A Dream School?

Do you think this Sweeden school is ideal?

(click this for the article!)

At first glance, I love the design of this school!

I really like that students are not stuck in one classroom or different classrooms that all look the same throughout the day. The seats in regular schools are hard and uncomfortable, but with these seats students are free to strech out and become comfortable. This can help them focus more on their work instead of moving around to trying to find the best place to sit. I also like the idea of not giving students traditonal grades, because that can cause pressure on students. This way they can be assessed more on how much they know without taking tests that can sometimes be a misrepresentation. Having students placed in groups based on their level instead of their age, I feel is a step in the right direction. Too many students are held back in their classrooms because they are able to learn faster, but are forced to stay with the speed of their grade. Other students are not able to learn as fast and in turn fall behind their grade. Having students together based on level puts all of the students on an even playing field where they are all able to learn at the same speed.

But....I still have some reservations....

The biggest problem I have with this school is how to keep the students in line. Students do not have assigned seats or even desks to sit at, so how do you keep track of all of them wandering around? Also, I notice that all of the students are working on laptops. How can the teacher monitor what the students are looking at on their computers? How do they know they aren't browsing the web and playing games instead of paying attention?

Overall, I feel this school is a step in the right direction!

Artifact Bag

What is an artifact bag?

An artifact bag, is a hands on lesson for students that enables them to become a historian for a day! The bag is filled with at least 3 'artifacts' that are all related in some way. These are specific and important items that can be linked to a certain event or person in history. Students must figure out what each artifact is and its significance to the rest of the items.

Here's an example I created for Abe Lincoln!

Top hat

Lincoln Log

Penny

 



Tips for using an artifact bag:

 

1. Model 
 - Demonstrate for the students what it is you expect them to do!

2. Get students thinking
- Questions! Ask students to think what time period they think the artifact is from, what it is used for, where it is from, etc.

3. Group work
- Have students work in groups! This will help them to communicate their ideas while also listening to what their classmates have to say. Working in a group helps the students combine their knowledge and creative minds.

4. Provide resources
- Give students different resources that tie in with the artifacts so that they are able to learn all about them through research. Books and the internet are two great resources.

5. Be careful!
- Remind students that these are artifacts, so they are not always in the best condition. Some might be very old and fragile! You can make the students feel important by explaining to them that they are handling items that made history!

6. Record ideas
- Have students write down their ideas for what they think each artifact is and how it relates to everything else in the bag. This will help students keep track of their thoughts and remember ideas they had. Then, students can collaborate on their writings and make a final sheet for the conclusion they had come to as a group.

Freedom Fighters!

For our Biz movie, the movie itself had to be at least 1 minute and at most 5 minutes so we had to figure out a way to get all of the important information in that time span without rushing it. Our group decided to go with a sort of theme for the movie which was to have each of us be a newscaster. The way our group split it up was that each of us would be in a scene with 'breaking news' or letting the viewers know that 'this just in'. This helped section out the movie for us because whatever topic we newscasted (for example I did Fort Ticonderoga) we were the only one providing the newscast and dialogue on that topic so students would not become confused. You will see this all in our movie below! Enjoy :)

Freedom Fighters by the Revolution Ladies

(click on the title!)

Overall, I am really happy with the final outcome of our movie. We chose to use iMovie, which I have no prior experience with because I have never owned a Mac. I absolutely grew to love this program, because even though I was not the one to do the editing I could see how easy it made it for the user to combine pictures, video, and sound. This was also my first time EVER having to create a movie, which I found difficult. We worked five hours one night straight through on this movie and in the end it didn't even come out to be 5 minutes long. All in all i'm glad I had the experience to create my first movie with my group, the Revolution Ladies! I hope you learned about the Revolutionary War in a fun way :)!

Biz Movie Commercial!

I know that i'm late in posting about this, but better late than never! In class we were put into groups and told to create a movie about a topic from a 4th grade textbook. This movie had to be between 1-5 minutes long and geared towards students at that age. Our group chose to do the Revolutionary War (and name ourselves the Revolution Ladies to go along with the theme) which would talk about the Stamp Act, Boston Tea Party, The Revolutionary War, and ending with the Declaration of Independence. Before we started creating the movie, we had to produce a commercial that was 30 or 60 seconds, but we decided to go with 30 seconds. The commercial obviously had to capture the attention of the children and make them wanting to see our movie. Here's what we came up with! Enjoy!

or here's the direct link....

Revolution Ladies Commercial

As you can see we chose to go with certain approach. Our group actually saw this in an actual movie trailer and decided to use its concept. The commercial was kept simple and to the point so students would stay entertained and left wanting more. We chose one specific word to put ahead of the corresponding pictures because it is just a commercial and no one wants to feel as if they are reading subtitles. Also this helped introduced what was going to happen in the movie without giving away everything. That specific track of music was picked because it set the tone for our movie especially with words like 'revolt' and 'war' showcased. The Taylor Swift song at the end actually had a meaning in that, the movie was about a war where America was fighting for independence because they were stuck under British rule. The song "We are Never Getting Back Together" is saying exactly that; that America is fighting for its independence and never going back under British rule. It was a fun way to end the commercial and give students something to keep in their head for the rest of the day.

I hope our commercial left you wanting to see our movie! I'll put it up in my next post :)!