Acer Releases New Multimedia Laptops

Acer has released a brand new series of multimedia optimized laptops nicknamed the Aspire 8920G and 6920G "blue" series. In a press conference Vice President Jim Wong said the new design will be bringing a "true multimedia innovation" to notebooks.

Because of the multimedia functionality of Windows Vista, these new laptops will be available in either Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows Vista Home Premium and will be based off the Intel Core 2 Duo Processors.

Aiming at providing an unprecedented multimedia experience, the new Aspire laptops will come in both 18.4-inch and 16-inch versions, include a Blu-Ray disc reader, full HD 1920 * 1080 high definition LCD screens and the Dolby Pro Logic 2.0 surround-sound audio system.

Source: pcworld.com

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Spring Break Personal Laptop Rentals

Spring Break is quickly approaching and a lot of people are making vacation plans. A laptop rental makes a great addition to any vacation. You can stay connected while you enjoy your Spring Break. Store photos, check email, get wireless internet access to find restaurants or other spots of entertainment, the possibilities are endless.

With our 10 Day Laptop Rental you will have all of your basic computer needs taken care of. We can ship your laptop rental to the hotel you have a reservation with so you don't have to worry about picking it up, this is your vacation after all. So for your Spring Break vacation don't forget to contact your friendly Tech Travel Agent and get a laptop rental to keep you connected and enhance your vacation. Call 1-800-736-8772 today.

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A Hypothetical Situation

National Geographic contacted Karl Fisch and I sometime ago about participating in a pilot program they were trying to get underway called Learn.Dream.Go. They had selected a few teachers in the Denver Metro area to try out a new learning platform that NG was interested in implementing. There are a number of very interesting parts to participating in this pilot as well as a number of pondering ones as well. First of all, NG has never started a program like this one before. Typically, they hire a number of people to look at focus groups and do a wide array of testing before putting any material out to the public. This endeavor would be built in a more grass roots effort Also, rather than be the creator of content, they were looking to what teachers and students were creating, thus seeing a shift from one giant corporation being the distributor of information to anyone/ anytime/ anywhere creating understanding.


After a number of meetings with two of their representatives, Philip and Mikela, Karl and I decided, "what the heck" and we would give it a whirl. I also managed to get my deskmate and friend, Lauren Gaffney to participate with her two classes of English Literature students. Both Lauren and I were having our students focus on the essential questions of "What does literature say about us as human beings? do you agree of disagree with what it says? How does it come true in modern society?". With these questions, we derived at an assignment I had done previously with my seniors using Dante Aligheri's The Divine Comedy. With this text, as Dante explores the afterlife, we learn the nine levels of hell that Dante encountered including the symbolic retribution he bestowed on many of his contemporaries. In our assignment, we ask our students to be a modern day Dante, and create their own interpretation of the afterlife.


Now, you are probably thinking, how can they talk about heaven and hell in a public school? It is a fine line, I will acknowledge that. We sent home a parent letter indicating our reasoning for participating in this project. All forms came back signed! We had tremendous support for the journey we were about to take.


Before we began working on the project though, we needed to establish some background information for all students to come with so we had a basis as to what various people believe of the afterlife. We had the students listen to a variety of music with accompanying YouTube videos, watched movies (Legend- my own best interpretation of what Satan looks like, Bedazzled-female devil, The Devil's Advocate- Satan as a lawyer, and South Park's Satan's Sweet Sixteen- got to have the humor). They also answered a couple of blog posts: greatest wrongs and why does a just and good God allow evil to exist?. We also looked at a number of different art pieces. And finally, we actually did some reading. We read from the book of Genesis, and excerpt fromMilton's Paradise Lost, and two creation stories (one Hindu and one Native American Hopi Indian). After all the videos, songs, reading and blogging, I had them pull together their interpretations in a creative manner of what connections they saw. What did hell and heaven look like to them? Here are some examples:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Then came they big project, A Hypothetical Situation.


The project, as I have said before, asks them to emulate the situation Dante faced upon his exile. He was cast away from society because his political beliefs did not correlate with the ruling party and forced to live away from his family for the remainder of his life. So given those circumstances, our students were asked to create their own creative interpretations of the afterlife in modern society. Who would be there? What would their punishments be? etc... Mikela and Philip even provided a storyboard handout walking them through creating their own story. Originally, the students were to turn in their projects last week, but after talking with them about some preliminary feedback I was getting from Mikela and Philip as well as my own observations, the students asked for an extension to go deeper with their learning. How can you turn that down?

Now the students are able to redo their projects before submitting their final work to NG. NG is posting the projects for all to see, but I thought it would be great to get some early feedback for the students to continue to work on bettering their submissions. Take a look and let them know what you think. Feel free to use the language of the rubric to evaluate.


Dustin


Ryan B.


Kyle


Alex B.


Daniel C.


Jackie


Samantha


Ryan F.


Katherine


Emily H.


Cecily


Brooks


Soo


Tucker


Emma L.


Kenny


Emily Lo.


Michael


Allie


Milenda


Rebecca R.


Joe


Iain


Sam


Courtney


Matt W.


Alex F.

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Oh, the Possibilites...

The big day came and went. Karl, Maura and I are still living. All is good...

Reflecting back to our video conference with Daniel Pink, I am amazed by all that needed to work and come together to create this possibility; it all worked. Since Karl already posted about all the technological side of things, I thought I would take the time to reflect on what I saw and learned.

• CoverItLive: I have used Blogger so much for live blogging as well as Skype it was fun to try out a new tool. I liked how it worked, although the verdict is still out on whether this will replace Blogger for fishbowl. One aspect I didn't like was that when Karl accepted the comments, they would flood the gates of CoverItLive and it was too difficult to comment on someone's previous thoughts. There simply wasn't enough time to keep up. However, the kids did a great job with it and continue to impress me with their adaptability.
• The kids had to once again share computers with their classmates and did a great job with that challenge. Whenever kids needed to make a comment, they moved next to someone who had a computer and made it work.
• Daniel Pink's energy was contagious. He answered seemingly endless questions dealing with topics ranging from his book to History, Economics, Design, language Arts (of course) education, school budget, the Pledge of Allegiance, Immigration, philosophy, just to name a few... Also, He in turn asked really good thoughtful questions of the students. He gave us a lot to think about as well as showcasing his new book. Business classes and seniors in high school should all take a look.
• We had comments from Bud the Teacher, Carolyn Foote, Will Richardson as well as some parents.
• I also had two previous students, Adam and Ben (thanks guys) stop by to participate in the conversation.

So looking back at the past 7 weeks of craziness, it was quite the experience. I can't really think of how to express all of what I thought about the day other than we survived and I couldn't be prouder of the thinking and curiosity my students exhibited over the past 7 weeks. They accepted this challenge of learning in a different way and have allowed for me to a participator towards that experience. I am so thankful for being part of all of this. So to 110 kids, 2 teachers (Maura and Karl), and Daniel Pink, thanks for showing us all the possibilities. All is good...

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This is Your Brain on PSAs

Two years ago, at NECC 2006 in San Diego, CA, I watched Kathy Schrock deliver an address about the use of PSAs in classrooms. I was really impressed then with the idea but not really sure where the idea of PSAs would fit well with our school's curriculum.

Then at the start of second semester, my students were beginning to write their position papers using documented research to support their position. These papers are typically in introduction to teaching the students a structured writing style, how to use in-text citations, as well as creating a works cited. Teaching the students how to write the paper is probably one of the most labor intensive things we do in 9th grade, because many of our students come to us with varying degrees of writing abilities. So, to make a long story even longer, I asked my students what they knew about PSAs at the beginning of our writing unit. Many of them knew very little about them so I decided before I asked them if they wanted to create their own PSA that they should watch some PSAs.

Last year at NECC 2007, we watched PSAs created by the students at Mabry Middle School outside of Atlanta. These were remarkable pieces of work and even more surprising, they were created by students in 7th and 8th grade.

I also found a very helpful tutorial online from Art Wolinsky at Wired Safety. In it he clearly breaks down examples of PSAs as well as introduces the purpose behind PSAs. He shows PSAs that are used to inform or persuade.

After the students completed their position paper, and watched all the examples of PSAs, we talked about how they could create their own PSAs. Would they use videos or stills? Were they going to tell the PSA using humor or a serious tone? We also reviewed Read Write Think rubric analyzing if they thought the rubric would be a good reflection of their PSA or not. The students also decided that they would like to complete the project in groups choosing one topic from their position papers to create a PSA.

We spent three days outlining, creating and refining their PSAs although they were given additional time outside of classtime to complete their project. They created PSAs about animal abuse, teen driving, the war in Iraq, and others. Overall, I was happy with the results of their projects. I am anxious to see what they all have to say about each others' once I have them posted online. As usual, some are good and some seem last minute, but I am glad I gave them the opportunity to try something new showing their understanding.

War on Iraq

Animal Abuse

Driving with Distractions

Seat Belt Use

Teen Suicide

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Self Portraits

Last year, Lauren Gaffney gave me an assignment she had created to connect students with some of the aphorisms that Wilde uses in his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The project asks students to take a close look at themselves using two of Wilde's quotes:

1. “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors” (Wilde 3).
2. “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter” (Wilde 8).

and to construct a self portrait that reveals how the student sees him/herself, and another portrait as to how others see him/her. The portrait can take any form that the student wishes. I wanted to share a few done by my seniors. All are very different and show various modes of interpretation of the assignment. After looking throuhg them all, I am so inspired with how personal they all were to reveal themselves to our class. Well done!

Michael
Alex 1 and 2
Soo

Hopefully, I can convince these students to blog about their self portraits so there is a better understanding behond their pictures.

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A Whole New Meaning

Friday was the last of our fishbowls on Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind with emphasis on the chapter of "Meaning". We had a plethora of live bloggers in period 2 (Julie Lindsay, Will Richardson, Stephanie Sandifer, and Kristin Hokansen) and period 5 (Judy O'Connell, Lucy Gray, and our own Superintendent of LPS, Scott Murphy).

Both sessions went very well; interesting, thought provoking, and of course, both flew by. Second hour seemed to really focus on the change in education. What is necessary to change school to create a more meaningful learning environment? How do grades fit into the process? How does personalized learning fit into Meaning? I think my favorite part of the whole process was finally getting Karl Fisch to go on one of his famous "Fischrants" about Math and how Math is taught.

Fifth hour was equally as impressive.This class took Meaning to a deep level that I didn't realize was possible. Not only did have the Superintendent of their school district sit in the inner circle with them, but they also managed to carry on a deeply philosophical discussion of what is meaning? what is happiness? They also connected their discussion to their history, science, language arts, and theater classes, as well as extra-curricular activities. My favorite part of this class was when one of my students revealed why she loves acting when prompted by her acting teacher. At first, she gave a very surface level response, but then was asked to really think about it, she explained that she loved acting because she loved communicating through a character what one's feelings and emotions would be in situations to help others understand one another better. It was a great response! It put the biggest smile upon my face as well as the rest of her classmates and even Mr. Murphy.

Overall, I am so impressed by my students from their willingness to try something new, for being put in the spotlight with a number of really intelligent people having to blog what they think of these senses as ninth graders, and for most of all, caring about the process and learning and education. They honestly want to change the way learning looks and I hope after this experience they realize the power resides in them to make the change.

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