Rapid (muted) Demo of VocabSushi, iPhone app, and VocabBomb from Vocab Sushi on Vimeo.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Beginning With Vocabsushi
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Global Virtual Classroom
Bullying 101 Website
In September, the PDS 5th graders began a collaborative project through Global Virtual Classroom (GVC), a project of the Give Something Back International Foundation. Its purpose is to enhance 21st century skills and allow for cross-cultural communication, collaboration, and technology skills. We were partnered with Heng-Shan Elementary School in New Taipei City, Taiwan and Percy Julian Middle School in Oak Park, Illinois. Together we agreed to build a website on the topic of bullying since it is a current and relevant issue as well as a world epidemic.
Connecting with a diverse group of students from schools around the world was a very rewarding experience. Twiducate, a private social network, was used for introductions where the students learned about each other’s language and cultural differences. They also used a private wiki called Students Meet World where all of their collaborative work was shared for uploading to the website. They saw purpose in what they were doing as they set out to answer their guiding question of “What are the impacts of bullying on our society and what can I do to prevent it?”
After many months of brainstorming, researching, collaborating, and creating many different end products, the boys thought critically and creatively as they demonstrated how they could make a difference by bringing awareness to bullying through our GVC website. Their work reveals deep thinking as the they used various thinking routines, created on-line surveys and quizzes of the information they learned, wrote original slogans, filmed role-playing, and reflected on their journey along the way. They used technology such as glogs, iMovies, Google docs, Haiku (Learning Management System), Excel for graphing statistics, and much more. One group even designed a pen with the words “Control, Escape, and Delete Cyber-Bullying” and collected money within their group to purchase the pens so they could raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of Memphis. They spoke to all fourth, fifth, and sixth graders about their experience and collected over one hundred dollars in donations so far.
In addition to the great work the boys contributed to the website, the US Attorney, Ed Stanton and Debra L. Ireland, Assistant United States Attorney agreed to come to PDS to speak on the topic of Internet safety and cyber bullying. The boys learned about Internet safety tips and how to conduct proper and ethical behavior when using technology in addition to learning strategies for putting an end to cyber bullying.
The Global Virtual Classroom project was a competition that involved sixty-four schools and twenty-two countries from around the world, and over twenty-two websites were submitted covering an array of topics. The 5th grade PDS boys earned the Silver prize in the primary school category that included a plaque and a $1,500 cash prize. They plan on adding their portion of the prize money to what has already been collected for the Boys and Girls Club of Memphis to help to further raise awareness to bullying.
Kim Trefz
5th Grade English Teacher
Connecting with a diverse group of students from schools around the world was a very rewarding experience. Twiducate, a private social network, was used for introductions where the students learned about each other’s language and cultural differences. They also used a private wiki called Students Meet World where all of their collaborative work was shared for uploading to the website. They saw purpose in what they were doing as they set out to answer their guiding question of “What are the impacts of bullying on our society and what can I do to prevent it?”
After many months of brainstorming, researching, collaborating, and creating many different end products, the boys thought critically and creatively as they demonstrated how they could make a difference by bringing awareness to bullying through our GVC website. Their work reveals deep thinking as the they used various thinking routines, created on-line surveys and quizzes of the information they learned, wrote original slogans, filmed role-playing, and reflected on their journey along the way. They used technology such as glogs, iMovies, Google docs, Haiku (Learning Management System), Excel for graphing statistics, and much more. One group even designed a pen with the words “Control, Escape, and Delete Cyber-Bullying” and collected money within their group to purchase the pens so they could raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of Memphis. They spoke to all fourth, fifth, and sixth graders about their experience and collected over one hundred dollars in donations so far.
In addition to the great work the boys contributed to the website, the US Attorney, Ed Stanton and Debra L. Ireland, Assistant United States Attorney agreed to come to PDS to speak on the topic of Internet safety and cyber bullying. The boys learned about Internet safety tips and how to conduct proper and ethical behavior when using technology in addition to learning strategies for putting an end to cyber bullying.
The Global Virtual Classroom project was a competition that involved sixty-four schools and twenty-two countries from around the world, and over twenty-two websites were submitted covering an array of topics. The 5th grade PDS boys earned the Silver prize in the primary school category that included a plaque and a $1,500 cash prize. They plan on adding their portion of the prize money to what has already been collected for the Boys and Girls Club of Memphis to help to further raise awareness to bullying.
Kim Trefz
5th Grade English Teacher
Monday, October 10, 2011
Adv. or Prep?
In the following lesson, the students are practicing using the same words as different parts of speech. One sentence will contain a word functioning as a preposition and in the other sentence, the same word will be used as an adverb.
Choose five words from the list below. Write two sentences for each word. In one sentence use the word as an adverb. In another similar sentence, use the word as a preposition. After writing the sentences, choose your best example and add to wall wisher for further analysis. Go to Wallwisher.com and create an account using your current user name and password. After you have finished, click on this link to add your example sentences: Adv or Prep?
Example for using the word off.
Tom pulled his boots off. (off has no object and therefore is functioning as an adverb.)
Tom picked up his boots off the floor. (off has the word floor as its object and therefore is functioning as a preposition.)
1. Adverb
1. Preposition
2. Adverb
2. Preposition
3. Adverb
3. Preposition
4. Adverb
4. Preposition
5. Adverb
5. Preposition
| above | under | down |
| around | on | before |
| along | in | across |
Example for using the word off.
Tom pulled his boots off. (off has no object and therefore is functioning as an adverb.)
Tom picked up his boots off the floor. (off has the word floor as its object and therefore is functioning as a preposition.)
1. Adverb
1. Preposition
2. Adverb
2. Preposition
3. Adverb
3. Preposition
4. Adverb
4. Preposition
5. Adverb
5. Preposition
Wall Wisher
I got this from Tom Barrett's website about the many different ways in which you can use Wall Wisher. We are now participating in Global Virtual Classroom (GVC) where we will be working with others around the world and it has some great ideas for collaboration.
19 Interesting Ways to Use Wall Wisher
19 Interesting Ways to Use Wall Wisher
Monday, May 9, 2011
6th Grade English Exam Review
Part 2 Grammar/Mechanics:
I. Punctuation (commas) ; semi colons; quotations marks
II. Dependent Clauses: adjective or adverb clause?
III. Prepositional Phrases
IV. Verbal Phrases
gerund or participal?
V. Kinds of Sentence Structure
Sentence Structure:Simple, compound, complex
dependent vs. independent clauses
Part 3 Parts of Speech:
Parts of Speech
Parts of speech
I. Punctuation (commas) ; semi colons; quotations marks
II. Dependent Clauses: adjective or adverb clause?
III. Prepositional Phrases
IV. Verbal Phrases
gerund or participal?
V. Kinds of Sentence Structure
Sentence Structure:Simple, compound, complex
dependent vs. independent clauses
Part 3 Parts of Speech:
Parts of Speech
Parts of speech
Part 4 Grammar/Mechanics:
Transitive vs. Intransitive
Subject Complements
Complement Test
V. Verbals:
VI. Quizlet: Word Roots
I & II. The Sentence: fragment, simple/complete subject, simple/complete predicate, compound subject and verb
III. Verbs:
IV. Verb ComplementsIII. Verbs:
Transitive vs. Intransitive
Subject Complements
Complement Test
V. Verbals:
VI. Quizlet: Word Roots
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Creating an Outline
Inspiration helps to organize ideas using a cluster diagram which is great for the visual learner who can use shapes and colors to arrange and categorize information. The students have used the cluster diagram for organizing their thoughts for their research paper. They began by using the center circle for their thesis and from there, they linked it to their three supporting details. With each support, any specific examples were linked accordingly. Each section of the cluster contained only words and phrases (not complete thoughts) since they would eventually convert it to outline form. Once they arranged all of their ideas, the simple click of a button turned their graphic organizer into an outline with Roman Numerals, letters, and numbers.
Once the outline was checked for needed revisions and edits, it was then transfered to a word document with another simple click of a button. The ideas from the outline were then used to compose sentences for their research paper.
Reliable Source?
After reading the following information about how to search for reliable internet sources, use this cool technology tool to help you analyze just how reliable your source is.
The Internet is a great resource for research, but you have to remember that it is a public place where anyone can post information. When you want to find a trustworthy source, you need to first take the time to make sure it is reliable. The following are the steps to take to make sure that you have a valid site:
1. Always check to make sure that the source has an author. You can check the author's background to help validate the information.
2. Check the sites URL (http://...) If the site ends in .edu, it is probably an educational site, and you should still be aware of personal opinions. If the site ends in .gov it is probably a reliable government website. You will most likely find factual information here. Sites that end in .org are usually non-profit organization sites and can be reliable and unreliable, so make sure that you are careful not to take someone's opinion as the truth. You can find information on this site that will give you facts, but you may also run across political opinions that might slant one way or the other.
3. You can also follow research suggestions from http://www.virtualsalt.com which suggests that the CARS (credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and support) method is great for evaluating sources.
Link
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