Oliver has taken up the sport of Geocaching and is making his way to Redcrest, California. This time, though, it will be Geocachers who carry him from place to place.

 A few weeks ago, Oliver was planted in a cache near the Mill Mountain Star. As he moves across the country, Roanoke County second graders will track his progress and practice their map skills. 

You can follow Oliver’s progress on our Oliver K. Woodman wiki.

 We all know that project-based learning is a great way to engage students in learning. Coming up with projects can be time consuming, though, and time seems to always be at a premium. 

What’s the solution?  There are hundreds of content centered, standards-based projects already developed and waiting for you to participate in!

  Here are just a few:

OREOS -This year’s project runs from 9/21 – 10/16.  Students estimate how many cookies they can stack before the Oreos fall over. The project is correlated to K-5 standards and there are numerous extension activities for all content areas.  Several teachers participated in this project last year and a good time was had by all!  Use this link to learn more about this fun activity:  http://www.jenuinetech.com/Projects/OreoXI/instructions09.htm

 Square of Life - Study local and global environments and connect with classrooms all over the world as you share data about the square you study! This project runs from 9/4 – 12/1/09 and while it targets science, there are many curriculum extensions in other content areas.  http://www.ciese.org/curriculum/squareproj/

 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – Comparing & contrasting, measuring temperatures and writing tall tales are all wrapped up in this exciting online project!  This one ends on 9/18, though, so if you are interested in participating let me know right away!  http://www.jenuinetech.com/Projects/CWACOM/information.html

Global Water Sampling - Assess the quality of water based on physical and chemical characteristics and compare the data against samples from around the world!

Wikis are a fun and easy way to collaborate on content-based projects with classrooms in other locations .  Here’s a sampling of a few that are or will be up and running soon. See one that you’d like to participate in? Let’s get you set up!! 
Native Cultures Project
Around the World in 80 Classrooms
Regions of VA 
How Tall is a First Grader
Flat Stanley
Book Ads
USA Fun Facts
The Story Exchange

 Blogging - Writing for a real world audience is a great way to get kids involved in the writing process.  Teachers everywhere are using blogs instead of paper/pencil writing assignments.  If you are interested in exploring this authentic writing experinence, please contact me and I’ll get you started!

Our district received five GPS units in late April and we’ve wasted no time connecting them with classroom instruction! Students across Roanoke County used them this spring, hunting for facts, hidden in their school yards, that were linked to their classroom studies.

This summer our budding Geocaching passion will take on a whole new dimension.

Shortly before the end of the school year, 4th graders at Green Valley Elementary School were introduced to Geobugs.  They learned that our Geobug was planted nearby and that, with any luck, Geocachers would find it and help it travel north.  The final destination is Ms. Deyenberg’s Class in Alberta, Canada. The students will study the Geobug’s travels in their 5th grade World Studies class next  year. 

Ms. Deyenburg’s class placed Flop, the Dalgliesh Dolphin this spring,too, with a final destination of S.W. Virginia where students in Roanoke County and Salem City will welcome her arrival. 

To date, both of these travel bugs have been picked up and are moving in toward their final destinations. In the meantime, students will be able to study the places that the Geobugs have visited and in the end, video conference with Ms. Deyenberg’s class to discuss the project.

In the meantime, Tina Coffey, Ms. Deyenburg, and I are following the progress of the Geobugs and keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll have all sorts of information to share with students when they return to school next fall.

  ]]> http://mswecker.edublogs.org/2009/04/24/the-seas-teachings/feed/ 1 http://mswecker.edublogs.org/2009/03/31/back-creek-goes-global/ http://mswecker.edublogs.org/2009/03/31/back-creek-goes-global/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:19:30 +0000 mswecker http://mswecker.edublogs.org/?p=38  

The students in Mrs. Saul’s 5th Grade homeroom had the the opportunity to video conference with students from Haultain Community School in Regina, Canada today.

Although nervous at first, the students from these two countries chatted for 24 minutes and learned that they aren’t so different after all. They shared common interests in sports, hobbies and reading and students from both classrooms were surprised that they’d studied several of the same novels this year! They wore similar clothing and liked the same music.

There were differences, too. Haultain Community School, some 1500 miles from Roanoke, has less than 100 students in grades K-8.  Temperature and snowfall totals are very different, but since the metric system isn’t our standard unit of measurement, some figuring had to be done!

Mrs. Saul’s other classes are collaborating with students from other countries as well, but since time zones can create conferencing problems, these classrooms have shared Voicethreads with students in Beijing, China and Bullcreek, Australia. Their friends in Bullcreek were unable to respond to their Voicethread and shared this flickr show instead.

The students are already looking forward to the next round of measuring activities that will take place in April.  Stay tuned to see how much they’ve grown!

Mrs. Kern’s class is also participating and will have a VoiceThread of their own to post soon.  The Back Creek Elementary First Graders are enjoying the opportunity to learn about First Graders from around the World.

They had positive comments and helpful suggestions for each other. Attention to detail and proof reading were the suggestions that the students mentioned most frequently. In the end, they all agreed that they would write differently the next time and that they’d like to collaborate again. The students generated a list of topics that they might want to write about next time and plan to vote on the topics once they are posted to a wiki.
The Monster Exchange is just one example of how teachers can bring 21st century literacies into their classrooms. If you think you’d like to give this type of project a shot, email me and we’ll get you started!