Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Here is my first upload from my Promethean Board.  For those who attend Curriculum Night, you will be introduced to it.

This information comes from a document I posted last week that had to do with having an attitude of success in life.  We have gone through the first 4 points and I wanted the students to reflect a little on what they thought of the notes.  As I usually do, I wrote a model journal response so they would have a sense of what I was looking for.

For some students, the issue of making a connection to an issue of topic can be challenging.  I strongly believe that true knowledge comes when you make are able to make a personal connection to something.  You may either agree or disagree with it.  Over the course of the year I hope to direct the students towards some deeper thinking and reflection about issues we come across in class across the curriculum and write or talk about these matters.

I finished up introducing the class to the idea of doing a Community Circle.  It is a weekly exercise where the students take about two minutes to talk about something from their weekend.  Emphasis is placed on explaining the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW, and WHY.  If they can comment on how they feel, then that is a plus.  I have found that this really helps the students add more detail to their written work and developing a comfort when talking in front of a group.

Sandro concluding his Community Circle entry

This morning was a heavy morning full of rotary:  French Culture, Gym, and Music.  In addition to the Community Circle exercise, we began to work on the Writing diagnostic assignment.  While the writing portion of the exercise will not be graded, I will be looking at the Grade level the students are working at. What I will be grading is the Art and Media Literacy component of the assignment.  As more details about this emerge, I will share them with you.

The assignment, by the way, has to do with creating a new food item and marketing it to a particular audience.  To assist in this work, the students will work, initially, as a small group before developing their own ideas for the unique products they come up with.  We will be continuing on this assignment tomorrow in class.

Mr. Marles, who teaches the class Gym, also teachers Room 52 a Technology class.  They had the first one yesterday and were introduced to a site called Edmodo.  According to the website:

"Edmodo provides teachers and students a secure place to connect and collaborate, share content and educational applications, and access homework, grades, class discussions and notifications. Our goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner."

I need to open an account and will ask Mr. Marles about this.  The web address is:  http://about.edmodo.com/

HOMEWORK:  Jot notes on food product in Literacy folder, any outstanding forms or payments for a locker

John and Brian during DPA