COW's and Phones

     The last couple of weeks we have been using the Computers On Wheels (COW for short). SMS recently received 20 laptop computers on a cart. More precisely, they are "netbooks", small wifi enabled machines with no disc drives. The students have been loving the chance to have these at their deks. When they finish the day's assignment they get to use the laptops to work on their Excel Map poject. The tricky part is that I have some large classes of 35 students. Luckily, I also have 8 desktops so most of the time, everyone's needs are met.

     In addition, I just acquired 40 headsets with microphones that we will be using to listen to and record audio. Just today in the lab I had the students listen to a video that I had made explaining how to get their map into excel and make comments. With the headphones, students were able to control the volume and it didn't have to bother their neighbors. We also tried out the microphones by responding to a voicethread. This was a chance for students to experiment with recording their voice. You can check it out by clicking here.

     I would love to hear your thoughts. You can comment by clicking here.

A New Trimester, Stock Market Winners...

As you may have noticed, I have redesigned my website to make better use of the "screen real estate".  Basically, I turned it into a three column layout as opposed to only two.  This way the calendar and announcements sections can be seen without having to scroll down.   If you have any ideas or comments please let me know as I am always looking for ways to improve it!
    We have started our third and final trimester of the year.  Can you believe it?  This means that we have finished our world history part of the class and have moved into Washington State History.  This is a favorite of mine to teach as I was born and raised here and think it is such an amazing place.  Please be aware that students who do not pass the class this trimester will have to repeat it again in high school as it is a graduation requirement.  As part of the class we will be embarking on a trimester long project that I call the "Excel Map".  Basically, students will be making a digital map of Washington using Microsoft Excel complete with pop-up comments and media that shows what they have learned in the 13 chapters of the text.  I'll be explaining more about this in class tomorrow, but if you'd like to see the scoring guide, click here.
    I am excited to report that we have received information about the woman survivor of war that the 7th grade students are sponsoring for the next year.  She is an Iraqi woman with two children.  I sent part of the money that the students raised to Women for Women International and they sent me back a packet of information just last week.  I'll be figuring out a way that we can correspond directly with this woman. More to come on that in the coming days/weeks.  In addition I sent the the remainder of the money that was raised in my Holiday Challenge to UNICEF to purchase a "school in a box kit" that can be used in emergency situations like the Haiti earthquake. 
    Finally, I am happy to announce that Gerritt Jones is our 2nd Trimester Stock Market Contest winner!  I am not sure what to do for a prize for him, so if anyone would like to provide a cool gift card (itunes?, best buy?, mix-it-up?) please let me know.  Coming in 2nd place was Jennifer Clark while Isaac Mullins came in 3rd.  Parents, if you'd like to participate in our 3rd trimester contest you can do so by clicking here (use this password: smseagles).

2nd Trimester Nearing Completion

I just want to make sure that everyone is aware that this Friday (3/5) is the last day to turn in missing work for the 2nd Trimester, which ends next Friday (3/12). So, now is a great time to check that grade online and turn in those missing assignments as well as redo/revise projects or quizzes. Students are welcome to come in at lunch or after school to discuss their grade and make a plan for getting caught up. Of course, students who have been absent will have more time beyond this Friday should that be necessary.

Test Post #1

Hi everyone,

I have redesigned my class website. This is just a test post to see if the rss feed is correct.

Mr. T

Cinch In The Classroom

Cinch In The Classroom: "

Early Adopter of Cinch, 7th grade teacher Justin Talmadge, known on Cinch as Mr Talmadge, participated in an interview with me this week. We were very excited to see a teacher using Cinch in the classroom. He was at the top of our list when deciding who we would include in a new series of Who’s Who on Cinch. Read on and see how an educator is bringing web tools into the classroom.

Name – Justin Talmadge

Occupation – Teacher

What country do you live in - USA

How did you find Cinch? I found Cinch by chance when I was searching for ways to embed an mp3 player on my class blog (www.mrtalmadge.com). In my search I happened upon BlogTalkRadio and discovered Cinch from the BlogTalkRadio website.

What prompted you to use Cinch? I was looking for a cheap and easy way to upload audio to my class website using my phone. I had been using Gcast, but they decided to charge $100.00 to use the upload by phone service. I knew there had to be other services out there, so I began looking around online.

Are you still using it for its original intended use or has your use expanded? I only use Cinch for the upload by phone aspect. I have embedded an flash mp3 player on my class blog as well as provided an icon to the rss feed of my cinches

What have you found to be the best benefit of using Cinch? The best part is that it doesn’t cost me anything. Plus, it’s so simple. As I am driving home from school in the afternoon, I simply put on my hands free device and call the Cinch number programmed into my Blackberry. I then record what we did in class that day so students or parents can hear straight from the “horse’s mouth” what went on in class. For students and parents, I have burned the feed using Feedburner and they can subscribe by email if they want.

How do you see people using Cinch in the future in your occupation? I think this could be an easy way for teachers to communicate with their students, but also for administrators to communicate with parents. Rather than the expensive call out services that are used routinely by many districts, why not simply record to a central location and let the rss feed perform it’s magic from there. If one wanted to really get revolutionary, why not sign students up for an account and they can record their own cinches reflecting on the learning they have done in class. I as a teacher could subscribe to each of their rss feeds.

What would you like to see for Cinch in the future? I don’t know if this is possible, but it would be cool if users could select from a menu of public domain or creative commons licensed background music that could play when users click on their cinch.

"

Mr. T with Guest Speaker

Here's a picture of me with our guest speaker, author Lesley Hazleton.

The Book by our Guest Speaker on 1/22