The Technology Autobiography

Sophomores read The Time Machine by HG Wells for summer reading and start the school year with a personal writing project, a technology autobiography, in which they write about their experiences using technology throughout their own life. Here is a video from Ted.com about the beginnings of the computer age. Students can see how science has changed society, and how this change is happening exponentially all around them today. Wells examines this change through his writing and this is the starting off point for the course, which examines how the written word changes society by surveying British literary traditions and the pioneers who challenged and changed that tradition.

finding choice novels

Students read novels of their choice throughout the school year. Here are two sites that could help them pick out a book of interest or share with their friends: www.zoomii.com and www.librarything.com

Utopias aren't all what they seem to be

Interesting article about the New Atheists from a Muslim-American view. He discusses the warning signs that Americans are not thinking for themselves, or reading. This would be good to use with the seniors in World Literature as suggested by SNobles.

Year in Review

From Wordle

Using images

Two free sites for finding images to use in presentations: www.freefoto.com and http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
This one also give tips for creating an effective presentation with images.

student product

Our students work on a Senior Exhibit for a year and a half, which includes a learning activity, an application of their learning and a written document. Students work with a teacher mentor throughout the year, and I have encouraged my seniors to use technology when that can enhance their work. Besides recording their personal journals on a blog: lpappas, jdixon, mpscolyar, one of the seniors developed an online written document by developing her own webpage. She found this site and did this work on her own. I just gave a little nudge in the direction of expanding her ideas about using technology beyond gaming and social networks.

new projects and some old ones

I guess I'm just reinvigorated after the technology conference. The juniors are finally posting their final research papers. I'm excited that the wiki allows the entire process of building their paper to still exist through the history tab. We have started using the class blog again as well. Students are reading their own choice novels, reflecting on them on their own blog page, and commenting on others' ideas too. Some of the students have the same novel, so their discussions should be particularly interesting.