the look I wanted. Using the html code made every page the same!  I could never start from scratch and write a website, however using a WYSIWYG and html code I believe next year I will have a new website that will be amazing!

Biomes Webquest

For my latest project, I worked with a seventh grade class to complete a biomes webquest. I was great to work with seventh graders again.  Biomes  Webquest was an interactive project for students to complete. Part of the site guides students through the process of building their own website, the rest houses all the student pages.  Please check it out… I would love to know what other educators think about the question.

Internet Safety…Beyond the Computer…

After tooling around online looking for sites to keep kids safe online… well I felt like society has beat that topic to death. Most people understand the basic need to stay safe online… What I think both parents and teacher are struggling is with is how to keep students safe with all the new “smart” technologies they carry around in their pockets. 

I myself encourage my students to bring their cell phone to class. Risky … I know… but there are so my many amazing things we can do with them in the classroom. But after reading “Color…Why?” I am going to have to rethink a few things. Parents and Teachers need to read Color…Why? to understand that the smart technology are capable of.  The post explains a new app that sends pictures to people that are within 150ft of the phone! 

Other great sites on smart phone safety:

http://www.ikidapps.com/2010/11/kid-safe-browsers-for-ipad-and-iphone.html

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/safety/a/109_intrnt_sfty.htm