The Loch Ness Monster - in a new light Post 7

This month my geography students have been learning about the United Kingdom - and we paused briefly to focus on the Scotland.  The as we were discussing the lay of the land my students got hooked on the lochs particularly Loch Ness and the Loch Ness monsters.  We then took a short time out and investigated the Loch Ness monster and compared it to America's Loch Ness monster "champ" by creating prezis to show their similarities and differences.  To learn how to create prezis the 7th graders went to prezi.com and for the first time independently watched tutorials that taught them how to create prezis.  (My purpose of this project was not just to have them learn the new skills, explain the region of Scotland, but to also feel out how to teach themselves a new technological skill by using tutorials.  As they were learning we discussed how the majority of things that they would like to do or learn that they can probably find a tutorial online for it!  I discussed how my brother learned a program for an online class through a tutorial, my sister learned how to create a website through a tutorial and my boyfriend had even learned how to tie a tie through a youtube tutorial.  The students are actually presenting their prezis in class tomorrow so hopefully after they are finished I can post a few links so they can be seen.

February exploration Post 6

This month has been another busy month!  I did have some time to explore readwritethink.org - one of my colleagues encouraged me to take a deeper look.  I had my students do a little exploration of their own to see what they liked as well.  The majority of them were drawn to their comic creator - they liked making their own mini stories and creating characters that fit into those stories.  Another activity they liked was the pamphlet creator.  They really liked how it was easy to do and that they could play around and figure it out on their own.  I will continue to explore and definitely use this site in the future.  Another upcoming event that I am looking forward to is an ARCGIS training that I am going to in March.  I have some basic training on this program but am looking forward to learning more and feeling more comfortable with it.