An exciting change happened to the computer lab over spring break. Using a wii remote I brought from home, an infrared light pen I purchased off the internet, and free software I downloaded from Johnny Chung Lee’s website, I now have an interactive board to use with the students in the lab. I also purchased a pole and clamp from Penteractive to suspend the wii remote from the ceiling, although that is optional. You will need a computer with blue tooth capabilities and a projector. The fifth graders have been reviewing math vocabulary for two and three dimensional shapes by visiting the interactive websites hosted at The View (Virtual Intermediate Education at White Oak) which are our moodle lessons. You can preview the sites by logging in to our moodle environment by using the username: woteacher, password: woteacher. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to convert your board to be interactive.

Sixty-Seven!!! That is the number of doodles I received for the Doodle for Google contest that ended today. Each school that registered with Google was allowed to submit up to six doodles. The judges will name two winners from each age category (K-3rd, 4th-6th, 7th-9th, 10th-12th) for each state. The expert judges will then determine one finalist from each category for each of ten regions. The doodles of the 40 regional finalists will be displayed on the google.com website where the public will vote on the doodle in each category that best reflected the theme: “If I Could Do Anything, I Would…” The 40 finalists will also be invited to an awards ceremony in New York City at Google headquarters on May 26, 2010 where the four national finalists will be announced (one per age group). One grand prize winner will also be announced.

I am very proud of each student who chose to submit an entry for this contest. Your doodle is on display in the slideshow below and on the wall outside the computer lab. You will also be able to proudly display your doodle on your shirt or backpack, because I am making it in to a 3 inch button for you to wear or display.

You may be wondering which six doodles made their way to the desk of the judges at Google headquarters. Watch the slideshow and tell me in the comments (remember, no last name) below which six you would have chosen and why. In the meantime, I’m really hoping one of our students will be getting notified soon to make plans to head north to New York!

Finally, here are the videos of the 4th grade teams that won for the best summarization strategy presentation. All of the classes did an outstanding job of presenting their strategies, and it was very difficult to choose just one video for each strategy.

I have registered White Oak Intermediate School to participate in Google’s contest to design a logo with the theme, “If I could do anything, I would…” The contest rules allow each school to submit up to six entries. I would love to have two entries from each of the three grade levels…3rd, 4th, and 5th. The winning entry receives a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 worth of computer equipment for their school. I know the winning entry could very well be within our own walls, so come on students! Take an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, some crayons, markers, or use a computer drawing program and try your hand at designing the winning logo. Designs must be submitted by March 31st, so let’s get drawing! Submit your drawings to Mrs. Peery. For more information, click on the picture above.

Through the hard work and direction of third grade teacher Stephanie Hunter, thirty-one third graders have completed and presented to the community their research on famous people by posing “in character” for a wax museum. The museum was open to the public Friday, March 5, 2010. Parents, teachers, students and community members came out in great numbers to see the famous people. Students worked hard to research important information about their chosen person. They took that information and created a speech which they recorded in the computer lab using a Blue Snowball microphone. Their speeches were downloaded to iPods and computers for patrons to listen to as they went through the museum. You can enjoy the characters and their speeches presented in the glogster poster below.

While going through my Google Reader tonight, I came across this site that caught my attention. After watching the video embedded below, I decided to download the demo and have my 4th grader give it a try. I am personally not very good at this type of thing, but my son loves the challenge. If it is as good as it looks, I may be willing to spend the $19.95 the full version costs. Unfortunately, it requires a PC using Windows Vista or XP. The creator may make a version for the Mac, but he doesn’t make any promises.

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

I just signed up for a new educational Animoto account. When I was at the TCEA Convention in Austin a few weeks ago, I saw a presenter demonstrate a book review by a student using Animoto. The fourth graders are working on their summary skills, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to let them try out Animoto. I am currently debating on setting up their own accounts using an extended email address, or setting up an account for each computer in the lab. The third graders have just finished researching their famous person, so I may let them try it out as well. They have saved several pictures to their flash drives. Using Keynote or Pages, they could type in large font relevant information from their research and save the pages as jpg files, or screen capture the pages to upload to Animoto. Below is the Animoto I created from the pictures and video taken during the week at TCEA 2010 in Austin.

I came across this wonderful tutorial demonstrating how to use the social networking site for educators called Edmodo.  I have been using Edmodo with the fifth graders for a few weeks now.  The students love to communicate with one another.  We have also completed polls and are learning how to use the assignment feature.  After watching the video, I began to realize just how powerful this social networking site could be.  Check out the video and you may find Edmodo useful for your class.

I will be in Austin the week of February 8 – 12, 2010 for the TCEA (Texas Computer Education Associaton) conference. On Tuesday, I have the priviledge of presenting the use of Glogster EDU in the classroom. Glogster EDU is a web 2.0 tool that allows students to creative interactive posters. Click on the picture below to see the presentation. (It is done using glogster posters. Follow the arrows on each poster to continue the presentation.)