Get your own book, mooch! [Classroom Library]

Bookmooch is an easy way to build your classroom library. It's built on a give-one-to-get-one philosophy. My wife has been using it for a little more than a month with much success. She's given and received five books. Every time she gives one, she gets a credit to use toward receiving a book.

Books are really the only possessions that I'm pack-rattish with. I've been able to give away books that I have multiples of, but if it's my only copy, I'm keeping it.

What other cheap, innovative, web 2.0 ways have you found to build a classroom library?

Merry Christmas!

Quick note to say "Merry Christmas!" to everyone. I hope you are all enjoying time with loved ones.

I've got some post ideas for after the new year, so look forward to some more in-depth ways to utilize the web in your lives and your classrooms, as well as keeping you up-to-date on what I'm doing in my classroom. I'll be the first to admit that I jogged my way through my first semester as a teacher, feeling out this new life; however, I feel I'm hitting my stride! I'm also planning on throwing the doors open wide to the TAGmirror and inviting everyone in to converse and share on this blog.

Enjoy the rest of your time "off"!

Warm ups [Classroom]

The way my schedule works, I don't get any student for more than a half-hour at a time. My 5th grade Math Enrichment students I get for 15 minutes every morning. 15 minutes twice-a-week for my 5th grade Reading Enrichment students. This means for those students a Warm Up activity is all we have time to get to. With my 5th grade Math students, I try to spend Monday getting them going on a "project" that they can work on outside my classroom. You can see an example of this in my Dream Vacation post. This way they have something to work on when they inevitably get done with their classwork before their classmates.

In this post, I'm going to keep a running list of Warm Up activities I've found that enrich student learning. I'll separate them into three categories:

• Reading
• Math
• Critical Thinking

I define Warm Up as an activity that last 15 minutes or fewer, takes minimal planning (what Dr. Bertie Kingore would call "just right"), and is adaptable to those situations that come up in schools.

The Lists

Reading:

• Boggle - $10 on Amazon - Boggle is great because it's so flexible. It can be a competition for older students: (3-letter words and longer only, 4-letter and up, etc.) It can also be a vocabulary builder for younger students: play a round, then the students can find synonyms/antonyms for the words they found. It can also be a creative springboard: play a round then students write a story/poem using all the words they found.
• Speed Scrabble - $15 as Bananagrams on Amazon - Speed Scrabble is a game I learned in college. Come to find out later, it's actually a game called Bananagrams. My wife bought a bag of scrabble tiles (no board) at an Archivers scrapbooking store. The game of Speed Scrabble is simple: everyone starts with 7 tiles each, face down. Someone says "Go" and all flip their tiles and begin to build their own set of words, all connected, just like a normal scrabble game. Once someone has used all their tiles, they say "Go!" and everyone grabs another tile from the facedown pile. This continues until all the tiles are used. The limit of this game is that it using students' existing vocabularies. The first time I played with third graders, I got immediately inundated with "Is ____ a word?" At first I had students look the word up, but the game is Speed Scrabble, after all. The answer I currently use is, "What does it mean?" If they don't know, I just have them move on. This only works because 95% of the words they ask about are made up. "Is lud a word?" If anyone has a better answer, please share in the comments.
• Picture Sentences - Notebook paper and pencil (each) - Each student (and the teacher...this one is fun!) start by drawing a scene in the top margin of a sheet of notebook paper. I usually give the example by drawing basketballs playing football on a river. It needs to be something that is easily captioned. When finished drawing, learners fold the scene backward and pass it along to the left. The student who receives it looks at the picture, then write a sentence describing the picture on the front. After writing the sentence, they fold that back, covering the picture, and pass it along. The next person only sees the sentence, and draws an illustration of it. And so on. It's a game of telephone, but with words and pictures.

Math:

• Dice Game - 6 dice - I like having five white and one red. Roll them all. Multiply the red one times 10. You're left with six numbers, something like: 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 40. Students then create an equation that get the white dice to equal the red one (times 10). If they're advanced, have them find two or three equations. Maybe the equation has to use parentheses or an exponent? It's up to you. My 5th graders love this game.

Critical Thinking:

• ThinkFun Brain Games - $5-$30 - ThinkFun all kinds of critical thinking "brain games." I've used Rush Hour with students in grades 1-5. I received Hoppers as a gift this Christmas.
  

Let's get these comments rolling! What do you use in your classrooms?

Gifted student = perfect student? [TAG]

I was chatting on Google Talk the other night with a friend I've known since preschool. He's moved across the country since graduating college, so we've ended up communicating strictly over the internet. We got on the subject of my job and he asked me about identification. I gave him an overview of our identification plan (once I actually go through the process I'll post about it) with the caveat that we don't "formally identify" until the Spring of 3rd grade.

He went on to tell me that he got "kicked out" of TAG in 2nd grade. He said he was, "invited to come for like a couple weeks, and then they just said 'Don't go today' and I never went again." His mom just happened to be online while we were talking, so he asked her about it. She had a memory of being told that he wasn't getting his daily work done in his regular-ed classroom, which was why he was being taken out of the TAG room.

I have high expectations for my students. I also maintain a discussion with my students about their having raised expectations for themselves. Did the expectations my friend's teachers had for him ("get all your daily work done") match the outcome the expectations affected ("get the label of 'gifted'")? The teachers were looking at a behavior of my friend (it could just as easily have been "you are messy") to determine the potential of his intellectual abilities.

This story is an illustration. It was related to me for the first time 20 years after the fact, without hearing the teachers' side. That's beside the point anyway. I'm not looking to lay blame, or even say that this has held my friend back in life (he is currently finishing up a Master's Degree in Theology). I just wonder if we're identifying the needs of gifted students with the right tools. I hope you're with me when I say I wouldn't measure a home run with a ruler.

What are some tools you've seen or used that worked well for identifying gifted needs in students? Any that haven't worked or perhaps led you astray, looking back in hindsight?

One-act at a time [Classroom]

One of the hats I wear as my district's half-time K-5 TAG teacher is "Sixth grade Reading and Math teacher." This is because our district's 6-8 building is 10 miles away from our K-5 building. I have one fifth-grade student who is subject-accelerated for Reading and Math, so I meet with him every day in two half-hour blocks for those classes.

A challenge I've found is working my student's gifted needs into the sixth grade curriculum I'm teaching for the first time. I presented my student with a deconstructive learning opportunity after we finished the book Queenie Peavy. He broke the book down into the characters, symbols, and major plot points. His project was to turn his the multi-chapter, 100+ page book into a one-act play. His audience for the play was the two fifth-grade classes in the building. He took that into account when looking at what he wanted to get across in his play. We discussed the differences between static and dynamic characters. We engaged the process of script-writing.

I also took advantage of the opportunity to involve my fifth grade Reading Enrichment students. My accelerated student asked them if they wanted to take part in the acting of the play, and they did. I meet with them for 15 minutes on Thursdays and Fridays, so the first week, we did "read throughs" to make sure everything sounded right. The second week we practiced staging, and the third week we performed.

"Once identified, always identified" [TAG]

One of the greats aspects of being a first-year teacher is that I'm expected to be wrong, at least that's what I expect of myself. So if you're expecting me to know all the answers: I don't. Let's get on the same page. I'm here to embrace my mistakes and learn from them. That' why I can take stances on issues today, and make a post about them in a few months and say, "What was old me thinking?"

Up first: "Once identified, always identified."

Here is a book excerpt I found. The section starts on the bottom of page 129.

The thing that worries me is how much pressure taking "Once Identified, Always Identified" literally puts on our identification process. How are we defining "identified"? Are we saying anyone that we have identified as having a need upon which the ELP teacher intervenes is "identified"? Basically, what if I "misidentify" someone? What's the point of teaching under the mantra "Once Identified, Always Identified" if we can then say, "Well...not in this case, but in all other cases! (until we find another misidentification)."

The reason I get nervous about identification is that I have a student right now who was misidentified and now I have to work him out of the program. That's why "identification" as it's commonly defined makes me feel weird. The thing about "once identified, always identified" that makes me nervous is that it leaves us as identifiers with no room for error. That's why I've yet to embrace that mantra. How early does that come into play? If I identify a kindergartner as "in need of services", I have to live with that decision forever? That's what makes me nervous. It's why I'd rather just look where there are needs and serve them. It should be my job to then make it so they get appropriate services and (if my identifiation pans out) they'll always need services. But what if I were wrong? I suppose I could just pull someone in without identifying him or her but doesn't that defeat the purpose of the label (and is it legal?)

If I were to keep that mindset with this student, he would just stay in my enrichment classes and continue to fall behind as he is missing out on vital instruction in the regular ed classroom that he needs.

What do you think? Am I missing something fundamental about this debate?

Teaching on cloud nine [Geeky]

I am a geek. There's no point in denying it, so I may as well put it to use. Ever since I was flipping between 5.25" floppy discs on our Apple IIgs, I've been an early-adopter of technology.

This post serves as a holding pen for the technology resources I'm currently using. You'll always be able to access this post from the tab "Cloud Resources" at the top of the page. I should explain what I mean by "Cloud Resources." Wikipedia defines Cloud Computing as

" Internet-based ('cloud') development and use of computer technology ('computing')."

I think of "the cloud" as "on the web." Odds are everyone who reads this post is using the cloud without realizing it. Web-based email (Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, etc.) are all cloud-based email services. Your emails are stored (in most general cases) on your provider's servers, not your computer. Some of you may download a copy of your email to your computers using IMAP or POP3, but being able to access your email from any computer that is connected to the web makes it cloud-computing. An Interenet connection grants you access to the cloud where your "stuff" is stored.

This post will be formatted as a list of the resources including a link to the resource's site and a link to my post about the resource with an in-depth analysis, review of features, and application to teaching. As it will be a holding pen, there may be times where I haven't had the chance to write up a post about a resource in the list, but I will have a link to the resource's site. On with the list!

• Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, Notebook, Docs, Maps, Earth, Picassa, Blogger, Sketchup)
  
• Dropbox
• Remember The Milk
• Teachertube
  

Getting Grease(monke)y [Geeky]

Background
My personal laptop is an Eee PC 900. It's part of the new class of laptops commonly referred to as "netbooks." Netbooks have been given that name because their use is centered around the internet. They're great for travel as netbooks as a group don't have screen bigger than 10.2". Mine happens to have a 9" screen. I know what you're thinking and yes, that is small. (Full disclosure: I'm typing this post of my wife's 13.3" Macbook.) The screen is small and so is the keyboard. I don't have any buyer's remorse with it, as it's perfect for surfing on the net and firing off emails. However, when I know I'm going to be doing some serious typing, I appreciate a normal keyboard. Besides, my wife is getting Wii Fit at the moment, so her laptop is all mine.

What does this have to do with the confusingly catchy title? Well, on my Eee PC, I use Firefox to get around on the net. I love Firefox because of its extensibility. My favorite extension is Greasemonkey (GM). GM allows the user to create scripts that run on a website which alter the way a website looks. For example, if you don't care how many Spam messages you have in Gmail and would rather not have the count displayed in your sidebar, install the GM extension then install the "Gmail Spam-count Hide" script from Userscripts.org.

Before:

After:


This particular script may not intrigue everyone. I'm merely using it as an example to show what GM can do.

To bring this post to its natural conclusion, I'll explain how I use GM to make life on my small screen easier. I use the site Remember The Milk (RTM) to keep my To Do lists in the cloud. They have a handy website to keep my lists organized, but I found that the site was not optimal on my 9" screen. By using a GM script called "A Bit Better RTM" and altering it a bit for my screen, I have a much more usable RTM on my netbook.

Application
So how can this be applied to the classroom? Writing GM scripts seems like a natural enrichment activity for the computer-oriented secondary student. I know some sites I frequent have what I consider to be "design flaws" and this gives a way to "fix" those "flaws." Students can do the same thing. Something about Facebook's appearance annoy them? Do you wish the citations on Wikipedia were highlighted? (Actually, that one sounds like a decent idea).

That's what I've got. What say you, commenters?

Dream vacations around Google Earth [Classroom]

I have a group of six 5th grade Math Enrichment students that I meet with for fifteen minutes each morning. I haven't decided if I like these drive-by classes better than my once-a-week-for-half-an-hour Enrichment classes. I appreciate getting to check in with this group every day as they are my biggest group at my highest grade level, but too many times checking in is all we get accomplished. I decided to use this to my advantage. I wanted to get them on the computers researching ("surfing with a purpose") and also producing something with their time. That was my inspiration for their Dream Vacation project.

Expectations

Although I don't give grades to my Enrichment students, it is still important to inform them of the expectations I have for their projects. I came up with this rubric after discussing with the group what they wanted out of the brochures. We settled on something they could use to convince me to come along with them. You can download the rubric here. I created it using Rubistar.

How'd it go?

My first bump in the road was with technology. Not the technology itself, but the availability of it. I was planning on having Google Earth available for my students to use in their planning phase. We had decided that they should visit either five states or one other country and use at least one mode of transportation other than automobile. Google Earth is an amazing piece of software that would enable students to not just plan their routes and find attractions along the way, but to also experience technology in a meaningful, educational way. Unfortunately, our computers weren't able to accept cohabitation with Google Earth.

The second bump in the road was my students inability to navigate the Internet. It was surprising, but this was my first time working with K-5 students on the Internet. My expectations were off. Way off. After the first day (I'll generously call it a "preassessment"), I put together a walk-through of Expedia for them. Download it here. To make the walk-through, I took screenshots while I searched Expedia for my own Dream Vacation to London. I then used Apple's Preview application which is built into OS X to annotate it with arrows and circles. Unfortunately, the annotation tools are only available in the Leopard (10.5) version of OS X.

Next time?
I found the website MyBrochureMaker.com for the kids to use to create their brochures. Unfortunately, our computers couldn't handle the site so I had to improvise. I went to the art teacher and got some supplies so my students could make their brochures by hand. According to a student survey I read recently, flexibility is one of the top three characteristics gifted students look for in their teachers.

I also wish I could have used Google Earth with them. My wife and I used it to plan our honeymoon two years ago, and it has improved immensely since then. I feel for my students.

Ideas?
Anything hit you while you were reading this? Resources that would fit into this project?