Mr. Mills Blog

On Monday and Tuesday, I was at the Midwest Education Technology Conference (METC) in St. Louis. Not all of the conferences I go to are interesting, but this one was worth the trip. I especially excited about digital storytelling. Bernajean Porter of DigiTales gave a day long seminar on this writing and technology-based process. I was not immediately hooked, but the more we talked about it, the more I got excited about incorporating it into my classroom. And, as we talked, the more brain (and Palm Pilot) got filled up with ideas. To say the least, I think there are a lot of applications for digital storytelling in our school from kindergarten to 6th grade. Look out for it in the next few months…

The 3rd grade classes are making their landscapes with Windows Paint. Since this is the first year I’m doing this project with the 3rd grade, I’ve been excited for the willingness to learn and explore this idea of digital artwork. When we are all done, I’ll be sure to post some on my blog.

The 4th grade are now working on their stories based on the pictures they took for our CAPE project with Ms. Walsh. Each student should be bringing home their journal this weekend to work on their rough and final draft. It is due on March 7th. Here is what they need to have:

1. Journal with rough draft written inside.
2. Rubric with name.
3. Final draft written on separate piece of paper. It should be at least two pages.

The 5th graders are almost done with painting their grids. We have been piecing together the “final” piece on a grid near the fine arts room. Next week, we will be discussing how it turned out, and what they thought about the project. I’ll be interested to hear what they have to say.

The 6th graders will be finishing up their math games next week. We will be laminating their games after they are done so it can be used for the younger classrooms. I really think creating games is one of the best ways to integrate multiple disciplines and use a lot of higher order thinking. The students really need to synthesize a lot of information and problem solve with one another to come up with a successful game. If that happens, then they will have a successful outcome.

And, one last thing on the technology front. The 3rd graders have been using Microsoft Excel to create graphs. They asked a question of their classmates like, “What is your favorite season?” and then marked down how people responded for each answer. Then, they used their information to create a graph in Excel. I will have their results up on the blog soon.

Enjoy the long weekend!