Project Prep Proceeds

I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend.  I spent most of mine driving with my daughter from Tennessee. She is home for a quick visit so it was nice to get the extra time with her and Tallululah (her golden retriever) in the car.  Any guesses as to how long it takes to drive from Nashville to Cape Cod?

Before we start class today we need to do something for our school community.  Mrs. Finnemore and the Yearbook Club would like us to take the 2016 Pop Culture Survey.  The results will appear in the yearbook this spring.  Please answer the questions honestly and be sure to submit it when you have finished.

After completing this survey, please check you email on your iPad (or workstation.) There is an important announcement in Google Classroom everyone must read!!  After you have read the announcement you will start with the work listed below.

This week you will continuing "prepping" for your first group meeting.  You need to ready so you will be a productive and effective group member.  You will be taking notes, searching for more sources, and taking more notes.  Keep your question in mind, and more importantly keep thinking of a possible solution or answer.   You will need to print out your research if you took digital notes. (Don't worry, I will hang on to the hard copy for your!!)

Once you have finished your research, you will do a quick Spring Cleaning of Your Digital Life .  Please use the resource I have left at your workstation or open the link above.

The final task of the week is to explore and select a "mind mapping" tool.  I have a couple of app options and Google Drawing.  Mind mapping is a very cool way to make your thinking visible.  This will be another piece your will bring to your first team meeting along with your research.

Another Web Evaluation Assignment.....WordFoto!

Week two of PARCC testing is under way.  Once again I know our students will be putting forth a tremendous amount of effort and doing their personal best.  It is hard to have our schedule disrupted, but you are all troopers and I know you will get back on track next week.  With that said, I have altered my lesson plans again this week, as our schedule has been tweaked.  I feel as though I haven't seen some of you for weeks!!  If you are with me this week three out of our five days will be scheduled with shortened classes.  You will need to get right to work to complete this lesson in only 30 minutes, but I'd like to start you off with this quick video.  Check out CAPOW!
Your new assignment is "living" in Google Classroom.  I have also placed a link to this assignment on my blog:  Web Evaluation Assignment Using WordFoto.  This week you will use another iPad app to share strategies for evaluating websites.  Please take a look at the resources below to help your develop this short paragraph summary.

Web Evaluation Resources

5 W's of Website Evaluation

The ABS's of Website Evaluation

C.R.A.P.P. Method of Evaluating a Website

How to Read a Web Address
Get REAL:  How to Evaluate a Website

You will be creating a short paragraph explaining how to quickly evaluate a website.  You will create this paragraph using Google Docs.  You will then be exploring another new App, "aTypo Picture."  You will turn your explanation in to a "work of art!"   The "turning in" process is the same as last week.  You have resources to help you so use them and have fun!!!

Let's Give It a Whirl

Let's see if we can make it through a week without a snow day or snow delay!  Unfortunately we do have a half day on Friday.  Teachers will be getting together to do some work.  I actually got together with some teachers on Saturday.  Many teachers from BIS attended the 6th Annual Homegrown Technology Conference.  It was a super day.  We investigated Google Docs and Google Classroom in our lab.  I learned a lot and had a great time doing it!  Maybe next year I will ask some of my students to help out!
This week you will turn in your Blog Design Assessment Part 1 assignment in Google Classroom if you did not get to it last week.  I will be grading and returning these to you over the next week.  Once you have completed this assignment, we will take a look at Diigo.  This is a super bookmarking tool.  You will be able to use it on your iPads and your workstations.  It is cloud based, so you can find your bookmarks anywhere.  You will create a school Diigo account.  This will come in very useful when you are doing your research.
Once you have created this account, you will finally begin your research.  Start looking for website, evaluate the sites, and then begin collecting data from the reliable ones.
Have a super week!
                          ~Mrs. White :)

Reviewing Web Evaluation

Before leaving for break we took a look at three different website evaluation tools.  After that activity, I told you I would create a more simplistic checklist for you to use.  Last week I shared this checklist  and an infographic I created as another resource.  I will be giving you a Web Evaluation Assessment during class two.  Today's class will be a review to help you get ready for this assessment.  Please be sure to do this activity completely.  If you take your time, you will be totally prepared for the assessment.  I will not be with you for this class, but Mr. Persico will be  able to help you.  If you have any questions he cannot answer, we will have time at the start of class two before the assessment. We will do a quick review as an activator before your assessment, so no worries.  Your review today will use a Brain Pop.  I have created a doc outlining the steps you will need to follow to be successful. Please read the entire doc before clicking on the Brain Pop link to begin. We will review this activity as part of our activator review next class.  Before clicking on the Brain Pop link, take a look at this short screencast I created to show you how to navigate the Brain Pop lesson.  *Please note-you cannot do this lesson on your iPads as you will need to print and cannot print from your iPads.
Please go to the "Review of Internet Searching" and begin your work for today.

**If you should finish these activities and had an opportunity to "game up" I would like you to go the Genius Hour page of your blog and be sure you have finished your first post on that page.

Have a super day and I'll see you for class two!

Databases & Research

We will take a break from podcasting and blogging as we focus on research and data. You may or may not remember your tour of the BIS Library last year. Just a reminder- you did a scavenger hunt during ILT. There are two parts to our library; the actual, physical library and the “virtual” library. This virtual library consists of a collection of databases.
We will review not only the definition of a database, but take a quick tour of the library databases available to students at BIS. You will select a topic to research, find resources in these databases bookmark and tag the resources in your diigo accounts, and paraphrase or summarize information from these sources. The final outcome of this research will be a presentation using Google presentation as your tool. We will be reviewing important digital literacy skills during the next couple of weeks such as identifying reliability and credibility of sources. As well as primary and secondary sources. In addition, we will focus on correctly citing these sources using some helpful tools. This is all a part of providing you with the 21st century skills you will need to succeed in life!

                                               http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2010/11/txtn-n-d-library-ideas-for-librarians.html