Drawing in Flash

My class start Drawing in Flash. Yesterday I just lectured and showed them some basics of Flash by having them create a ball bouncing and then doing a shape tweening. They upload both to the wiki then started the Globaloria lesson.

As I look around the room I am totally amazed at what the are doing. They are drawing samples of what certain scenes of their games are going to look like. I told them they could scan in their paper protypes or free draw. All choose to free draw. They divided the different sheets/levels of the paper protype. Each team member was to draw their thoughts on their assigned level. There was tons of discuss about who was going to what, how, why, not enough color, no we should do this, does it need to have animation, how to I make a mirror image of what I just drew, and comments and questions continue. This is my kind of day. I am doing very little and the students are monitoring and working together and answering each others questions and showing each other how to do things and saying that is not exactly what we need. . . I HOPE this excitement continues.

Soap Box

I am on my soap box today and I am venting where ever I can. I submitted a proposal to a national organization to a presentation at a conference in Nashville and was excitied when I was selected. The session was titled "Do the Quicky Wiki" and was about how I just wikis in my classroom. I was going to show participates how to set up a wiki. I got an email yesterday confirming that I was coming and letting me know they were providing a projector, mic, stand but no internet. (Remember it is a national conference) Now I don't know how many training sessions who have been to but here lately I have been to tons. At each one I have been "preached" to about using 21st century skills in my classroom but at a national conference for teachers there is no internet. What is wrong with this picture?

In addition I had to pay to attend the conference but was offered the opportunity to pay for the internet service myself which runs $500-1250 depending on the banwidth. For me to do the presentation I would either I would pay the money or take screen shots of everything and put together into something like PowerPoint.

I kindly withdrew myself from presenting with encouragement from my principal and fellow teachers. I don't know who will read this but if you are in a position to offer teacher training do handson training or at least offer internet services so that 21st century skills can be demonostrated.

I have taught too many years and have went through too many programs where things are expected of teachers but "higher ups" don't practice what they preach. Two years ago I sat through a three day state conference that encouraged and explained why we should use 21st century skills. We were told to use cell phones and iPods but not one single example was given, nor did we touch a computer or have computer presentations. Wait, we did have presentations for three days--we watched PowerPoint presentations.

If someone has money to have a conference rent computers or tell participates to bring laptops. Ask teachers who use 21st century skills to present and show samples. Have as many teachers as possible touching, using, etc. different technology devices in an educational setting. We will use what we learn.

Ok I feel better. Thanks for listening. I am now stepping down from my soap box.

Creating teams

1. Go to your User page
2. Click on “My Social Profile”
3. The next to Teams click “Edit this”
4. Fill in the form under “Create Team”
5. Unselect “Join Team”, or else you will be a member of the team.

Above are the steps to have students create their teams. Many of you have already done this but some may not have. For some reason I missed how to do this and had to ask. This is different than last year and SO MUCH easier. I just wanted everyone to know in case they have the same brain freeze that I did and didn't know how to do it.

I helped one of my mentees

One of my menees sent me this message, "I can't get the bunny to go up and down, do I have to use a key frame or something before I write the code." I responded, "Make sure the code is in with the code above but above the last } If that doesn't work let me know." They responded, "Thanks it worked."

I share this because one I love when I actually know something that works. There is so much about Flash and other elements that I don't know that I feel good when I do know.

I also share this because it was a problem in my classroom and may be a problem for your students also and you will look really smart when you know the answer.

I also share this because I didn't know this until we did the bunny lesson this summer with Brian and I remember things as I was helping the students proof their code.

This morning was a morning when I thought I am not sure how much longer I want to work in the classroom but the simple words--Thanks it worked--did wonders. I can still make a difference--I hope!

Exciting

Today my students at RTC and Ingrida's students at SRMS started communicating on each others wikis. It was fun to hear them discussing what they should say and discussing each others partners. Ingrida and I were IM as some of the students were reading so it was fun to share. Ingrida said that her students were excited as they came to class and found out that they had friend requests from our school and they were asking her quesitons about responding and following their blogs, etc.

WOW students getting excited about school. Students discussing and caring about what they say. I love what technology allows us to do and I love that there are other teachers like me out there who want students to be exposed to this type of learning.

To let you know how we did this, Ingrida sent me the list of her students and their user names then I assigned a student from my class to them. My students were they to go to SRMS and find their partner on the User Gallery and leave a message on their Talk section. Since then Ingrida and I have decided that the Board under the Social Profile is a much better place to communicate. (Recommended by students who say they don't have to edit that way.) So we will be sharing in that area.

Ok Ok Ok I know simple things make me happy but this was an exciting opportunity to be part of.

Nobody does it better

Just got to see GEHS preform at the band competition in Elkins. Tell your kids they did a great job. All of us need to take the time to see what kids can do. Most high school students do a variety of activities. Ask around see what activities your students do and if no body does it better than them.

Advice

Looking through the different wikis I have some advice. Cheri at SHHS is using the Course News table to keep track of the lessons.

This is a great idea and the information is then available to help prepare your school's progress report. It is also a guide if a students is absent and needs makeup work. You can tell them to look on the wiki.

It can also be a guide for next year. If things work well try to keep the schedule or if they don't then looked at what took place and make changes.

My piece of advice for the day.

My Daughter

My daughter has an iPhone. (Yes, she has a wonderful mother who provides it.) With all the attention cell phones receive in school good and bad, I have a good story to tell. Her health occuptations class was doing internet research and didn't have enough computers for everyone. She told her teacher she would be happy to use her iPhone to do the same research. The teacher let her and another student then offered also. The teacher agreed and it allowed everyone to do the same activity at the same time.

We may not always want to allow cell phones to be used in our classrooms but like her teacher we need to remain open minded. If it is a planned activity or an imprompt situtation we must remember to use the free tools that are available to us and that they students use so freely and effectively. (PS--this same child yelled at her mother to turn her phone and type with both thumbs and stop peeking with one finger.)

Getting started

We have started. Some of the features are a little different and take a few minutes to figure out. The improvements are great. Students have been doing schedule changes so I gave gained and lost students. This is confusing but we are coping.