Fort Hood

The tradegy at Fort Hood has been in my thoughts today. We lived there for 2 years and my daughter and neice were born in the hospital at Fort Hood. I taught at the school on base for a year. I feel for those families and have them in my thoughts and prayers.

Still Learning From My Students

Photo Cube
One of my students created a web page and included this cube. We all thought it was cool and he told us how he created it. I love learning from my students.

Photo Cube

If you click on a side of the cube it will display that photo. Click again and it goes back to spinning. Simple things really make me happy.

Making changes

Ok tomorrow is 9 weeks tests for us and some major changes are taking place. My class is starting all over. The students convinced me that they did not want to include civics into their game. They want to make all new games and pick different teams and start all over. They convinced me that the earlier teams and assignments were practice but now could do a better job if they started again. Many of students need to become salesmen because they convinced me. We are going back to square one--new groups, game ideas, prototypes, etc. As strange as it may sound there is lots of excitement in the room. They are brainstorming new ideas. Now I just have to help them pull this off.

Getting to the heart of the matter

Next week are 9 weeks test and we have finished most of the lessons. Now starts the real work for both me and my students. I have to make sure that students are not wasting time. Sometimes they think they can waste a day here and there then end up not getting things completed. I also want my students to do a better job of posting each version of their game as they make changes. I want them to be able to document their progress. Writing it here makes it sound all so easy but I know that is not true.

The Civics Track

Ok I vote and I occasionally check out politic news but mostly if it is related to areas of interest to me such as education funding. So as we start this civic's track working on civic games I am more nervous then when I didn't know any coding.

I had no problem with that because it was set up for the student and teacher to be learning together. However, I should know civics and I know some basic information. My concern is that I don't know enough to proof student games for mistakes. Yes, I know I will learn but my head only holds so much. I just hope I can make room for everything I need to know.

Visitor

Monday while my class was working I had someone just walk in my classroom and ask if she could observe for a few minutes. It was Monica Beane, Assistant Director, Office of Instruction. She was on her way to Grant County and took a side tour to visit my classroom. If she has not been to your classroom--be prepared she hopes to visit all the Globaloria classrooms.

Now, I don't know about you but rarely does someone come from the state department to just "see". Generally they are looking for problems. It is a great feeling to having something positive happening in my classroom for her to see.

While Monica was here my students were Adding Navigation. She got to see them working together to figure out coding mistakes. Students were doing different activities but were actively engaged. Of course, they were using technology.

I hope when she left that her thoughts were, "Now that is a 21st century classroom."

Adding Navigation

My students have been doing adding navigation. Some took to it like fish in water while others felt like they were learning a foreign language. We had a three day weekend and so today many of them had to receive because they had forgotten some of the steps. What amazes me is that everyone is working. They want to have their work completed and it work correctly. They help each other and ask me tons of questions. Wow--they are learning.