The Teachers Should See This: Super Bowl Predictions

Watch the video below initiated and created by my young guest blogger.  It's a fun example of creativity and pop culture outside the classroom with tablets and apps such as iMovie.

Personally, I base my favorite team and predictions entirely upon color schemes.  It's a close call this year!

There must be math applications for predictions and probability for creative math teachers out there a bit deeper than our "scientific" predictions.  Share if you have any. :-)

Happy commercial watching!

The Teachers Should See This: iMovie

What's a worn out teacher to do when teaching jobs line up back-to-back with minimal time to prep for the upcoming one?  Look to the kids for inspiration and solutions of course!

Here's how the young author of the series, The Teacher Should See This, came to my aid.  The task at hand was to find an iPad app or two to support learning in a summer camp with 150-200 high school students, to give them a voice, and document some of their experiences.  Within a few hours, she selected the iMovie app, found a few how-to videos, and set off to make her own video on a Where I Am From Poem theme.

It's showtime!  Enjoy.

Now, the real question is if the teacher can pull this off.  It's the beginning of the first week, so there will be an upcoming post.  Here's the beginnings of a three week summer camp journey where I meet with the students for less than four hours for the video/blogging part, but learn so much from them!  Kids are amazing people.

Happy video making!

The Teachers Should See This: Let Them Own It

My class watched Alan November’s TEDxNYED and had an engaging discussion on it.  I pulled out a few of the main concepts and quotes they selected to discuss.  My young guest blogger then helped me create the below video using Camtasia and Flickr Poet. Enjoy!

With all of this whirling about in my brain, I enjoyed a Seedling book talk on chapter 2: “Students as Tutorial Designer” of Alan November’s book, Who Owns the Learning?  Here’s a link to their chapter 1: “Welcome to the Digital Farm” book talk.  It's all good stuff!

Can you guess what’s next on my ed tech reading list?  Happy watching/reading!

(This post was co-created with my young guest blogger.)

The Teachers Should See This: iMotion HD

I am eleven years old and a guest blogger here.  I often find interesting sites and apps and sometimes want to share them.  I will occasionally post things I think teachers should see. Here is my post that I made about an app called iMotion HD. 

In the summer, it gets too hot outside to take my dog and leave her in the car while we go to the store or wherever we need to go. In the winter it gets too cold. We don’t like putting her in her kennel when we are gone, so we put her in the laundry room. We extended her area into the hallway and bathroom so that she has more room. When we are gone, my mom and I always wonder what she does when she is alone at the house. One day, I decided that we should use iMotion HD on my mom’s iPad to video tape what she was doing. Why not use the camera app? Well the camera app will turn off after a few minutes. iMotion HD is different than the camera app. I will tell you why.

iMotion HD is a stop motion app. It is an app where you program the video to take a picture every second, minute, day, etc. You can also make it take a picture every time you want it to if you are there on the iPad. After you have all the pictures you need, it will put them all together in a video. You can change the speed to be really fast or super slow.

Now I will show you what I did with iMotion HD. I made two different videos. I programmed the app to take a picture every two minutes. In the first video, I left the bathroom door open and only gave my dog one toy. We were gone for about 40 minutes. In the second video, I left the bathroom door open and gave her some more toys. We were gone for about an hour. Then, I compared how active my puppy was in each video. Here is the second video. She wasn’t very active in either of the videos.

There are a lot of things you can  do once you make an iMotion HD video.  My mom has edited them before in a video editor program.  I added music to this one on You Tube.

I hope you liked the post. Try to see what you can make with iMotion HD.

The Teachers Should See This: Research and Expensive Food

I am eleven years old and a guest blogger here.  I often find interesting sites and sometimes want to share them.  I will occasionally post things I think teachers should see. I hope you like my post.

 Sometimes it’s hard to believe all the weird stuff people will buy. Like buying a cornflake for $1,350.00 or a Pizza for $4,200. I am going to tell you about the most expensive M&M. It was a brown M&M sold for $1,500! The reason it was expensive is because it was on the Paul Allen’s SpaceShipOne on June 21^st 2004. If you ask me, it still seems like a lot. Here is a math problem you can ask your students. How many regular M&M’s can you buy with $1,500? I know it isn’t one! If you want more details about the M&M, click here. 

I have been learning to cross-reference. It’s called triangulation and it helps make sure your findings are valid.  Here are some other sites that back these prices up: Most expensive cornflake 1, most expensive cornflake 2, most expensive pizza 1, most expensive pizza 2, most expensive M&M 1, and most expensive M&M 2. If you want to know why I picked The Most Expensive Journal to represent the most expensive M&M, pizza, and cornflake, it is because it has been posted by the New York Times, etc. You can read about it on its about page.

I am still learning how to trust a site and stay safe online. Here are some sites that can help: Using the Web, How to Do Research, Credible Sources Count! , Research It Right!, and Ivy’s Search Engine Resources for Kids.  This site by Mrs. Train has some good information I used.  At the bottom is a template that can be used to ask yourself if your sites are reliable.

Happy researching!  Don’t eat too many expensive M&M’s.

The Teachers Should See This: Coke and Mentos

I am ten years old and a guest blogger here.  I often find interesting sites and sometimes want to share them.  I will occasionally post things I think teachers should see.  Here's my Coke and Mentos post! 

Do you know what happens when you put Coke and Mentos together?  Watch this EepyBird.com production to see what happens.

Next, if your students liked the first video, here is a second one that has a domino effect. To show your students why it happens, show this MythBusters video. To wrap up your lesson, demonstrate video one or two for your students. Remind them not to try this at home.

The Teachers Should See This: National Geographic Kids Jumping Jacks

I am ten years old and a guest blogger here.  I often find interesting sites and sometimes want to share them.  I will occasionally post things I think teachers should see.  Here's my first post! 

Do you know what the Guinness World Record for people doing the most jumping jacks is?  Michelle Obama is trying to break the record.  Click here to see how you can help or just to watch the event on October 11, 2011.  It is found on National Geographic Kids.  This is a site I recommend for teachers.